Recently I have energized my former discipline of Bible Memorization. In past years I have memorized thousands of verses. I recently read a book (only $.99 at Amazon) called, An Approach to Extended Memorization of Scripture by Andrew M. Davis: his website is: http://www.fbcdurahm.org/
He proposed a method which was interesting and a bit daunting. I'd never attempted to learn an entire chapter except my first "boyfriend" and I memorized 1 Corinthians 13. It seems to make sense that an entire chapter or book would be learned because then you can see the themes and understand the background of the verse.
Then recently I came across another book, My Scripture Journal : Fearing the Lord by Heather Bixler. Instead of focusing on one book, she focused on a theme. In this case, learning 12 key verses having to do with the Fear of the Lord. She had a method that if you practiced it as she posed, then you would learn a verse in one week. I added a few more verses to her original 12...I'm not sure how many I've learned yet, but I am finding this to be both enlightening and difficult. Because the verses all have "the Fear of the Lord" in them it is easy to get the rest of the sentence (usually a promise made by God to those who fear Him) confused with the other verses. It has been enlightening because when I first picked up Heather's book, I actually thought, :"The Fear of God?? how boring!" Yikes!! Did God ever sit me down on my duff quickly. The fear of God---what IS it? How does one get it or accomplish it? What is it used for? What promises are made to those who have it? And I think this would likely be true for any category of verses you were to choose. One that I would like to do is all the verses where the Hebrew word "Chesed" was used. "Chesed (or hesed)" means 'Lovingkindness" with a touch of mercy thrown in.
And finally last week I encountered a series of five articles on Bible Memory.http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/how-memorization-feeds-your-imagination ..This is a five part series and as of today the first four articles have been released online. If you go to the link here it will take you to the first article and there will be a link for the remaining ones in the series. #5 will be out very soon so make sure you check back. This man, Joe Carter, has a wild and crazy method of Bible memory but I can see that it works...just in reading though these articles. Instead of the tough days of repeating a verse over and over...he has a system where he invents a silly story and by so doing you can quickly memorize any list ...say the Ten Commandments, or you can memorize lengthy passages of Scripture...and have fun doing it.
When i was a young girl in my church in Teaneck NJ, a man visited and he tried to teach us this same approach to Scripture. In fact he had the whole New Testament written as cartoons with these silly mnemonic phrases and images illustrated. I found the books very difficult to catch onto...but I remember his approach --all these years later. And here it is being taught again. I would highly recommend looking up some of the resources and beginning the discipline of Bible Memory.
My earliest memories were of my dad (who was then in Seminary to become a minister) teaching me the verses he himself had to learn. I gobbled them up and I still remember now which ones he taught me....Little did I know that I was the one helping HIM. lol.
There is also "an APP for that!" it is called Scripture Typer. It is available on Kindle as well as on your iPhone. You can add your own topics or use one of theirs ...if there is a verse you want to learn it will download it from the internet and add it to a list or just by itself. I love this method..you just type the first letter of each word and you do it a number of times until you have "Mastered it" and then it gets checked off. It also provides flashcards with the reference on the back and the verse on the front. (or visa versa). It is possible here as well to learn an entire chapter and they give you the option of whether you want to learn it as a chunk or verse by verse.
Then at that church in Teaneck there was an annual contest. The child was handed every week a packet of papers with single spaced verses completely covering the front and back of a number of pages ...We had to memorize all those verses and quote them word perfect to our listener each week. I think it went on for ten weeks or so. And at the end, if you were successful the church paid for a week at the church camp in New Hampshire....where I eventually prayed to receive Jesus. Those verses too, because I learned them so young, are still i n my memory today...in the good old King James Version (which I spoke as fluently as I did America English.)
Then when my daughter was young I put together a memory system and learned hundreds more verses and I was asked by my Pastor to present these packets to people with the challenge to them to memorize them...They were topically arranged. I think only one or two of the people in that Sunday School class took me up on my challenge.
"Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee." I can testify that when your mind is filled with the Word, sin cannot find a place to lodge. These days I am struggling mightily to recall verses because of the damage done to my brain from the ECT (shock therapy) I underwent about 7 years ago. But I thank the Lord that all the verses implanted in my brain prior to those treatments remained. Which is a true miracle. I am asking God to restore my mind, both from the ECT and from age...renew my mind.
Romans 12;2
He proposed a method which was interesting and a bit daunting. I'd never attempted to learn an entire chapter except my first "boyfriend" and I memorized 1 Corinthians 13. It seems to make sense that an entire chapter or book would be learned because then you can see the themes and understand the background of the verse.
Then recently I came across another book, My Scripture Journal : Fearing the Lord by Heather Bixler. Instead of focusing on one book, she focused on a theme. In this case, learning 12 key verses having to do with the Fear of the Lord. She had a method that if you practiced it as she posed, then you would learn a verse in one week. I added a few more verses to her original 12...I'm not sure how many I've learned yet, but I am finding this to be both enlightening and difficult. Because the verses all have "the Fear of the Lord" in them it is easy to get the rest of the sentence (usually a promise made by God to those who fear Him) confused with the other verses. It has been enlightening because when I first picked up Heather's book, I actually thought, :"The Fear of God?? how boring!" Yikes!! Did God ever sit me down on my duff quickly. The fear of God---what IS it? How does one get it or accomplish it? What is it used for? What promises are made to those who have it? And I think this would likely be true for any category of verses you were to choose. One that I would like to do is all the verses where the Hebrew word "Chesed" was used. "Chesed (or hesed)" means 'Lovingkindness" with a touch of mercy thrown in.
And finally last week I encountered a series of five articles on Bible Memory.http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/how-memorization-feeds-your-imagination ..This is a five part series and as of today the first four articles have been released online. If you go to the link here it will take you to the first article and there will be a link for the remaining ones in the series. #5 will be out very soon so make sure you check back. This man, Joe Carter, has a wild and crazy method of Bible memory but I can see that it works...just in reading though these articles. Instead of the tough days of repeating a verse over and over...he has a system where he invents a silly story and by so doing you can quickly memorize any list ...say the Ten Commandments, or you can memorize lengthy passages of Scripture...and have fun doing it.
When i was a young girl in my church in Teaneck NJ, a man visited and he tried to teach us this same approach to Scripture. In fact he had the whole New Testament written as cartoons with these silly mnemonic phrases and images illustrated. I found the books very difficult to catch onto...but I remember his approach --all these years later. And here it is being taught again. I would highly recommend looking up some of the resources and beginning the discipline of Bible Memory.
My earliest memories were of my dad (who was then in Seminary to become a minister) teaching me the verses he himself had to learn. I gobbled them up and I still remember now which ones he taught me....Little did I know that I was the one helping HIM. lol.
There is also "an APP for that!" it is called Scripture Typer. It is available on Kindle as well as on your iPhone. You can add your own topics or use one of theirs ...if there is a verse you want to learn it will download it from the internet and add it to a list or just by itself. I love this method..you just type the first letter of each word and you do it a number of times until you have "Mastered it" and then it gets checked off. It also provides flashcards with the reference on the back and the verse on the front. (or visa versa). It is possible here as well to learn an entire chapter and they give you the option of whether you want to learn it as a chunk or verse by verse.
Then at that church in Teaneck there was an annual contest. The child was handed every week a packet of papers with single spaced verses completely covering the front and back of a number of pages ...We had to memorize all those verses and quote them word perfect to our listener each week. I think it went on for ten weeks or so. And at the end, if you were successful the church paid for a week at the church camp in New Hampshire....where I eventually prayed to receive Jesus. Those verses too, because I learned them so young, are still i n my memory today...in the good old King James Version (which I spoke as fluently as I did America English.)
Then when my daughter was young I put together a memory system and learned hundreds more verses and I was asked by my Pastor to present these packets to people with the challenge to them to memorize them...They were topically arranged. I think only one or two of the people in that Sunday School class took me up on my challenge.
"Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee." I can testify that when your mind is filled with the Word, sin cannot find a place to lodge. These days I am struggling mightily to recall verses because of the damage done to my brain from the ECT (shock therapy) I underwent about 7 years ago. But I thank the Lord that all the verses implanted in my brain prior to those treatments remained. Which is a true miracle. I am asking God to restore my mind, both from the ECT and from age...renew my mind.
Romans 12;2
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
No comments:
Post a Comment