What is an acrostic?
A - Artful words hidden in plain sight,
C - Cleverly crafted phrases with insight.
R - Reading down, a secret appears,
O - Opening minds through lines so clear.
S - Subtle messages tucked inside,
T - Tool to aid learning and memorization.
I - Inspired by patterns, letters align,
C - Creating puzzles both bold and divine.
What Are the Benefits of an Acrostic?
Christian Acrostic Poems for Devotionals, Teaching, and Inspiration
Do you teach Sunday school or Bible classes? Acrostics Can Help You.
Bible Content | For Sunday School Teachers and Personal Bible Study
- Abraham, friend of God
- Bible Study -- How to do it well
- Blessed
- Christmas
- Canaan
- Courage
- Daniel
- Daniel -- What He Can Teach Us
- Easter
- Everyone -- Every Soul Matters
- Everywhere -- Where We Must Go
- Exekiel
- Exodus
- Foreigners -- Loving Them
- Forerunner
- Genesis -- Its Stories
- Genesis -- What the First Book of the Bible Can Teach Us
- Gentile -- What First Century Jews Thought of Gentiles
- Habakkuk: Fountain of Joy
- Hebrews
- Isaiah: What to remember about him
- Jonah, the reluctant Old Testament missionary
- Lost Sheep -- Jesus' parable
- Mammon -- god of wealth
- Micah
- Moses
- Mothers in the Bible
- Mustard Seed
- Names -- their importance in the Bible
- Nations
- Nazarene (a label for Jesus of Nazareth)
- Old Testament
- Parables -- How They Can Help Us
- Proclaim -- What does Isaiah 41:12 mean?
- Psalms: Chapters in the Bible book of Psalms that were composed as acrostics in the original language (Hebrew)
- Revelation
- Sending -- John 20:21
- Shepherd
- Sinai
- Ten Commandments
- Thessalonians
- Wisdom -- What we can learn from Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs
- Women in the Bible
- Zacchaeus
- Zephaniah
Classwork Help
- Acrostic -- What is it?
- Attendance -- Why it Matters
- Case studies -- a learning tool
- Decision-Making
- Discussion posts" -- How to write good ones
- Interview -- How to do a good one
- Linguistics
- Listen -- How to do it
- Online: Being a successful e-learner
- Syllabus -- What is it?
- Word Puzzles as Learning Tools
Discipleship | The Church | Christian Beliefs | Maturity in Christ
- Baptism: What does it mean?
- Church
- Compassion
- Conflict -- Resolving It
- Conversion: What does it entail?
- Creed -- What is it?
- Cussing -- The Negative Affects
- Death
- Deceit
- Devil
- Discipleship
- End Times
- Faith
- Fatalism
- Holiness
- Legacy
l;
- Membership -- What does it mean to belong to a church?
- Minister
- Pastor
- Persecuted
- Prayer -- How should we pray?
- Racism
- Salvation
- Satan
Mobilizing for Cross-Cultural Missions Efforts | Preparing Missionaries
- Alabaster Missions Offering
- Anthropology: What is it?
- Bless -- How to pray for missionaries
- Boniface -- Missionary to Germanic Tribes
- Carey -- pioneer missionary to India
- Christ -- Reflecting Him
- Coping with culture shock
- Culture -- a definition
- Dependency
- Empower
- Ends of the Earth
- Ethnocentrism
- Everybody
- Failure -- Root causes in cross-cultural ministry
- Francis of Assisi
- Fundraising for Mission Trips
- Globalization
- Harvest (as in bringing people to faith in Christ)
- Holistic
- Humility
- Indigenization
- Merciful
- Missio Dei
- Missiology: What is it?
- Mission Trip
- Missional
- Missions -- A world evangelism acrostic
- Motivation
- Paternalism
- Proactive
- Purpose
- Reaching Lost People
- Reapers -- We Need More of Them
- Reentry -- What to expect
- Senders -- those who support the goers
- Servanthood -- How missionaries must act
- Slessor, missionary to Africa
- Sustainability
- Townsend, founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators
- Transformation
- Unevangelized: What Happens to them?
- Unreached People Groups (using the word "thumb")
- Vision
Other Religions
- Animism
- Bowing
- Buddhism
- Diwali -- a Hindu festival
- Religion
- Shinto
Suggestions Welcomed
If you have suggestions for improving the wording of any of the acrostics, please email me at hculbert@snu.edu Help me make them even better than they are!
What good is an acrostic?
Acrostics can be valuable in several ways. Here are four of them:
- Acrostics help with memorization by using the first letters of words to form an easily recalled list of words or phrases. A familiar example is "Every Good Boy Does Fine" (for musical notes E-G-B-D-F on the treble clef).
- Acrostics are used in poetry, literature, and personal writing to add depth and meaning. Example: Writing a poem where the first letters of each line spell out a name or a word.
- Teachers use acrostics to help students remember complex information in a structured way. Example: "HOMES" (to remember the Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior).
- Personalized acrostics can be used in motivational or sentimental messages. Example: H.O.P.E. – Hold On, Pain Ends.
The earliest known examples of acrostics are found in the Old Testament book of Psalms, where the lines of some psalms begin with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet, thus forming an abecedarian acrostic (an acrostic that spells out the entire alphabet).
-- Howard Culbertson, hculbert@snu.edu
Afterword: Acrostic or Acronym?
An acrostic is a type of composition — often a poem or a series of lines — where the first letters of each line spell out an existing word, message, or phrase when read vertically. It's commonly used as a mnemonic device or a creative writing technique. A classic example is Edgar Allan Poe’s poem "Elizabeth" in which the first letters of each line of the pem spell out the name ELIZABETH vertically.
An acronym, on the other hand, is a new word formed from the initial letters of a phrase or series of words, such as "NASA" (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) or "RADAR" (Radio Detection and Ranging). While both wordplays involve the use of initial letters of words, acrostics are typically written in lines and are meant to be read vertically, whereas acronyms are condensed into a single, pronounceable term. Thus, acrostics are formed on existing words; acronyms are new words.
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