Practical Advice on Memorizing the Scriptures In the article below you will find valuable hints on successfully memorizing God's Word and resources to aid your efforts. My purpose in writing these materials is to help stimulate a revival of this valuable discpline which so many of us have let go by the wayside.

A Forgotten Discipline

Memorization of and meditation on God’s Word—this is a discipline that has fallen into widespread neglect.   I pray that this training journal will encourage a renewed commitment to this worthy practice of Christian piety.  The benefits are so many but for some reason our culture-at-large looks down on learning anything by “rote memory.”  It is widely known that memory increases with use.  Moreover, the Psalmist observed that hiding God’s word in his heart was a helpful measure to prevent sinning.  Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would take the things he said and bring them to the believer’s remembrance.  One has remarked that ‘He won’t bring to your remembrance what you didn’t remember in the first place.’  You need to give God something to work with.  Sure, he could just drop Scriptures that you never committed to memory into your brain, but the Lord just doesn’t generally work that way. 

A Beneficial Practice

Something good happens when we commit the Words of scripture to memory.  We may more readily share with a seeker if we know God’s word well.  Our prayer life will be greatly enriched by having the Scriptures embedded in our hearts and ready on our lips. And memorization is not just a matter of rote memory.  We retain best and longest what we meditate on.  Memorization is only the first step.  We need to reflect on what the verse or passage is really saying.  We need to thoroughly digest the passage until we understand its logic and own its message to us.  Imaginatively visualizing the scenes of a particular passage and letting it really impact us will go a long way to anchoring the passage to our souls.

Whole Passages Recommended

I urge memorizing larger passages rather than just learning single verses as this allows for the theme of a passage to come through.  Some believers have committed entire letters of Paul to memory.  In some cases a series of verses, like the salvation series commonly called the Roman’s Road, is good to commit to memory.  Classic passages like the Ten Commandments, The Lord’s Prayer, Romans 8 and Romans 12, etc., are excellent passages to know in their entirety.  The Year-at-Glance Spiritual Action Planner provides a whole list of suggested passages to select from.   Start slow and just make a few picks at first.  Practice them through the week and make note when you’ve got it down.  You might make mutual memory drills a part of your weekly meeting with an accountability partner or mentor.   

Methods for Successful Memorization

Any successful effort at memorizing the Scriptures will require the following:

*   Consistent practice -- Rather than attempt to cram it all in in one sitting, frequent review and practice is the most helpful.

*   Grasping the Logic of the Passage -- This requires meditating on the meaning and seeing the flow of where this passage is going. For example, Psalm 1 (a beautful passage to try) is a brief reflection on the contrast of the two direction people travel: either toward God by meditating on His word day and night, or by moving away from God in mockery, sinful ridicule and scorn. The opening verses moves from "walking" in the counsel of the ungodly, "standing" in the way of sinners, and finally getting entrenched, i.e., "sitting" in the seat of the scornful. The two ways lead to two very different destinies. The godly survive God's judgement because they have real weightiness and substance. They are the valuable grain. The wicked we are told are not so. They are like chaff and are blown to kingdom come by the windy blast of God's judgements. The contrasts of rootedness ("tree planted by the waters"), of weightiness and worth as opposed to rootlessness, fruitlessness, and windblown weightlessness, form mental pictures that help lock this chapter in. The imagery is rich and the lessons rewarding.

*  Visualinzing Mental Images of the Meaning - Pictures and logic often work together in the writing of Scripture. Sometimes logic rules more. Sometimes pictures dominate. The Memlok™ Scripture memory system, one of the best available, has developed extensive scripture memory resources that incorporate visual cues to lock in and ease the work of scripture memorization. (Available on their website: http://www. memlok .com/ )

*  Scripture Set to Music - Singing the Psalter is an age-old method of learning Scriptures. Psalm 19, Psalm 25, and others come to mind in popular worship choruses that have helped believers around the world easily remember whole passages of scripture. Below, I've listed some web resources that specialize in setting Scripture to music as an aid to memorization.

*  Mutual Drill with Family or a Friend - Making scripture memory a discipline that you do with your family at table time, or in weekly meetings with a mentor or accountability partner is an excellent way to enhance accountability and encourage scripture memorization. By setting a goal and knowing that by next week's meeting you and your prayer partner will be mutually reciting an agreed upon passage, you build in accountability and a greater likelihood that you will both do the work.

*  My Favorite Method - As far as methods, one that I found effective is this:  write (or type) the passage on a practice sheet in full, word-for-word.  On the opposite side of the page, write (or type) it out in verse-by-verse format, but only providing the first letter of each word, the capitalizations and punctuation.  After reviewing the full-text version, turn the page over and try to do the first-letter version.  You’ll be amazed how this aids the jump from review to memorizing.  In addition to memorizing the Scriptures, I’d like to suggest mixing it up and selecting great hymns to memorize…all the verses.   The hymns often contain a rich vein of scriptural teaching and reflection and well worth the effort.

Helpful Links to Other Resources

http://scripturetyper.com   This one is especially interesting as it provides interactive exercises where you also improve your typing skills, you can race another typist, or race yourself in the activity of typing the verse. When you want to do memory work, the drill will omit certain words and you need to type what is shown and what has been left missing. So, your kinesthetic memory is engaged as you type to assist and make the work of memorizing easier.
http://www.memoryverses.org    and   http://www.memoryverses.org/how1f.htm
http://www.bible.com/biblebyheart/
http://www.pursuinglife.com/biblememory.php
http://www.norrychristian.net/Music/Word_For_Word.asp
http://www.thywordcreations.com/
http://www.globalopps.org/Associates/papers/biblmem.htm
http://www.memlok.com/

Free Memory aid sheets already available on this website.

I have begun providing resources for the method described as My Favorite Method (above) for all the passages listed in The Christian's Spiritual Training Journal. I am currently putting up passages in the NIV version of the Bible. Eventually, I will be making these available in the major Bible versions:

* for free download from this website as downloadable pdf's (which you can print and then, with aid of a photocopier, print in double-sided format for use in your own efforts at scripture memorization

* for a nominal cost on quality paper, possibly laminated on heavier than normal paper stock, or in booklet form as a supplement to The Christian's Spiritual Training Journal

* In either format, I will develop these in the following Bible versions, translations: NIV, NKJV, RSV, & NASB

Give me time, but I do want to see many, many more Christians begin to rediscover the spiritual benefits of hiding God's Word in our hearts and having them ready on our lips as the Proverbs commends!

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