Skip to main content

Thoughts on Memorizing Scripture

By
This Sunday I challenged our people at Trailhead Church to memorize Titus 2:11-14, our text for the four weeks of the Advent season.  For some, this may be the first time they have tried to memorize scripture, so I thought I would pass along a few thoughts to help out.

First, memorization is all about repetition and familiarity.  Find creative ways to keep the verse in front of you throughout the day.  Write it on a 3x5 card and tape it to your bathroom mirror.  Make it the background of your computer.  Pull it up on your phone and review it when you have a little down time.  Try to recite the verses to yourself and see what comes easily and where it still gets fuzzy.  That way when you look back at the verses, you'll know where to focus attention.

Second, to truly memorize something it has to move from your short term storage to your long term memory banks.  How do you make that happen?  As you get the verses down, put time between your input and output - in other words, try to say the verses without reviewing or looking at them first.  If you can say them without error, great.  Now wait 24 or 48 hours and say them again without review.  See how you do.  As you do this, you will make the "sticking power" of your work much stronger for a much longer period of time.

Lastly, make your effort more about worship than achievement.  Don't just fly through the verses trying to master the word order - sit in the verses and see how God wants to master you in them.  Think about them carefully.  Take time and pray through each sentence - what is God saying to you in this sentence?  What is he showing you or pointing out to you?  Often when God speaks to us in a passage, the words of that passage will get imprinted on our souls and not just remembered in our brains.

Memorizing scripture is an act of worship and a way of exercising spiritually.  It focuses our minds, renews our hearts, and gives the Spirit something to encourage, exhort, or direct us with.  Study well!
Labels:

Comments

Ann-Marie said…
I have just recently discovered how helpful praying through a verse can be...wish someone would have told me to do it years ago
December 3, 2013 at 11:29 AM
stevemizel said…
Absolutely. I actually stumbled into memorizing Bible verses that way - I'd be reading along and a passage would hit me, so I would sit in it, pray through it, and before long, actually be able to repeat it... and by then, the verses had so much more meaning for me than before. That's a great way to go.
December 3, 2013 at 11:41 AM
Ryan said…
I am a fan of hardcopy paper cards with verses on them, but there are lots of apps for tablets and smart phones to help with this. I use the Fighter Verse app from Desiring God. It isn't great for organizing verses you import yourself (it is built mainly for the Fighter Verse system John Piper's church uses). But you can import your own verses and tag them for some organization.
December 3, 2013 at 12:24 PM
Ryan said…
I am a fan of hardcopy paper cards with verses on them, but there are lots of smart phone and tablet apps to help with scripture memory. I use the Fighter Verse app from Desiring God. It is mainly built for their Fighter Verses, but you can import and tag your own verses.
December 3, 2013 at 12:25 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teaching the Story Arc of the Bible

By
Each of the Journey campuses has started teaching a gospel class - a class that answers basic questions about following Christ and being a member in our church. This class has attracted a large number of people who are "peaking over the fence" - checking this whole Christianity thing out. That is both exciting and challenging. It gives us the chance to share the Bible with people who don't necessarily come to it with faith - as well as challenge those who do trust the Bible to get on mission with us. Our first lesson was on the story arc of the Bible - what is referred to as the diachronic view of scripture. Simply put, it is a way of looking at scripture as a complete story - with one major primary theme: God in Jesus reconciling the world to himself. Teaching a diachronic view of scripture to postmodern culture, though, presents some unique challenges. In prepping to teach, I wrote out the following thoughts. I would be glad to get any thoughts you have on this to...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sanctified Diversity: Learning how to Keep in Step with the Gospel

By
Last Sunday (March 26, 2017), I preached a message at Trailhead Church in Edwardsville, IL , called Sanctified Diversity, looking at Paul's rebuke of Peter for not "keeping in step with the truth of the gospel." The clear implication of this passage is that it's not enough to only know the truth as a follower of Jesus. You must also lean in and learn to live out its implications in the difficult spaces of life.  There are few areas that our culture needs us to lean in with gospel grace, humility, and empathy more than in the area of racial and cultural diversity. It's just not optional. We can be orthodox in our words and heretics with our lives, undermining the integrity of the message of the gospel because we are not walking in its power. To be true to the gospel, we need to do more than just believe its truths. We need to walk out their applications in our lives.  My sermon was called Sanctified Diversity . You can follow that link to listen to it on Tr...
2 comments
Read more

We are Losing by Trying to Win

By
Most people have heard of Jonathan Swift's classic novel, Gulliver's Travels. In it, Gulliver travels from one strange place to another, encountering tiny people, giant people, talking horses, and all kinds of adventures. Most people today think of it as a children's storybook because the scene where he is tied down on a beach by little people who feel threatened by him has made its way into almost every children's cartoon. But Gulliver's Travels is far from a children's storybook. It is an insightful and often cutting look at human nature. Swift was a careful observer of human behavior and lampooned it mercilessly. Swift was an Irish writer and clergyman and said that he wrote this novel to "vex the world, not divert it." I think we could use some of that vexing - and could do with some learning from it. In Gulliver's last adventure, he runs across creatures called "Yahoos." They are nasty creatures who horde shiny rocks and hur...
Post a Comment
Read more