Scripture Memorization - Part 2

Posted by Brance on April 4th, 2008 filed in Colossians

Here’s part two of our study on Scripture Memorization. In this study we’ll look at some ideas about how to memorize.

Before we begin though, I want to make one important point.

As we set out on the path of memorization, we need to ask God for help. We are told to pray about everything, why not this? Remember to ask for humbleness. Our goal in memorizing Scripture is not to prove what great Christians we are. God HATES pride. Knowledge of the Bible without love for God and fellow man, will just puff up a person, like the Pharisees. Remember that without love, we are nothing (I Cor 13). The person who memorizes the most Scripture is not necessarily the winner. This isn’t a competition. And quality is much more important than quantity.

Here’s the video clip we watched on Sunday. This is Pastor John Piper speaking at The Resurgence Conference. His subject in this clip is the importance of Scripture memorization for ministry. This is not just for pastors. This is for all Christians. We are all called to be ministers of Christ to those around us. Watch this clip and think about the times in your own life when you needed to offer some words of comfort to someone at school, or work, or wherever, and you didn’t have a Bible handy.

Once you have decided to memorize a passage, there are some practical steps that will help. Not everyone memorizes best in the same way, but these things work for me, and I’m sharing them with you as a help.

Persistence: Think about it this way. You are out of shape, you haven’t been exercising.  If you try to run 5 miles the first day, you’ll fail, and get discouraged, and want to give up. You have to build up to it. You’ll need to make it a priority, just like working out. If you don’t make time for it, you won’t do it. You may need to give up a TV show, get up earlier, etc. But set a pace you can keep and be faithful to work at it consistently.

Reasons we fail: Here are few reasons we fail at the task of memorizing Scripture.

• No clear goal, and/or schedule to reach the goal
• Lack of discipline to be consistent in working at it regularly
• Not willing to work hard at it, or give up current lifestyle
• Impatient, want results now, or give up
• No accountability, no one to “run” with
• No plan, routine, training

 
Choosing a translation: Choose a translation you like. One that you are able to understand, read well, and you feel comfortable with. The more literal the translation, the better. I personally prefer using the ESV. My reason for this is simple. I want to memorize in a more literal translation than the NIV. I’m memorizing the words of God, so I want to get as close to them as I can. The NIV is not a literal translation, it’s a dynamic equivalence, which if you’ll remember from our study of translations, means it is more thought for thought, rather than word for word. The reason I choose ESV over the NASB, or KJV for that matter, is readability. What I mean is, the ESV while more literal than the NIV, is at the same time, easier to read than the NASB or KJV. And while many Christians would argue that the KJV is easy to read, that is only because they have grown up with it, as did I. A non-Christians that you might find yourself witnessing to, will not have grown up reading the KJV and the language will seem archaic and not be easily understood. Therefore I prefer the ESV since it is literal, but will be more profitable for ministry.

There is profit in memorizing Scripture in any good translation you are comfortable with though, so I encourage you to use whatever translation you like best. I would strongly advice against using a paraphrase like The Message, which is not a proper translation.

So on to the practical steps for memorization.

Surveying the terrain

Once you have decided to commit to memorizing a passage of Scripture, you need to take a big picture survey of the text to be memorized. Read it through at least once to get a feel for it. Look at the length of the passage and decide how quickly you are going to memorize it.  You can memorize as much, or as little, as you choose each week, but I recommend setting a goal and striving toward it. I suggest a maximum of one verse per day for five days each week. If you struggle to memorize, start with one verse each week. The downside of this approach is that it will take a long time to memorize an extended passage and you may feel discouraged after a while because progress is so slow. Optimally, I recommend setting your goal somewhere between 3-5 verses each week.

Here are some action steps:

• Count the verses
• Divide that number by the number of verses you will memorize each week. The result is the number of weeks it will take you.
• Check a calendar and determine a tentative completion date
• Add 10% to your completion date. Say you’ve chosen to memorize Colossians chapter 3. There are 25 verses. If you’ve chosen to memorize 3 verses each week, then it will take you 8 weeks to finish. Add 10%, 1 extra week, and you’ve given yourself 9 weeks to memorize the passage.
• Make a commitment before the Lord to memorize the passage in that timeframe. Making a commitment will help you take this more seriously.

Lord, I am making a commitment before you today that I will treasure your Word, and store it up in my heart. I humbly ask your blessing as I undertake to memorize Colossians 3. I now dedicate myself to begin this task with your help and for your glory. I commit myself to memorizing this by ______________________.

Sign and date this covenant, and put it in the front of your memorization notebook (more about that in a minute).

The purpose of surveying the terrain like this is to mark out a reasonable pace. This will make achievement of your goal a much higher probability. It will help you know how much to memorize each day, and when you should be finished. The covenant will help you keep persevering.

Daily Procedures

Priorities: Make it your number one priority to retain old verses, even over the learning of new ones. What’s the point of going on to new verses if you haven’t really committed the old ones to your long term memory.

I’m NOT saying you must remember every verse you’ve ever memorized. I am saying that while working on a particular passage, you should work to retain the entire thing.

Repetition over time: Remember that saying a verse 100 times in one day is not as helpful as saying it once a day for 100 days. The main key to successful Scripture memorization is repetition over a long time period. This is how you commit verses to your long term memory.

Memorize the verse numbers: This is something new to me, but I’m trying it with Colossians. The biggest benefit I see is in the knowledge of exactly where a verse is if you’re quoting it to someone either in an evangelistic setting, or another ministry setting. It should also help you recall specific verses to memory when reading a Christian book that references them.

I’m saying the verse numbers like this:

One-one Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, One-two To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. One-three We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, One-four since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints,

Learning Styles

There are three styles of learning. You use all three every time you learn some new information, but you are probably stronger at one of these. Research shows that 65% of people are primarily visual learners. This means you learn best by seeing something. 30% are primarily auditory learners. This means you learn best by hearing something. And 5% are kinesthetic learners. This means you learn best by doing something.

No one uses one of the styles exclusively. There is significant overlap, so use them all.

Photographing the verses with your eyes: Memorization is largely visual. Read each verse five to ten times (Don’t forget the verse numbers!). Read slowly and deliberately, making sure to put your eyes on each word in the verse. Closely observe capitalization, punctuation, line breaks, long words vs. short words, the shape of the verse, it’s location on the page, etc. Burn the verse into your brain with your eyes.

Say it out loud: It helps to say the verse out loud as you’re memorizing it. Now your seeing it, and hearing it. The additional sensory input to your brain will help the memorization process. You don’t have to shout it, in fact you can whisper it if you need to, just so long as it’s loud enough that you can hear it. Also try putting some feeling into it as you read, and recite, the verse. Pause where Paul would have paused, try to feel the emotions he might be feeling as he writes. This is actually a form of meditation on the verses as you’re learning them.

Write it down: Now engage your mind in a new way. Write the verse you are memorizing down.

Here’s where that memorization notebook comes into play. I keep a 3-ring binder for my memorization. The first page is actually a list of passages I want to memorize. So if I come across something in the Bible and think, “Wow! I’d like to have that memorized.” I write it down on this page and I have a to-do list.

Next I have that covenant we mentioned earlier. It’s on a cover sheet for the book of Colossians, along with my thoughts on why I want to memorize this particular passage.

On the following pages I have written out the verses as I memorize them. To reinforce the photograph you took earlier, you should write it with the same line breaks as it appears in your bible, and with the same capitalization. I use a red pencil for the verse numbers and a regular pencil for the text. In the margin I write the date next to the verse. After reading and reciting the verse aloud a number of times. I write it, from memory, in my notebook. Then I check with the Bible to make sure I wrote it correctly.

Next I take out a note card and write it again. But this time I don’t write the whole thing down. I write the verse number, and the first letter of each word. Make sure to remember the capitalization and all punctuation. Do it from memory and then check it. Now use this note card to help you recall the verse throughout the day. By not writing the whole thing down we are just giving our mind an aid in recalling, which is what we’re really trying to practice here.

Daily routine

Remember to recite your previously memorized verses first!  Attempt to say them without looking. If you need to look, do so. You shouldn’t need to spend more than 10-15 minutes on this phase, even when memorizing an entire book (at least a moderately sized book, Deuteronomy might take longer!). Just recite it once.

Work on your new verse (or any trouble verses) for about 5 minutes. Read it aloud at least 10 times, making sure to photograph the text with your eyes. Then recite it 10 times. Then write it down in long from, from memory. Then add it to your note card, and you’re done!

Each day I spend about 15 minutes of my morning working on memorization. Pastor Rusty tells me he spends a longer time, but he memorizes anywhere from 4-10 verses a day!

Long-Term Retention

Once a passage is complete (book or chapter), recite it from memory once a day for one month. You can do this at any point during the day while you’re doing something that doesn’t require a lot of thinking. You could do this while in the shower, blow-drying hair, brushing teeth, driving, washing dishes, folding laundry, exercising, eating breakfast, etc. Just make sure you get through it entirely. Use the Bible if you need to, but by the end of the second week in the phase, you shouldn’t need the Bible any longer.

Once the month is up, recite the passage once a week. Assign it to a day of the week, say Monday, and recite it every week on that day. You will hit a limit as to how much you have time to recite each day of the week. You should probably limit it to no more than 5-6 chapters. If you try to do more than that, you won’t have time and you’ll start slacking. Just pile the passages you’ve memorized up until your week is full. Then if you memorize a new book, or chapter, you’ll have to start going to a once every two weeks schedule. But you’ll keep reviewing for the rest of your life. It may be only once a month that you review a certain passage, but you’ll have it committed to memory so well by that point, that once a month will be enough.

One out of every 10 times you work on the book, or chapter, you should simply read it instead of reciting it. This will help keep it accurate in your mind. Read it carefully, don’t rush!

OK, so get going on Colossians! Help each other out and I’ll be checking in with you.

This coming Sunday we’ll begin studying through the book. So bring your learning attitude!