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

  1. Abraham, friend of God
  2. Acrostic -- What is it?
  3. Animism
  4. Anthropology: What is it?
  5. Attendance -- Why it Matters
  6. Bless -- How to pray for missionaries
  7. Baptism: What does it mean?
  8. Bible Study -- How to do it well
  9. Blessed
  10. Boniface -- Missionary to Germanic Tribes
  11. Bowing
  12. Buddhism
  13. Canaan
  14. Carey -- pioneer missionary to India
  15. Case studies -- a learning tool
  16. Christ -- Reflecting Him
  17. Christmas
  18. Church
  19. Compassion
  20. Conflict -- Resolving It
  21. Conversion: What does it entail?
  22. Coping with culture shock
  23. Courage
  24. Creed -- What is it?
  25. Culture -- a definition
  26. Cussing -- The Negative Affects
  27. Daniel -- What He Can Teach Us
  28. Death
  29. Deceit
  30. Decision-Making
  31. Dependency
  32. Devil
  33. Discipleship
  34. Discussion posts" -- How to write good ones
  35. Diwali -- a Hindu festival
  36. Easter
  37. Empower
  38. End Times
  39. Ethnocentrism
  40. Everybody
  41. Everyone -- Every Soul Matters
  42. Everywhere -- Where We Must Go
  43. Exekiel
  44. Exodus
  45. Failure -- Root causes in cross-cultural ministry
  46. Faith
  47. Fatalism
  48. Foreigners -- Loving Them
  49. Forerunner
  50. Francis of Assisi
  51. Fundraising for Mission Trips
  52. Genesis -- What It Can Teach Us
  53. Gentile -- What First Century Jews Thought of Gentiles
  54. Harvest (as in bringing people to faith in Christ)
  55. Hebrews
  56. Holiness
  57. Holistic
  58. Humility
  59. Interview -- How to do a good one
  60. Isaiah: What to remember about him
  61. Jonah, the reluctant Old Testament missionary
  62. Linguistics
  63. Listen -- How to do it
  64. Lost People
  65. Lost Sheep -- Jesus' parable
  66. Mammon -- god of wealth
  67. Membership -- What does it mean to belong to a church?
  68. Merciful
  69. Minister
  70. Missio Dei
  71. Missiology: What is it?
  72. Mission Trip
  73. Missional
  74. Missions -- A world evangelism acrostic
  75. Moses
  76. Mother
  77. Mustard Seed
  78. Names -- their importance in the Bible
  79. Nations
  80. Nazarene (a label for Jesus of Nazareth)
  81. Old Testament
  82. Online: Being a successful e-learner
  83. Parables -- How They Can Help Us
  84. Paternalism
  85. Pastor
  86. Persecuted
  87. Prayer -- How should we pray?
  88. Proactive
  89. Proclaim -- What does Isaiah 41:12 mean?
  90. Psalms: Chapters in the Bible book of Psalms that were composed as acrostics in the original language (Hebrew)
  91. Purpose
  92. Racism
  93. Reapers -- We Need More of Them
  94. Reentry -- What to expect
  95. Religion
  96. Revelation
  97. Salvation
  98. Satan
  99. Senders
  100. Sending -- John 20:21
  101. Servanthood -- How missionaries must act
  102. Shepherd
  103. Shinto
  104. Sinai
  105. Slessor, missionary to Africa
  106. Sustainability
  107. Syllabus -- What is it?
  108. Ten Commandments
  109. Thessalonians
  110. Townsend, founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators
  111. Transformation
  112. Unevangelized
  113. Unreached People Groups (using the word "thumb")
  114. Vision
  115. Wisdom -- What we can learn from Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs
  116. Women
  117. Word Puzzles as Learning Tools
  118. Zacchaeus
  119. 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:

  1. 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).
  2. 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.
  3. 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).
  4. 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@gmail.com

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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