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When will you memorize some more Scripture?
Many people who have grown up in Sunday School may have memorized scripture verses at that time and memorized virtually nothing since. But memorization is not just for children, it is also for adults (maybe even primarily for adults).
Earlier in January I was reading an article on 'The New Yorker' website about the memorization of poetry. You can read the full article here, but there was one paragraph that I thought was interesting:
The best argument for verse memorization may be that it provides us with knowledge of a qualitatively and physiologically different variety: you take the poem inside you, into your brain chemistry if not your blood, and you know it at a deeper, bodily level than if you simply read it off a screen. Robson puts the point succinctly: “If we do not learn by heart, the heart does not feel the rhythms of poetry as echoes or variations of its own insistent beat.”
How much more benefit could there be in the heart feeling the rhythms of God's word?
Memorziation is not impossible - some are better than others - but that is ok it is not a competition for perfection. Memorization works through
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repetition (reading the passage out loud to yourself - seeing, speaking and hearing is 3x better than just reading in your mind!),
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concentration (avoiding distractions while you are doing it), and
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understanding (if you understand the passage you will find it easier to remember)
Another big hint is to memorize longer passages of scripture rather than isolated verses (you will remember more, more easily)
So if you want to memorize some more scripture, here are some suggestions in order. Don't be put off by the length - just start with the first verse and when you have memorized it, add the second one, then the third one and so on. You don't have to memorize it all at once.
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Psalm 23
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Colossians 3:1-17
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1 Corinthians 13
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Romans 8:1-17
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Matthew 5-7 (yes it is possible to memorize 3 whole chapters)
If you are regularly reading the bible but not memorizing, you might like to pick one of these passages and spend the next week and use your bible reading time to start memorizing that passage.
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David Wanstall, 27/02/2013
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