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.
More than 100 acrostics on this site
- Abraham, friend of God
- Acrostic -- What is it?
- Animism
- Anthropology: What is it?
- Attendance -- Why it Matters
- Bless -- How to pray for missionaries
- Baptism: What does it mean?
- Bible Study -- How to do it well
- Blessed
- Boniface -- Missionary to Germanic Tribes
- Bowing
- Buddhism
- Canaan
- Carey -- pioneer missionary to India
- Case studies -- a learning tool
- Christ -- Reflecting Him
- Christmas
- Church
- Compassion
- Conflict -- Resolving It
- Conversion: What does it entail?
- Coping with culture shock
- Courage
- Creed -- What is it?
- Culture -- a definition
- Cussing -- The Negative Affects
- Daniel -- What He Can Teach Us
- Death
- Deceit
- Decision-Making
- Dependency
- Devil
- Discipleship
- Discussion posts" -- How to write good ones
- Diwali -- a Hindu festival
- Easter
- Empower
- End Times
- Ethnocentrism
- Everybody
- Everyone -- Every Soul Matters
- Everywhere -- Where We Must Go
- Exekiel
- Exodus
- Failure -- Root causes in cross-cultural ministry
- Faith
- Fatalism
- Foreigners -- Loving Them
- Forerunner
- Francis of Assisi
- Fundraising for Mission Trips
- Genesis -- What It Can Teach Us
- Gentile -- What First Century Jews Thought of Gentiles
- Globalization
- Habakkuk: Fountain of Joy
- Harvest (as in bringing people to faith in Christ)
- Hebrews
- Holiness
- Holistic
- Humility
- Indigenization
- Interview -- How to do a good one
- Isaiah: What to remember about him
- Jonah, the reluctant Old Testament missionary
- Linguistics
- Listen -- How to do it
- Lost People
- Lost Sheep -- Jesus' parable
- Mammon -- god of wealth
- Membership -- What does it mean to belong to a church?
- Merciful
- Minister
- Missio Dei
- Missiology: What is it?
- Mission Trip
- Missional
- Missions -- A world evangelism acrostic
- Moses
- Mother
- Mustard Seed
- Names -- their importance in the Bible
- Nations
- Nazarene (a label for Jesus of Nazareth)
- Old Testament
- Online: Being a successful e-learner
- Parables -- How They Can Help Us
- Paternalism
- Pastor
- Persecuted
- Prayer -- How should we pray?
- Proactive
- 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)
- Purpose
- Racism
- Reapers -- We Need More of Them
- Reentry -- What to expect
- Religion
- Revelation
- Salvation
- Satan
- Senders
- Sending -- John 20:21
- Servanthood -- How missionaries must act
- Shepherd
- Shinto
- Sinai
- Slessor, missionary to Africa
- Sustainability
- Syllabus -- What is it?
- Ten Commandments
- Thessalonians
- Townsend, founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators
- Transformation
- Unevangelized
- Unreached People Groups (using the word "thumb")
- Vision
- Wisdom -- What we can learn from Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs
- Women
- Word Puzzles as Learning Tools
- Zacchaeus
- Zephaniah
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, acrostics are typically written in lines and are meant to be read vertically, whereas acronyms are condensed into a single, pronounceable term used for brevity.
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