Memorize, but how?

Hope in God · Jun 5, 2019

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10157679000940676

Do you memorize Scriptures? If, after a good while being saved, you don't have many verses memorized, why is that so?

Much like many of my longtime Christian friends who are students of the Bible, I must have hundreds of verses memorized, many merely due to singing them.

What works well for anyone is repetition.

Rather than go over a Bible lesson once, I read and examine my notes repeatedly for a week. Yes, repeatedly, the same lesson, over and over again.

You might say monotony is good for the soul and Paul knew well its benefit.

2 Pet. 1:12, “Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.”

"Though you already know what I am writing to you, and have read or heard about these things many times," Paul wrote, "you need to hear them again and again and again."

Listen to Solomon's input on this. Proverbs 4:3-4, "For I was my father's son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. HE TAUGHT ME ALSO AND SAID UNTO ME, LET THINE HEART RETAIN MY WORDS, keep my commandments, and live.” Your heart, incidentally, is the mind which is to be renewed daily in the Word.

lforrest · Jun 5, 2019

I'm not sure how it works for everyone else, but I remember what interests me. I also forget anything I don't comprehend.

Willie T · Jun 5, 2019

lforrest said:
I'm not sure how it works for everyone else, but I remember what interests me. I also forget anything I don't comprehend.

I think that is key!
If all you have done is memorized words...…. and you cannot state the essence of your memorization by repeating the concept in a different way, totally in your own words, so that it can be made comprehensiable to anyone...…….. then I think you may have wasted a lot of time in merely an academic endeavor that will benefit no one else... and maybe not even you.

Heart2Soul · Jun 5, 2019

Hope in God said:
Do you memorize Scriptures? If, after a good while being saved, you don't have many verses memorized, why is that so?

Much like many of my longtime Christian friends who are students of the Bible, I must have hundreds of verses memorized, many merely due to singing them.

What works well for anyone is repetition.

Rather than go over a Bible lesson once, I read and examine my notes repeatedly for a week. Yes, repeatedly, the same lesson, over and over again.

You might say monotony is good for the soul and Paul knew well its benefit.

2 Pet. 1:12, “Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.”

"Though you already know what I am writing to you, and have read or heard about these things many times," Paul wrote, "you need to hear them again and again and again."

Listen to Solomon's input on this. Proverbs 4:3-4, "For I was my father's son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. HE TAUGHT ME ALSO AND SAID UNTO ME, LET THINE HEART RETAIN MY WORDS, keep my commandments, and live.” Your heart, incidentally, is the mind which is to be renewed daily in the Word.

I can quote a good majority of scripture I just can't always remember exact chapter and verse but always remember which book it is in.

Mayflower · Jun 5, 2019

Repetition brings Revelation.

For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.
HEBREWS 2:1 NASB

If we are not paying attention, we will miss something!!!! It is easy to go through the motions of memorizing and not learning anything.

Heart2Soul · Jun 5, 2019

Mayflower said:
Repetition brings Revelation.

For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.
HEBREWS 2:1 NASB

If we are not paying attention, we will miss something!!!! It is easy to go through the motions of memorizing and not learning anything.

Well here's my problem...I don't believe in one-verse sermons (so to speak)...so I feel it necessary to put all verses together to maintain the intent of the main message. And it's hard to memorize that much at one time...so I just present it on my Bible App on my phone when sharing.

Jon Mathews · Jun 5, 2019

When I was a child, my mother forced me to memorize over 600 bible verses in a kids program known as AWANA (Approved Workman Are Not Ashamed). As I continued reading the Bible, certain phrases and ideas sunk in my memory. Now when I'm in conversation with people, I hear key words and phrases they say and verses with the same words or ideas suddenly come to mind. God's Spirit brings back all those things that were deposited in my heart long ago.

Mayflower · Jun 5, 2019

Heart2Soul said:
Well here's my problem...I don't believe in one-verse sermons (so to speak)...so I feel it necessary to put all verses together to maintain the intent of the main message. And it's hard to memorize that much at one time...so I just present it on my Bible App on my phone when sharing.

I completely agree. One verse can't give you the full context... Sometimes, the right verse can be a good summary though.

Mayflower · Jun 5, 2019

Jon Mathews said:
When I was a child, my mother forced me to memorize over 600 bible verses in a kids program known as AWANA (Approved Workman Are Not Ashamed). As I continued reading the Bible, certain phrases and ideas sunk in my memory. Now when I'm in conversation with people, I hear key words and phrases they say and verses with the same words or ideas suddenly come to mind. God's Spirit brings back all those things that were deposited in my heart long ago.

Oh I wish how I was in that when I was young. I was a helper in awanas when I started going to church. I learned my scriptures in Teen Challenge though. We had to memorize over 500 to graduate and all of Romans 12 I can quote by heart...and in a college ministry I memorized more then that...but I don't remember addresses. It is like you say. Keywords and recognition...

Helen · Jun 5, 2019

Willie T said:
then I think you may have wasted a lot of time in merely an academic endeavor that will benefit no one else... and maybe not even you.

haha! Not so my friend.

In the first decade of my walk with God I memorized some Psalms ( 91 my favourite) and chunks of scripture ( "just in case" those big bad communists took away and banned bibles , as they were doing in their own countries)

If I was going to have to go to prison for my faith...I'd take the bible, hidden in my heart. And hope that other Christians had learned different parts of it then me...so we had a lot of the bible together.

That was then. *NOW I find that the nights that I cannot sleep, I can lay there...reciting what I have retained over 50 odd years... I'm happy if I fall asleep before I have gone through it all!

So, knowing it by rote, is helpful.

FHII · Jun 5, 2019

I have memorized many chapters. Not just verses, but whole chapters. Why? As a hobby at first. But it has benefitted be spiritually as well.

Everytime I tackle a chapter in this "hobby" it also forces me to understand it. I spend much of my time researching what the author meant.

farouk · Jun 5, 2019

Heart2Soul said:
I can quote a good majority of scripture I just can't always remember exact chapter and verse but always remember which book it is in.

It's a really good exercise to memorize Scripture...

(Esp. since these days some of us find memory harder...)

marks · Jun 6, 2019

I find the the more I read the more I remember. I like to read a book over and over, sometimes daily for months, of the shorter books.

And yes, memory sometimes drops out from underneath! But many times just sitting thinking, and those passages come back to mind to be meditated on.

Much love!
Mark

amadeus · Jun 6, 2019

lforrest said:
I'm not sure how it works for everyone else, but I remember what interests me. I also forget anything I don't comprehend.

And sometimes some of us [did I mention my name?] may forget things that we did comprehend, but now that we have forgotten them we cannot say for sure.

On a more serious note, I am unable to quote many scriptures. When I was younger a lot of it stuck from all of the reading I was doing but when I backslid for a very long time most of it disappeared. But now these days often when I am reading on a forum like this one, something will come to me and I know exactly where to find it in the Bible. Once you know where it is it is easy to copy and paste.

Give God the glory!

Heart2Soul · Jun 6, 2019

amadeus said:
And sometimes some of us [did I mention my name?] may forget things that we did comprehend, but now that we have forgotten them we cannot say for sure.

But Praise God for the Holy Spirit who will bring to our remembrance what is spoken....and sometimes at just the right moment!

farouk · Jun 7, 2019

Mayflower said:
Oh I wish how I was in that when I was young. I was a helper in awanas when I started going to church. I learned my scriptures in Teen Challenge though. We had to memorize over 500 to graduate and all of Romans 12 I can quote by heart...and in a college ministry I memorized more then that...but I don't remember addresses. It is like you say. Keywords and recognition...

It's so good to memorize Scripture.

farouk · Jun 7, 2019

Heart2Soul said:
But Praise God for the Holy Spirit who will bring to our remembrance what is spoken....and sometimes at just the right moment!

Well, exactly; indeed.

brakelite · Jun 7, 2019

Reading then copying them long hand into a note-book. Then I used that to read when following cows to the shed to get milked. 2 hours a day for many years. But they need to be reread often in order to be retained. I think at my age another word for brain is 'colander'.

farouk · Jun 7, 2019

brakelite said:
Reading then copying them long hand into a note-book. Then I used that to read when following cows to the shed to get milked. 2 hours a day for many years. But they need to be reread often in order to be retained. I think at my age another word for brain is 'colander'.

'Colander'? I know the feeling...

Harvest 1874 · Jun 7, 2019

Mayflower said:
Repetition brings Revelation.

For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.
HEBREWS 2:1 NASB

If we are not paying attention, we will miss something!!!! It is easy to go through the motions of memorizing and not learning anything.

Agreed, My brother once bragged of a young man in his church who only being about 14 or 15 could quote just about any verse (I believe his father was a preacher, but not of that particular church) this I said was commendable and would greatly aid him in the future when he was called upon to give a reason for his hope, however being able to quote scripture is not enough, Satan can quote scripture as well and so can most of his deluded servants.

More important than the ability to quote scripture is the ability to understand scripture, to be able to rightly interpret it.

Better to properly understand a few key scriptures than to be able to quote the whole bible but not be able to properly understand and interpret it.

Memorize, but how?

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