Lost Bible Memorization Method

[Jostler]

@Hallelujah Joan

 

I really hope more will consider the value of memorization.  My father helped me memorize two passages of Scripture when I was two years old.  Those have stuck with me all my life, and the Lord has USED them as very powerful reminders at times I needed them.  Storing the Word in a human heart, by choice is powerful.

I also have come to believe that He created each of us, with particular strengths and in some cases even unique strengths and abilities.  And we don't all think alike, because even our "style" of thinking was designed by Him to enable us to uniquely walk in that plan of good works He appointed for our lives before we were even born.

He led me into an understanding of a memorization technique that works EXTREMELY well for ME.....as He designed MY mind to work, I'd like to share.  I seriously doubt I am the only one it will work for....but it might not work as well as another technique for everyone.  I think people should be free to try several methods and be completely free to use whatever works best for the kind of mind and memory He gave to THEM to serve Him with.   So, ymmv

I got off into a horrific deception involving eastern meditation at one point in my life....and it was in part because i knew the Bible encouraged "meditation".  But, because I was ignorant of how the Bible DEFINES meditation, I just assumed eastern meditation was the same thing....and it's not.  Not even close.

Long story short, if you study the original language word for meditation in Hebrew, you'll find it carries a strong connotation of "to mutter repetiviely, to subvocalize in repeated fashion, repetition".    NOWHERE in Scripture I am aware of, does the Bible tell us to ever "blank" our minds.

Instead we are commanded to FILL our minds, by choice, CHOOSING what we think....thinking on GOOD things (as the Bible defines "good").

 

Quote

Phl 4:8 (NKJV)

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.

 

Quote

Phl 4:8 (NET)

¶

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of respect, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if something is excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things.

 

Anyway, trying to avoid a long story here.....this and 2nd Corinthians 10:4-5 all point to consciously CONTROLLING our thinking, not eliminating thinking and "blanking out".

 

But, He did end up teaching me as I learned the difference, a technique that works splendidly....for me.   It's a form of meditation on the Word, in His presence, by choice, that He has used MANY times since to both explain the Word to me and help me memorize it.    I'll demonstrate as best I can using Psalm 37:4:

 

Quote

Psa 37:4

Delight yourself also in the LORD,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.

 

First I just read the verse or passage i want to understand or memorize....the whole thing.  Then quietly repeat the passage once more for EACH word in the passage.  But emphasizing each word in it's turn, with each subsequent repetition....like this:

 

"DELIGHT yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart."

"Delight YOURself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart."

"Delight yourSELF also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart."

"Delight yourself ALSO in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart."

"Delight yourself also IN the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart."

"Delight yourself also in THE LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart."

"Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart."

 

You get the idea.....keep repeating slowly, subvocalizing (or even just reciting mentally) while placing emphasis on each word in turn, and it makes you stop and THINK about each word and what relationship each word in the verse has to the whole.   I find He will often speak to my heart, revealing meanings i had never noticed before....so that kind of meditation in His presence gives Him and opportunity to explain what He MEANT by the Word, and the repetition ends up with me memorizing it as well.

Personally I have found meditating on the Word one of the most powerful sources of revelation He uses with me.  I hope someone else can find this useful....

Edited March 3, 2020 by Jostler

[BeauJangles]

On 3/1/2020 at 7:24 PM, Jostler said:

 

You have discovered, and made yourself obedient to a powerful spiritual dynamic outlined in Scripture:

 

 

Instructions to kings...

 

David's testimony:

 

Repeating, meditating on, writing out word for word - making a personal copy by your own hand, memorizing....all very good ways to hide His Word in our hearts.   And the fuller our hearts get with His Word, the less room there is for sin to enter in or take hold.

 

You already know all that I'm sure   But there's the Scriptural backing (and only a portion of what's available) just in case others might be inspired to follow your example  

Really nice post, bro. 

[BeauJangles]

Hi @Hallelujah Joan, 

From reading through your open and responding posts, it appears to me that you're doing pretty well. Keep up the good faith and go forward in the confidence you have. God bless! 

Shalom, 

David/BeauJangles

[Billiards Ball]

On 3/1/2020 at 6:19 PM, Hallelujah Joan said:

Hi!  I'm hoping someone can help me recall the title of a book about Bible verse memorization.

It was written a long time ago, I'm thinking probably the 70's or the 80's - possibly even the 60's - by an evangelist who was well-known at the time.  He had a wonderful systematic method for memorizing Bible verses.  I remember that it involved copying verses onto file cards and then reviewing them according to a schedule, so that you'd always be memorizing new ones and reviewing the old.  Unfortunately, I've forgotten all the details about how to organize them.  I've searched online but have been unable to find the method, the book, or the evangelist's name. 

Twenty-something years ago I memorized Isaiah 55:6-13, and was completely healed of severe depression that had shadowed me for most of my life.  I have worked on memorizing other verses, especially in recent months, but I'd get farther faster with better organization.  I'll be eternally grateful if anyone can give me a clue about this book!

I'm so glad for your healing from depression. Praise Jesus!

The easiest/fastest way to memorize scripture--create a song/rap for it and use the scriptures as lyrics. Do NOT use a tune with other lyrics already associated to it.

[Neighbor]

19 minutes ago, Abby-Joy said:

Another way is to sing it

I stutter when I sing. 

[Billiards Ball]

3 hours ago, Neighbor said:

I stutter when I sing. 

You can rap it instead.

[GandalfTheWise]

@Hallelujah Joan 

For the past decade or so, I've been researching learning.  In particular, why some people seem capable of prodigious feats of learning.  For example, the person who can use a dozen languages, the person who plays several musical instruments and can learn a new one in a short time, or the computer guru who seems to be able to learn and use any program.   It took awhile, but I realized there were some principles that underly this.  Basically, it is this.  If you work with your brain, you will see more success.  If you fight your brain, you will not.   For the vast majority of us, learning to sing the happy birthday song was done in accord with how our brain naturally assimilates things.  In contrast, memorizing the periodic table of elements or other such things was usually done in a way fighting our brain.  Unfortunately, many of us picked up from school a no-pain/no-gain approach of learning whereby we see our brain as a stubborn mule that needs to be kicked and beaten to do any work rather than a marvelous thing that easily assimilates information from the world around us.

Here's my recommended approach to Bible memorization now.

• The most important thing is this.  Whatever you do should make you eager to come back the next day to do it again!  As soon as you start having to force yourself to work at it (telling yourself to hang in there because it's good for you), that is the beginning of the end.  If you are starting to become frustrated or bored, that is a warning sign you need to do things differently.  Purpose to make this an enjoyable and satisfying part of your life rather than an obligation.
•  Decide how much time you will put into this *daily* and when.  Perhaps 15 minutes during lunch, or while riding a bus or commuting, or 5 to 10 minutes when you get up and when you go to bed.  The critical things are to do it daily and to do it at a time you are alert and eager.  It's better to start with a smaller amount of time that leaves you wanting to do more than being too ambitious and forcing yourself to work the last half hour of the hour you allotted for this.  Your best learning occurs when your brain is engaged and enjoying it.   Learn what this feels like and how long it typically lasts. 
• Do NOT put numeric goals or deadlines on your progress.  You will learn at the rate you learn!  Don't beat yourself up for not being realistic about how fast learning will occur.  Rejoice over the progress you make rather than be discouraged over too slow a pace.  Resist the temptation to put more and more time and effort to reach deadlines.  This is what causes many people to burn out and give up.  Your main goal should be ever increasing familiarity with a passage rather than comparing yourself to timed perfection.
• Use multiple methods.  Combine listening with reading and reciting.  Find an audio version of the translation you use to memorize.  There are several free ones online of various versions.  You could also record yourself (or a friend with a pleasant voice) reading it out loud.   The more different ways you can expose your brain to the passage, the more quickly and thoroughly your brain will assimilate it.  There are several combinations of methods you can use with audio and the printed text.  You can listen, you can listen and speak along, you can listen and read along, you can read out loud.   You could put the audio on autorepeat to play over and over in the background while you are doing something else.   What you are trying to do is to mimic the process whereby you learned the happy birthday song or one of the many Christmas carols or hymns you probably know sections of by heart.  Repeated pleasant exposure to the entire passage (or at least full sentences or longer phrases) helps your brain assimilate the passage in its entirety.   This is in contrast to toiling at rote word by word memorization in a manner reminiscent of memorizing the abbreviations for all of the elements or some other set of information in school that you are then tested on.  The important thing is figuring out what is most enjoyable and works best for you.  Perhaps you will find a few of these methods work best when you start learning a passage and other methods are better for fine-tuning it later.  Perhaps you do one method when you get up in the morning and a different one when driving.  You need to figure out what works best for you.

Note that recent research has suggested that the best long term learning occurs when things are learned in their larger context.  This is slower but much more thorough.   An oversimplified explanation is that your brain is seeing the passage as a united whole where each word is a part of the bigger picture.  Your brain slowly assimilates and becomes familiar with the entire picture and gradually remembers more and more details intimately connected with other details.  In contrast, the best short term learning occurs when you break things up into small chunks and drill yourself over and over on each small chunk.  This is what we've all learned in school in order to get better grades on tests.   When rote memorizing a passage,  forcing yourself to learn word after word in a verse gives you the impression of progress and allows you to initially recite a passage from memory in a shorter time period.  However, your brain is not doing as good of a job assimilating the passage.   As an oversimplified explanation, your brain is seeing each word as something that follows another word.  As soon as you start forgetting one word, the chain around it falls apart and you need to rebuild it.   In order to keep it active and accurate, you will need to review and review.  In contrast, repeated pleasant exposure to the passage via multiple methods for a short time every day will over time will create a long-term familiarity with it.  

For example, fill in the following.  Oh Come All Ye Faithful, Joyful....      or  Silent night, Holy night, All...      I doubt a single one of us ever sat down intending to memorize these lyrics but there they are ready to come out as soon as we think about it.  We sing them a couple times per year in December.  Few of us probably remember all of the lyrics to the verses perfectly and there are holes in our recall of them, but if we were to listen to each song and read the lyrics once per week for a few months, chances are that we'd remember more and more of each song.   In contrast, think of various things you "memorized" in school for class after class but no longer have in active memory.  It would take almost as much effort now to get the information back as when we first "learned" it.  

Anyway, some general advice based on what I've been researching for some time now.

 

[Prycejosh1987]

On 3/1/2020 at 11:19 PM, Hallelujah Joan said:

Hi!  I'm hoping someone can help me recall the title of a book about Bible verse memorization.

It was written a long time ago, I'm thinking probably the 70's or the 80's - possibly even the 60's - by an evangelist who was well-known at the time.  He had a wonderful systematic method for memorizing Bible verses.  I remember that it involved copying verses onto file cards and then reviewing them according to a schedule, so that you'd always be memorizing new ones and reviewing the old.  Unfortunately, I've forgotten all the details about how to organize them.  I've searched online but have been unable to find the method, the book, or the evangelist's name. 

Twenty-something years ago I memorized Isaiah 55:6-13, and was completely healed of severe depression that had shadowed me for most of my life.  I have worked on memorizing other verses, especially in recent months, but I'd get farther faster with better organization.  I'll be eternally grateful if anyone can give me a clue about this book!

I dont think it is possible to this on a grand scale. Everyone knows JOHN 3.16, even Muslims and agnostics know it. To know that is delve deeply into that verse can take someone a long way spiritually. Personally, i am not able to memorise verses, but i do remember stories and people throughout the bible.