How to Memorize Large Sections of Scripture
Ready for a challenge? Here's one that will stretch your mind and your patience—but your spiritual life will prosper richly.
by Ray Crawford of Baptist Student Union (originally published in "Discipleship Journal," 1986).
Memorizing entire books of the Bible can give us new understanding of God's Word as we immerse ourselves in large contexts instead of the single ideas of isolated verses. Accepting the challenge can rub off on other areas of our lives, and can deepen our love for God and His Word.
Here are some suggestions to help you adopt this engaging, fruitful discipline.
Getting Started
First, if Scripture memory hasn't been a significant part of your life in the past, don't try to dive right into memorizing whole books of the Bible. Start by memorizing a hundred or so individual verses on various topics. That will give you a well-rounded understanding of the Bible as a foundation for life, and will help you establish the discipline in your life before you take on the bigger challenge.
Second, don't take up Scripture memory to impress others. Your pride will show through, and the passages you memorize will have little effect on your life. If you tend to be proud, memorize and meditate on ten or twenty verses about pride, humility, and arrogance as part of your personal preparation for Scripture memory. Ask God to conform your heart and life to the lessons of those verses.
As you begin this process of memorizing large sections of Scripture, pay special attention to three prerequisites: intention, initiative, and interest.
Cultivate the to intention to remember passages forever, not just temporarily. If you don't intend to remember them forever, you probably won't. This intention will help provide some of the motivation necessary to carry out the sometimes difficult, time-consuming procedures of memorizing large passages.
You must take the initiative to do this kind of Scripture memory. You'll need to exercise the spiritual fruit of self-control and, by the grace of God, get yourself started. One reason people never complete a project like this is that they never begin.
Select a book or passage in which you have strong personal interest. It might be a favorite book, or one in which you already know a significant number of isolated verses. In any case, if you're not interested in the passage of Scripture, the chances of your memorizing it are slim.
Memorizing whole books of the Bible is no "quickie" exercise. Plan to spend one to three years on the project, even if it is a short book. You're not just learning words, you're trying to understand the content and integrate it into your life. That takes time. Since you're going to have to spend so much time in this book or passage, you need to select something that truly interests you.
Procedures and Practices
There are many ways to memorize Scripture. The following suggestions are intended to help you find ways to make memorizing large sections of Scripture more effective for you.
1. Get an Overview
Through a variety of methods, get an overview of the book you plan to memorize. This overview will help familiarize you with the content as well as the context of the book. Here are several methods I to get an overview:
A. Read the book several limes per day, or at least once each day, for the first few weeks after you decide to memorize it.
B. Read the book aloud during some of your reading sessions. This way you'll incorporate more of your physical senses in the learning process: you'll see it. speak it, and hear it simultaneously.
C. Listen to the book on a tape that you record. It helps to hear it in your own voice more than in someone else's. You can listen to it while driving, exercising, shaving, or at other free moments.
In fact, try to do this daily throughout the entire memorizing process, not just during the overview phase. You'll discover that the verses you memorize after listening to the book fifty to one hundred times are easier to memorize than the ones you memorized earlier in the project. And you'll find this tape very useful in the systematic review phase after you finish memorizing the book.
D. Use Bible study techniques. Divide the book into natural divisions. These will probably be chapters or paragraphs. Do an inductive study of each division until, after several weeks or longer, you have carefully studied the entire book. This way you'll pick up the overall flow of the author's thought, and that flow will often help you remember what comes next when you're memorizing the book.
2. Memorize a "Skeleton"
During the overview phase, you'll probably discover some verses that seem to be keys to the book. Identify them and memorize them early in the project. If any other verses are special favorites of yours, memorize them. Or memorize verses that begin new paragraphs or chapters. Be sure to learn the references for these verses. You'll find later that these verses help you to know where you are when you're filling in other verse.
Visualizing the locations of your key verses on the pages of your Bible can also help you keep the units in proper sequence. You might photocopy the pages from your Bible and mark where the verses are on the pages. The photocopy will be easier to carry around than your entire Bible, and you'll still have the benefit of visualizing those pages when you memorize and review.
3. Fill in the Remainder
Once the skeleton is well-developed, pile on the meat. Consider each of the natural divisions that you studied in the overview phase as an individual unit, and memorize it as such. It is not necessary to memorize the verses in the units in sequence, that is, verse one before verse two. But when the unit is complete, be sure the verses are in proper sequence.
Neither is it necessary to memorize the units in sequence. You can memorize them whenever you like. But be sure that the units are in proper sequence when you finish the book. The skeleton that you memorized will help you keep the parts of the book in order. So will reading or listening to the entire book each day.
Make a list of all the verse reference numbers in the book. As you memorize them, mark them off your list. Not only will this help you know what's left to be done, but also it will be a great encouragement as you see the number of marked verses growing and the number of unmarked verses getting smaller.
4. Don't Rush
If you were in a big hum., you might memorize a chapter a week. You might complete the book in less than a month. But would you really understand it? Would you have internalized it? Would it stay with you for the rest of your life. Would it be reshaping your life? Probably not.
I spent almost three years memorizing Ephesians. I averaged under a verse per week. But my goal wasn't to show others how much I could memorize (and hide from them how much I'd forget soon thereafter). It was to appreciate, understand, and practice the wonderful Word of Cod. That meant taking time.
5. Avoid a One-Track Mind
While memorizing a book of the Bible, keep up with other forms of Bible study and reading. Don't just memorize the book: read it, examine it, analyze it, and meditate on it. And pay attention to other portions of the Bible, too.
6. Aim at Word-Perfect Memorization
If I only memorize what I think, at a given time, are the ideas in a passage, then I'm limited to just those ideas until I make a fresh study of the passage. But passages of God's Word are infinitely rich in meaning and application. Knowing their exact wording will make us more receptive to all the ideas and applications we can get from them.
Sometimes we'll go for years thinking that a particular passage has such-and-such a meaning. And then, one day, by noticing a certain turn of phrase or repetition of words in the passage, our understanding of it can be drastically changed. If we memorize the passages precisely as they stand in the Bible, we'll be prepared to notice that special detail that unlocks riches. If we only memorize the general impact of the passage on our minds, we're less likely to think it through objectively in the future.
7. Use Periodic and Systematic Review
As you work your way through a book, review regularly what you've accomplished. Set aside individual days, at regular intervals, when you'll work only on review, not on memorizing new verses. When you've completed the book, wait for at least a few months before you begin another. During those few months, review the book every day, either in its entirety or in units. And after you've begun a new book, go back to the other one often to review it again. Reciting it aloud can be especially helpful in this phase of the project.
If you don't review frequently and systematically, you'll probably lose part of the book. At the very least you'll lose the sharpness: It will no longer be word perfect.
You might do the review by reciting the book aloud to someone else and having him stop you to correct any error, no matter how small. Or you might write it out by memory and then compare what you've written with what's in your Bible.
Problems and Predicaments
You will undoubtedly encounter obstacles during this adventure in Scripture memory. The Enemy wants to thwart your progress, but the Holy Spirit wants you to put more of the Sword of the Spirit into your mind and heart. What are some of the obstacles, and what can you do about them?
1. I'm Bored!
It sounds almost sacrilegious to say that you will likely become bored with the book you're memorizing. But don't be surprised when it happens. Memorizing a book in the Bible can be such a lengthy process that the content occasionally seems to lose its appeal.
Try pressing on anyway. Perhaps after several weeks of persevering through this obstacle, your interest will revive. The very boredom might have a positive effect: it might clear your mind of your preconceptions about the book and ready you for new insights. And when those new insights come, they can put new thrills into your memory work.
If your lack of interest continues, set this project aside for a few weeks and study something else. During these weeks it's still a good idea to read the book regularly, or listen to it on tape, so that you don't lose much of what you've already memorized.
After these few weeks, go back to the book you're memorizing, and take up the work where you left off, being sure to check the accuracy of your memory of what's gone before and to correct it if need requires. You may find that you have new and fresher interest in the book after your short time away from it.
2. I Don't Understand This Part!
You're bound to encounter, in any book of the Bible, some sections that you have trouble understanding. Memorize them anyway. Maybe you'll begin to understand them while you meditate on them. Or you might postpone memorizing them until you've memorized the rest of the book. Then your knowledge of the rest of the book will help you understand those difficult passages and make memorizing them easier. Or the passage may simply not make sense to you for years to come. Memorize it anyway: your chances of understanding it someday are much greater if you've memorized it than if you haven't.
Another thing you can do to increase your understanding of a passage is to pray for that understanding. God gives us this advice through Solomon:
"My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of Cod. For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding" (Prov. 2:1-6).
God promises understanding, but He puts a condition on the promise: that we "store up [His] commands within" us and search for the understanding as we would for silver. A prayer for understanding unaccompanied by diligent study and searching is empty.
3. I Can't Do It
If you begin by telling yourself you can't do it, and if you continue saying that in your mind, you'll begin to believe it. But my own experience and my observations of others tell me that many people can memorize whole books of the Bible, if they're willing to do the work necessary.
Instead of having the self-defeating attitude of the person who says, "I can't do it," adopt the attitude of the Apostle Paul, who wrote, "I can do everything through him who gives me strength" (Phil. 4:13).
Memorize the Word and Grow
The phases of the memorization process that I've suggested aren't distinct steps, each completed before moving on to the next. They blend and overlap. Sometimes you'll be doing one phase with one portion of Scripture and another phase with another portion. Be flexible and persistent, and it will work.
Memorizing large passages of Scripture, or entire books, can help in your own spiritual growth and in your ministry to others. Why not start now? Which book would you choose?