April 27, 2026 • 55 mins
Don't forget to grab your free scripture journal at PrayingChristianWomen.com/journal today!
When was the last time a Bible verse just popped into your head exactly when you needed it?
In this episode of the Praying Christian Women podcast, Jaime and Alana dive into the often-overlooked spiritual discipline of Scripture memorization—why it matters, what gets in our way, and how to actually do it as adults.
What does it look like to hide God's Word in your heart when life feels too busy and your brain feels too full? Jaime and Alana share personal stories, practical strategies, and honest confessions about the "blocks" that keep us from memorizing Scripture—from feeling too old, to frustration with changing Bible translations, to the overwhelm of not knowing where to start.
Along the way, they unpack creative tools that work at any age—setting verses to familiar tunes, using hand motions, breaking passages into manageable chunks, and asking reading-comprehension questions to slow down and absorb the text. Alana shares how Bible quizzing as a teenager shaped her ability to memorize entire chapters of Matthew, while Jaime offers a fresh perspective on why we can't always rely on our phones to bring God's Word to mind.
Whether you're a seasoned Scripture memorizer who has fallen out of practice or someone who has never tried it before, we hope you'll join us as we rediscover the joy, depth, and lasting fruit of committing God's Word to memory—one verse at a time.
Episodes Mentioned in this Episode:
Stephen Gets Stoned: Christianity's First Martyr:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stephen-gets-stoned-christianitys-first-martyr/id1837250927?i=1000754401765
465 Blocks That Keep You From Reading Your Bible
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REXUuCicPK8
469 From Guilt to Joy: Rethinking Your Bible Reading Routine:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/59dnZMQk92Bz6tP4srKpuZ
Discover More:
Explore additional episodes of Praying Christian Women, Mindful Christian Prayers, and other Christian podcasts at Lifeaudio.com
Check out our new podcast, Christian True-Crime Junkies!, on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Life Audio. Hello, Welcome to the Praying Christian Women Podcast.
I am Alana here with Jamie. How are you.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm doing well, how are you? God?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I am just really really excited about today's topic. I
always love meeting with you, but today's topic, I'm.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Like, I cannot wait to talk about this. That makes
me so happy.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah, and this is a topic that's like, it's not revolutionary,
it's a very basic topic. But I love going back
to some of these basics because they're so important, and
sometimes we gloss over them for the you know, frillier more,
you know, obscure things. But this topic is yeah, yeah,
I want to tell everybody what the topic is.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Are we going to leave?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
No? No, let's let's drag it out for at least
another ten minutes, because they most certainly have not read
the episode title, so they.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Have no idea, no idea whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Talking with a friend yesterday and she asked how the
podcast was going, but she was really sweet about it.
And if I went in to be like snarky, I
could tell you in the mean way She's like, so
are you still podcasting about prayer? And truly it was
just kind of a like, hey, are you still doing
this thing that I remember at one point you said
you were doing. But it brought me back to when
(01:22):
you and I started this idea. It was like, how
much is there to say about prayer? It's like, prayer
is talking to God. It is important to do.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
So I think we even had the conversation of, like, well,
when we eventually run out of topics, and you know,
maybe we'll switch gears and do it as something else.
Like I think it was a foregone conclusion that we
were eventually going to kind of run out of topics.
But here we are, what like over five hundred episodes, and.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
You know, I'm so thankful and I'm I love today
we're going to be talking about memorizing scripture. So recently
you and I have been talking just about practical ways
to add more Bible reading into our day to day lives,
which is a struggle that going into this new year,
you and I both confessed that we were having. And
(02:12):
so this is a tangent off of that, and we're
going to be spending some time to talk about scripture memory.
And the moment it popped into my head that we
were going to do an episode about this, I realized,
like Oh, I've been sitting on like the book in
my brain, like I have so much to say about this.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Wow, that's exciting.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I'm so excited. So, because we're talking about scripture memory,
I went to think about things you remember from your childhood.
What is some just like jingle or something just so
random that you still remember super clearly from growing up.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Okay, I remember this commercial and it was funny because
I was in the process of learning the song for
Elease on the piano and there was a McDonald's commercial
that came on and it was to the tune of
for Elease. Oh yeah it was, And I still remember
the words and the girls going she's singing along as
(03:11):
she's playing her piano recital, and she goes, then I
will have my chuckle at shake and cheeseburger and also
ones and also fries, and I'll eat all my fries
myself and not give any to my dumb brother, hands off,
all mine, all mine.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I think it really shows I think that every single
one of us can go back and remember some kind
of jingle or some kind of playground ditty or for me,
it was all the jump rope songs.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I loved that.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
The double Dutch and all the difference and the Miss
Mary Max the hand.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yes, all of those ages live in your head forever,
which is what we're talking about. So like for me,
it was always like bubblegum commercials. For some reason, those
were jingles that always stood out the most. And so
it's kind of this idea of if the people who
made the bubblegum commercials know how to get something in
(04:08):
your head that you remember it forty years later, we
could probably find a way that we can remember a
Bible verse. Right.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I would get to do that, I surely hope.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
So another thing, memory wise, it just flips in my brain.
I read so much to the kids that there are
certain children books that I could either just sit down
and recite to you without having it in front of me,
or if I hear a phrase, it will bring me
like right back to that whole book and all of
a sudden, like I'm resigning the whole book in my head.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah, So you know, as an aside, what's so funny?
So Baby Beluga was a song, yes, and it was
by Raffi. It was also we had the like board
book of Baby Beluga that was our oldest favorite book
and like it was just kind of his theme song.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
He loved it.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
And I recently, like, after having no ever known this before,
someone sent me a song.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
It's called the Hockey Song by Raffi.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Oh yeah, and our kids all play hockey, and I
can't believe that I never knew that the author of
Baby Yuga also had a hockey song.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Anyway, that's fun, that's just fun. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Yeah. I think that there is something beautiful about having
shared collective memories. It's something that I feel a little
sad for our kids generation. I think they have it
a little less because when we were growing up, it
was like nursery rhymes, and now our kids, because of
(05:40):
TikTok and YouTube, it can be anything, right, Yeah, I
heard the funnest little Kids song, but I'm guaranteed that
most little kids are never going to know it, and
my grandkids will never know unless I teach it to them.
But it was like it was an Internet sensation for
(06:01):
all of a week. Do you know the Oh no,
now it's out of my brain. I'm gonna need to
run upstairs and ask my son. Those little funny salamanders
what are they called? The axe lottles?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Oh? Those are I love accel Lottles.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, there is an axe Lottle preschool song which is
know that so cute and so catchy. But if I
taught it to like my baby or my grandbabies who
don't exist yet, it's not like they're going to go
to preschool and their teacher is going to know the
same song and then when they go to their best
(06:38):
friend's house or grandma's going to know the same song.
And when you and I were younger, there was a
little more of that, you.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Know, there were fewer collective songs, like everything was. Things
were passed on from person to person, and there were
only so many, right exactly, and so it's just a
quantity thing.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
It is sad, it is.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
But everybody with preschool or or everybody who thinks that
axel Lottles are super cute and adorable, just do yourself
a favor and look up the axl Lottle song. You
don't need to have kids in the house or young
kids to appreciate it. It's really fun.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I'm doing it all right.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Well while people have you know, paused us to go
listen to the axl Lottle song and then come back,
do you have a verse of the day for us
I do.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
This is a verse about God's word from Deuteronomy six,
verses six through nine. These commandments that I give you
today are to be on your hearts, Impress them on
your children, Talk about them when you sit at home
and when you walk along the road, when you lie down,
and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on
your hands, and bind them on your foreheads. Write them
on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I love this one, and I didn't even realize. There's
a whole other aspect to this topic that I wasn't
even planning to talk about, and that is how to
help your children learn how to memorize Bible verses. Because
our kids were in a Wana, which I think is
a great program for scripture memory, but we would also
(08:02):
memorize longer passages. This is one of the first longer
passages that I talked to the kids, and a few
of the tips I used we did it real sing songy,
so it was talk about them when you sit at home,
when you lie down, and when you stand up. Because
it's way easier to learn a song than it is
(08:23):
to learn a poem. For example, right. How many of
us know songs that we just know the words too
and didn't work to memorize versus how many poems do
you have memorize it? You didn't like work to memorize, right, right,
And so there was that. We combined it with some
hand emotions, which can also be really, really useful. I
(08:43):
think those were the two biggies for that specific one.
But yeah, I'll add that to the list. This might
turn into a mini series about scripture memorization, but no,
I love that passage. I think it's a beautiful reminder
of the importance of imparting scripture to your chill specifically, well,
before we dive into the meat, you want to open
(09:04):
us up in prayer, Yes I will.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Lord, We thank you for your word, and just pray
that this time would just be informative and that it
would be something that would really enrich our desire to
and excitement for memorizing scripture. It can sound like a
very dry academic thing, but Lord, we love it. We
(09:30):
hear word is a lamp to our feet, a light
to our path is it is everything, And we just
pray that you would help us just to continue to
cultivate an excitement for your word to cultivate a hunger
and thirst to take it in and incorporate it into
our lives and help us to find creative ways to
do that.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
So I'm trying to figure out the best place to start,
because so much of what I want to share is
really more of a testimony of my journey with Bible memory,
and through that there will be lots of tips and
tricks and takeaways. But before we even jump into that,
let's just all get on the exact same page. Why
is this even important? Why are we talking about it?
(10:14):
How would you answer a cynic who says, and you
don't even have to be a cynic to say this,
What's point of memorizing scripture? When I could just look
it up on my phone? Right? Like? What's the point
of memorizing the Times table now that I could just
ask Siri to do it for me? Is what I'm
sure some elementary kids are asking their teachers.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Oh, don't get me started. So I have very strong
So we had a conversation. I and our middle kid
had a very lengthy conversation on this about math. It
was the very same thing because there's a certain type
of math and statistics that you need to know the
formula for, but there's also a whole training on how
(10:55):
to use your calculator to find the same answer, and
they're learning both. He was trying to convince me that
his teacher said they only need to know the calculator version,
and I just I was like, no, that's not true.
His worksheet actually clearly in the instructions said that they
needed to do both.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
So you know, I was right.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
But when we talked about it, I told him it's yes,
it's important to be able to use the tools that
we've been given, and this is for both math and scripture.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Memory. Yes, use the tools. I have embraced AI.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I've embraced search engines, and they literally have replaced at
this point my concordance because they incorporate concordances. I don't
open up my physical concordance anymore. But you also need
to know how to find these things and come up
with the answers if those things aren't available. And where
(11:50):
scripture differs is it's not just finding it, it's having
it available to you. And I don't want to be morbid,
but look at the signs of the times. Look at
our reliance on technology.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
It's going to crash. It just is it has to.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
I don't want to, you know it, just at some point,
whether it's temporarily you lose power, whether it's you end
up Heaven forbid, you're in a prison cell and you're
not given access to an electronic or.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Maybe even a Bible.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
I don't want to go down a fear route because
that's not what I'm intending. But we have to get
to the point where we are able to recall God's
word without having to rely on anything but our brain
and our spirit and the Holy Spirit, because at some
point you're not going to have it. What if you're
(12:45):
hiking with a friend and you have no cell service
and you're talking to them, and you have no Bible
on you, and they ask you a really important question
about faith and about God, and you don't have anything
because there's no well of knowledge to draw from for
the Holy Spirit to kind of dig from. And I'm
not saying that as a Christian like that has a
(13:07):
background in the Bible, that you won't have something for
the Holy Spirit to bring to your mind. God is
very creative, but we I believe firmly and strongly that
it is our responsibility as believers to do just this.
These commandments are to be on your hearts. They're not
(13:27):
just to be things that you read during church service
on Sundays or Saturdays. You know when they were in synagogue.
Impress them on your children, talk about them, and tie
them as symbols on your hands, bind them on your foreheads.
Those hands and foreheads are symbolic of your identity. This
is who you are. This isn't just words on a page.
So I can't emphasize enough that we cannot rely on
(13:51):
electronics to bring to mind the things that the Holy
Spirit was always meant to bring to mind. And if
we don't have a well for the Holy Spirit to
draw from, it's going to be very difficult, and at
the very least, it's not going to be nearly as
effective as if you have committed some scripture to memory,
and at the very worst, it's going to be ineffective
(14:12):
and you're not going to have anything to be drawn from.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, no, I think that makes a ton of sense.
I would add to that that the act of memorizing
scripture can really help you slow down and absorb the
meat of a passage in a way that just reading
it for a lot of people wouldn't let it sink in.
So even if I knew that, I would always have
a digital Bible and a concordance at my fingertips whenever
(14:49):
I went in, I would still be able to rattle
off a lot of benefits of memorizing scripture or another
one lying in bed at night, especially if you're prone
to and so, or you're prone to anxiety, learning to
just go through Bible passages as you're falling asleep and
you don't want to have to have your phone in
(15:10):
your hands do that, because that's going to make it
even harder to fall asleep or get you more distracted.
So in addition, I would list those some of the
big benefits. I think of it kind of like a paramedic.
I know that since you've taken organic chemistry, you're going
to get the irony of this. So, knowing what you
know about organic chemistry as a class and what it
(15:32):
requires of students, you will understand how insulting it was
when I went to office hours with my organic chemistry professor,
and hugely printed up behind his desk was this quote
that said I never memorized something that I could look up,
and like, dude, you are literally making us memorize like
(15:55):
a a jillion different rules and formula and nomenclatures. But
on the one hand, I get what your son is saying,
Why do I need to memorize a formula if my
calculator will do it for me? Especially if I have
a decent understanding of what went into getting this formula,
so I at least know what the numbers are kind
(16:17):
of telling me I do I need more than that? Like,
I totally get that kind of question. And so I
think about the paramedic who theoretically there is nothing a
paramedic is going to encounter on the field that a
textbook or an AI or a Google search wouldn't walk
(16:37):
them through. But sometimes you got to just react. Sometimes
you've got to just have that knowledge at your fingertips.
You can't say, hold on, let me, let me find
where it is in the book. You just needs to
have that muscle memory. And I think sometimes Bible memory
can also be muscle memory for when you're confronted with temptation,
(16:58):
or you're confronted with fear, or or you're confronted with anger,
or I think having Bible versus memorized can really help
you when it comes to being convicted. Right Like, honestly,
when I think of the Bible verses that just pop
into my head so versus that I've memorized that pop
into my head when I'm not trying to conjure them,
(17:20):
up ninety five percent of the time, they're probably Bible
verses that the Lord uses to convict me, which is
really important. You know, It's like toxins in your soul.
You want to get those out of you. And so
I would add those to the list of reasons why
all of this is important to be talking about.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
If I would add another analogy, if you look at
just either looking up a verse when you need it
or versus actually memorizing it. As someone who's not good
with directions, I see it as a difference between relying
on my GPS. There are places in this town. We've
lived here for almost two years. There are places in
(18:01):
this town I have gone tens dozens of times, and
I've used the GPS every single time, and because of
how I'm wired, I couldn't get there if I had to,
because I just look at my instructions and I go
on autopilot when I don't have the GPS and I
actually need to go through the act of Okay, I
(18:22):
need to turn left at this road and right at
this landmark. It only takes one or two times, and
I've remembered it. So with scripture, it's the same thing.
If you're only looking it up based on a word
or two, it's not going to incorporate itself into you
in the same way as memorizing it in its entirety
(18:43):
without that crutch.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
That makes a lot of sense. I remember being so
proud this ISI decided about directions. I had learned how
to drive to your home and anchorage from Glen Allen,
like to get up with Glenn Highway and get to
your home. I knew how to do that, and I
also knew how to get from your house to the airport.
And once I had to go right from the Glenn
(19:06):
Highway to the airport.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Oh no, did you know my house first?
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I know, I figured it out, and I was so
proud of myself. I was like, I know how to
do this.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
That was pretty cool. I thought you were going.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
To say that you didn't have to go to your house,
you had to get to my house and then go
to the airport, which I don't think would have been
the best route, but.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
I mean I probably went pretty close to your house.
We lived close to the airport, so it might have
made it.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
I'm telling you my sense of direction really circuitously, but
I made it.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
So Yeah, I think those are all all reasons, and
you don't need to be a fearmonger.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
We had a four day power outage when my husband
was a pastor and he had to finish his sermon
without any of the tools that he typically relied on,
and it was just a good reminder that, yeah, that
these are important and skills to have. I think that,
as much as it could make me sound like an
(20:06):
old phobia, I think it's really important for every household
to have Bible in print to rely on during a
power outage or something like that. And yeah, hiding that
word in your heart four times when you don't have
access to it, or times where you just need like
that emergency kit, the information or the verse to come
(20:27):
to you immediately, those are all really important. But honestly,
I would say that the best benefit, and this is
going to hopefully resonate to our praying Christian women audience.
Is the act of memorizing itself helps you to be
more prayerful and meditative. So honestly, even if like I
(20:48):
had short term memory loss and I could memorize a
verse for like two minutes and then forget it, which
honestly like is a tiny bit accurate, it still is beneficial.
It still is beneficial to take the time to memorize that.
And yeah, so I'm really excited that it gets to
jump into.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
All of this.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
So I think I want to start is just with
kind of my story and through that you can jump
in and we can glean out tips and tricks for
people and all the Bible memory hacks. But this is
basically just a testimony of Bible memorization. So one of
(21:33):
the things I want to start with, and this kind
of ties into helping your kids scripture. I want to
talk about some of the things that my dad did
great to help me because I did have a really
good Bible memory foundation. I wasn't in a Wannas, but
I know that that's a really good kids program. But
(21:55):
we listens to a lot of different Bible versus set
to song. Did you ever listen to or know about
the GT and the Halo Express Music. No, they are great,
and but they were cute little audio dramas. But each
story had maybe like a dozen songs that were just
(22:18):
forbade and Bible Versus set to music, and there were
maybe like six or eight episodes, And so by the
time you learn all of those, I mean, that's a
couple hundred Bible versus right there. So Bible Versus set
to song, I think is great. I think we all
need to get over this hang up that some of
these tips and tricks are childish. They work for kids,
(22:42):
but that doesn't mean that as older people we shouldn't
use them as well. So honestly, that's probably if we're
looking for tips and tricks. Trick number one the fallback
set it to music, just like we talked about these jingles,
right like, you're never not gonna know for release, but
also you know the words to that little song she
(23:03):
was singing to herself.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Oh yeah, where is how many thirty five years later?
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yes, another really fun one. This isn't Bible memory, but
it just reminded me another fun music resource for kids.
Do you know about Beethoven's wigs? The CDs they're really cute.
It teaches kids classical music, but it sets it to
funny lyrics. And so it's called Beethoven's Wig because it
(23:29):
goes that one of the you know, their flagship song
is Beethoven's Wig is very big.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
This is like the Little Einstein's before the Little Einstein's
got it, because that's what the Little Einstein is, the
same kind of thing where they set these songs to
you know, I mean I can't.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I could sing any.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Number of them to the Little Einstein's version. Okay, interesting,
I love that.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, So if you've got kids that you want to
introduce to classical music, you've got grandkids. Beethoven's Wigs super
super fun. Like I grew up with classical music and
playing an orchestra, and there are some songs that I
would recognize, but I wouldn't know their name or who
wrote them. If it worked for Beetho, It's Wig, which
I didn't listen to till I had kids, and they're
(24:16):
just hilarious. But anyway, that's an aside, but it illustrates
how setting something to music can help you memorize. What
I did with our kids is I would often take
songs that they already knew, so I know we set
something to the Darth Vader theme song. I'm trying to
(24:39):
think of a few others if i could remember off
the top of my head. We learned all of their
multiplication tables to song, and a lot of Bible verses
to song.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I love you.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
I love that you mentioned that, though, because in our
last episode, I found myself thinking, I wonder if people
are thinking that memorizing Bible verse this is for kids,
because we kind of associate it with.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
That, you know it like Awana, like the songs.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
But yeah, I think it's important to just be like, hey,
don't be afraid to use what we would consider juvenile
tactics to memorize God's word. I mean, there's yeah, yes,
it's important.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
I love a quote from C. S. Lewis, and unfortunately
I need to paraphrase it, but it's something to the
effect of I'm now old enough to start reading fairy
tales again or something like that. That's yes, I like that,
And I feel like I'm kind of coming back around
because I've been working on a lot of I'm doing
(25:42):
a lot with like children's books for our store and
things like that, and I'm thinking about all these books
that I used to love to read to our kids,
to the point where like once I was talking to
my husband about it and got like teary eyed because
reading to our kids was such a special experience, and
then realizing like I don't need to be a kid
(26:03):
or to have a young kid to love Doctor Seuss right,
Or when I had the flu and I just I
didn't want to listen to like a full audiobook, and
I just wanted something comforting. I listened to an aa
Milmi poem collection and it made me really happy, you know.
And so there's there's something to be said for coming
(26:24):
back to some of these things that yeah, maybe they
were even designed for kids, but they are effective a
be there fun, so why not, right, It's more fun
to learn a Bible versus to the tune of the
Darth Vader theme song than to just sit down and
try to force it into your head. So let's go
(26:45):
ahead and do it. So I had those things, and
we were also just a family where I knew that
Bible literacy was important, right, Like it was just something
that was part of our dat day lives. I'm going
to go on a tiny bit of a tangent. I'm
sure you've heard me rants. Have you heard my NIV rant?
(27:07):
No you have not. Okay, No, this is truly and
it's going to sound like I'm just being petty. This
is the biggest block. I have not been into Bible
memorization the last several years like I used to. In
around twenty twelve. The NIV the New International Version of
the Bible, which is what I grew up, like, all
(27:27):
of my pastors preached from it. All of the GT
songs I learned were from it. All the Bibles I
had growing up were from it. They changed it, so
the NIV that you by now is differently worded than
the NIV that I used to memorize, and it threw
me off so bad that I have not That is
(27:50):
one of the biggest reasons why I have not gone
back into memorizing huge chunks like I got to wear,
like I had over half of the entire Book of
Matthew me like I could just recite Matthew one through
seventeen or eighteen or so. And one of the reasons
why I don't do that kind of intense memorization anymore
(28:13):
is because I'm really mad about what they did, but
some of it also is that same phenomenon we talked
about with like nursery rhymes versus TikTok videos is now
like our pastor preaches from the ESV, this podcast I
listen to uses the NASV. Like there's so many versions
now that there's not one version that's getting reinforced in
(28:34):
my head. And so when I think about a verse,
I've got multiple versions of it in my head, and
it's harder to like, Okay, what's the actual real version,
Like when I do hymns at church, and sometimes I
will need to ask our pianists like play this for
me once, because there's like three different versions of it
(28:54):
that it could be and they're all just like slightly
different from each other. But you know, that's kind of
what happens, kind of like there's multiple versions of a
tall tale, right, And you know, I'm not saying the
Bible is a tall tale, but I think you get
what I'm saying. It has gotten to where instead of
like every single time I hear John three sixteen, I'm
hearing these exact same words in this exact same order,
(29:16):
I'm hearing twenty different versions of it, and so it's
hard to memorize when you've got that it is.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
And it's interesting for me because of my input tendencies.
I love multiple versions and I look at, you know,
the Greek and the Hebrew to kind of see what
is the root word.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
And I understand why they revise things.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
I think they have a better understanding of what the
original Greek or Hebrew meant.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
And that's good. But when it comes to scripture memory,
I'm with you.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I have a very hard time because when I go
back and I didn't realize. I don't think that they
changed it in whenever that was twenty twelve, but I
did realize.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I'm like, where did my version go? What version did
I memorize it in?
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Was it the re because that's what I grew up
with in the Methodist Church was revised standard, and then
I started going non denominational and it was an IV.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
I think I memorized an IV. But you're right, because
I remember.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
That solves a mystery for me because what throws me
off is I had already memorized it. So when you
have already memorized something, it should be easier to re
memorize it, unless they throw a wrench shit. I think
that has been like an unknown block for me.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yes, okay, So thank you for saying that, because I
truly did think that it was eighty five percent of
me being petty and being like, well you changed my
versions to No, it's not like a.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Vendetta that you have.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
I think it's just a I put all this time
and effort into memorizing this. Now when I go back
and re memorize it, it's different. And so I'm going
to have to start from scratch because I can't fall
into that da da da da da da da da
like rhythm of memorizing because then you get to the
word that sticks and it makes it difficult. Very interesting,
(31:02):
that solves a mystery for me.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Well good, I'm so glad that we got to overcome
some of our blocks today, which hopefully this is going
to do for a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
The other thing, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I
want to go back to you, having memorized like half
of the Book of Matthew. What is your process? How
did you get like what did that look like? Because
that is fascinating to me.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah. So it started with something that I had in
my teens. I was part of the Bible Quiz team,
which again used the NIV. And for anybody whose children
have access to Bible Quizzing, I really highly recommend it.
And if you're an adult and you're not going to
be on a Bible Quiz competitive team, I can give
(31:50):
you some of the tips and tricks. But the year
that I was most involved in the Bible Quiz team,
it was the Book of Matthew and so I was
already very familiar with it as an adult from my
experience doing it for Bible Quiz. So let me tell
you about Bible quizzing and then I'll tell you about
how I extrapolated that to memorize it as an adult.
(32:10):
The thing that I loved about Bible Quiz was have
you ever done anything like that? Or do you know
about Bible quizzing?
Speaker 3 (32:16):
No?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
I know you did it with your kids, but I
don't even know exactly what it is.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah, So picture something kind of like academic to cathlon.
We're like, you get a team, you all learn the
same material, and then you go and compete against other
teams to see who knows the material best. And so
it was, here's a bunch of teenagers who are all
studying the Book of Matthew, and so like the first
meet or tournament or whatever they call it, it might
(32:43):
be like Matthew one through five, and then the next
one might be like Matthew five through ten, with a
few questions about Matthew one through five, and so over
the course of a school year, you're working your way
through the entire book of Matthew. Cool. That's how it
goes and the way it was set up. And I
don't know if this is more to do with the
way Bible quiz is set up, or just the way
(33:04):
our coach is taught it, or probably if I had
to guess it, some of both. It allowed me to
get really good at looking at a passage and asking myself, Okay,
how many questions can I make from this? Because it's
never the questions I ask are never about interpretation. It's
(33:27):
never like when Jesus says, blessed are the pure in heart?
Who do you think he's talking about? It would be like,
why are the pure and heart blessed? And you would say,
because there's is a kingdom of heaven, right, And so
it's always if it's not there written in the text,
it is not part of the answer. In the way
that it's taught. So it's almost like sat reading comprehension
(33:48):
where you just learn the answer is always there, or.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Battle of the Books. It reminds me of Battle of
the Books.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yeah, and the answer is always there, you just need
to access it. So let me pull up I'm going
to pull up seventeen since we're recording this going into
Good Friday, and I love some of Jesus's discourse. So
this is Jesus's prayer and John seventeen using the nal NIV.
And so I will show you the way that if
(34:16):
I were reading this for a Bible quizzing, what I
would be asking myself after Jesus said this he looked
toward heaven and prayed, I would literally say, where did
Jesus look he looked to heaven? And then I would say,
what did Jesus do he prayed? And then I would say,
when did Jesus look toward heaven and pray after he
(34:38):
said this? And so basically, you take one verse at
a time and you ask yourself, how many reading comprehension
questions can I create from this verse? So, for example,
verse ten, Jesus is praying and he says, all I
have is yours and all you have is mind, and
glory has come to me through them. So my questions
(35:00):
would be, what is Jesus's okay? All I have speaking
of God the Father? And then what has come to Jesus?
Glory has come to Jesus? How has glory come to Jesus?
Glory has come to me through them? So you read
the verse and then you just go through how many
(35:21):
of those questions can you come up with? And so
basically I was doing it as a teen to be
ready for any question that they might ask in a competition.
But what I was truly doing was making sure that
I was looking at the verse from every single side
an angle. And so that was the Bible quiz method
(35:45):
and way to do that. And I think it's extremely
helpful even if you're not doing it for a competitive setting,
to just if you get to where you really just
want to or need to slow down your Bible reading,
ask so what does this per se?
Speaker 2 (36:01):
What does this per se?
Speaker 1 (36:02):
And it might sound a little moundane. Let's take Genesis
one one. What did God create the heavens and the earth?
When did God create it in the beginning? Who created
the heavens and the earth. God created the heavens and
the earth. So that's right there. That's three different ways
of looking at that verse. And maybe in the process
(36:23):
of doing that, something is going to jump out to you. Yeah,
oh wow, in the beginning that like that's kind of
profound as opposed to just in the beginning God created
you know, I've known that forever. Or maybe it's He
created the heaven and the earth, right, Like, you can
even practice putting the emphasis on different words to see
like in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
(36:44):
Or in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Or in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, right, Like,
there's different different ways. So again I go back to
kind of my tactile way of thinking and learning, and
you're really just manipulating the verse from his as many
angles as you can.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
That is so cool. So how did you take that
strategy and extrapolate it to scripture memory, like actually memorizing
one verse after another, because that's what I would have
no problem coming up with the questions, but doing the
actual memory work is just sounds really daunting.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
The biggest thing I would say is you need to
identify your blocks and figure out how to get over them.
I had a couple of blocks as an adult going
back into memorizing. Right now, my biggest block is this
whole thing about the NIV changing, And theoretically, what I
know I need to do is just get the version
(37:54):
that I'm used to and still learn from that. I'm
not going to try to do all the new stuff.
And honestly, this is gonna sound so over dramatic. I
need to forgive the NIV for throwing this huge wrench
in what was such a huge part of my Bible
study for the majority of my life, because it really
(38:15):
did throw me off, and there's part of me that
I think has been holding on to. Well, if I
just stopped memorizing in description, then won't they be sorry? No,
they don't know who I am and they don't care
you know so. But one of the blocks I had
it as an adult getting back into memorizing is the
act of memorizing would get mentally so taxing that it
(38:38):
could trigger like a depressive episode, and I needed to
look at it as like, basically I saw it as
a spiritual attack. It was when I get into really
intense Bible memorization, I get this spiritual attack and get
really depressed. I think if I were to go back
(38:59):
and coach myself now, I would actually make myself question that.
I would say, are you truly under spiritual attack or
are you just expecting because of coincidence that a couple
times you have memory scripture and have had depressive episodes
after that? Have you made a false association that now
is becoming a self fulfilling prophecy?
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Or is there a physiological thing that happens you know
something about like you know how bright lights activate seizures,
you know, can induce the seizure. What if something about
firing your brain in that space constantly might trigger something?
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Or I know, for me, if I focus on one
thing for more than several hours, like really intense focus,
I get a sore throat. Like physiologically that probably shouldn't happen.
I mean, maybe I'm clenching or something. Who knows, but
you know, so, yeah, there's all kinds of reasons it
could be. But at the time, what I chose to
(40:01):
do was to say, even if it makes me feel depressed,
this is important enough that I'm gonna do it. I
think now I would also go ahead and question the
premise and be like, is this really like is it
a foregone conclusion that memorizing the Bible makes.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Feel depressed or or not?
Speaker 1 (40:18):
But that was that was one of the big blocks.
The second block was a little more practical, and it
was I by that point I had memorized chap like
a chapter of multiple passages of Scripture. I had ninety
percent memorized some of the shorter epistles like I could.
I could have recited them with eighty to ninety percent accuracy.
(40:41):
When you get to something as long as what I
was doing, it was it's really hard to mentally say, Okay,
I'm gonna start at Matthew one one and just lying
a bed at night, I'm going to see how far
I can go, you know. But it's also really good
mental training to do that. And so what I would
do is at night, before bed and in the morning
(41:03):
when I woke up, I would try to like pick
a place to start and see how far I could
go without getting distracted. And the reason why I finally
quit and didn't go beyond Matthew seventeen or eighteen was
I got to where to progress. I really did need
(41:24):
somebody to sit and listen to me recite the whole thing,
like with the Bible in front of them, and A
that's a lot to ask of somebody, and B I
didn't have the voice capacity to like just recite that
much without getting worse. Yeah, so that's how's But basically
it was it was a very similar process to what
(41:45):
I did for Bible quiz, in that I would read
a verse and kind of just examine that versu mentally
from as many angles as I could until like that
versus in my head, and then I would go to
the next first. So it was like, okay, read verse
one enough to yourself that you can do that, and
(42:07):
then read verse two enough to yourself three you can
get that. Next step is put verse one and two together,
you know what I mean, and then keep going. Another
tip that worked well for me is, and this is
another reason why just finding a pirated copy of the
old NIV and just printing it off would be harder.
Is the way I memorize is I see on the
(42:29):
page where I'm at, and so it would be harder
for me to memorize with like here's this Bible here,
and here's this Bible here, because even if it's the
same words, there are different parts of the page, right.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
So.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
You're definitely visually learning.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Yes, so I'm almost like picturing myself in the location
on the page that I am trying to recite from.
And so then once you get to where you can
put two or three verses together, then you just go
to the next chunk. And so I would learn it
chunks at a time, and then not until then when
(43:12):
I try to put the chunks together.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
So you try and just build it like a train
where you're doing one you do a chunk, and then
you do another chunk, and then you kind of put
them together. That that definitely is a good tip and
seems more doable.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Yeah, and then another block. And this wouldn't I wouldn't
even call a mental block. This is just a logistical block.
Is eventually, if you don't keep reciting something to yourself
that you've memorized, you don't retain it verbatim. And so
it's one thing to be like, Okay, I think the
very first book of the Bible I memorized was Philippians,
(43:48):
and I was like, okay, that was cool. But unless
I say it to myself like once a week, or something.
I'm not gonna not going to remember all of it,
And so then it turns into how do I this, Like, Okay,
I memorized Philippians and now I want to memorize First Peter.
Does that mean I need to work on First Peter
ninety percent of the time and ten percent of the
(44:10):
time refresh on Philippians. So I had to get over
this idea of once I memorize it, it needs to
stay memorized in my head for it to be effective.
Because the act of memorizing it, even though I still
do not have the Book of Philippians memorized, was a benefit,
do you know what I mean? So I could see
that being another hang up. People have another hang up.
(44:30):
I could see people getting into is how do I
even know what to start with? Why why Philippians are
not Galatians? Are you saying that Philippians is better than
Galatians or things like that? So, yeah, lots of things
like that, And you're mind, what would be some of
the blocks that you think.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
You would bet up against.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
I think I have a tendency to look at to
have like overwhelmed paralysis, and so I would just be
like I would tell myself kind of like you told
yourself get I get depressive episodes when I do scripture.
I would tell myself, I'm not really that good at
memorizing things. I mean I said that earlier. I mean
that's a label, that's like something. I'm a story I'm
(45:07):
telling myself about myself. You know what, Maybe I'm not
that bad at memorizing things. Maybe I just need to
go try it. And so I think self fulfilling limitations
and just saying that's too big, that's too much, There's
no way I'll be able to do that. I'm not
good at memorizing things, is what would stand in my way.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
I think one of the biggest blocks that a lot
of people are going to come across is that block
of well, i'm too old, right, Like, I was fortunate
to have a strong basis for memorization when I was
a kid. So going back to the NIV that I'm
used to, even if it's a passage that I hadn't
actively memorized when I was a teen, for example, I'm
(45:49):
familiar enough with it that it would be easier for
me to memorize that than it would be for me
to memorize like a passage of Shakespeare or something, do
you know what I mean? It's in my head and
in my brain.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
And it makes sense because the context, the ideas are
all very familiar. Mm hm.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
However, I really feel like we are called to be
faithful with what we've been given my brain. Probably, and
maybe this is a cop out, and maybe this is
not true. I don't know that my brain is designed
to memorize eighteen chapters of the Bible anymore.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
It might not be.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
But that doesn't mean that I am off the hook
from ever being I don't want to say supposed to.
But it doesn't mean that God doesn't expect me to
ever memory scripturegen just because I don't have the brain
capacity I might have had in my twenties, I still
have some brain capacity, right Like I can still remember
(46:50):
your name, I still remember what you look like. I
remember the name of your kids. I mean, obviously I
have some working memory. And obviously, again, like the more
you use your brain, the better it gets it and
I find the mental benefits. I mean, this could be
its own total episode, the mental benefits of memorizing scripture
(47:11):
in addition to just the spiritual benefits. I mean, I'm
sure that would take an entire episode to list out
just the focus that you get and this idea of neuroplasticity. Yeah,
memorizing your first chapter of the Bible is going to
be harder than memorizing your tenth chapter of the Bible
because your brain isn't used to that. And don't bite
(47:33):
off more than you can chew. If I were to
get back into it, I would probably start with a paragraph.
For me, a paragraph makes the most sense because it's
not something I could do in just like a single sitting,
like you know, John three sixteen or something like that.
But it's also not something that is so daunting that
I would never complete it. Right, So figure out where
(47:57):
is your brain capacity? What is your opacity for memorizing something?
And then this other question like you talked about, of
decision or overwhelm, just ask God to bring to mind
what is best and to me it. And this sounds
really morbid, and you and I have talked before about
this most likely over the top, probably not super healthy
(48:21):
fixation with like being martyred or suffering for my faith.
But one of the questions I would ask is, Hey,
if I was in prison for being a Christian and
had no Bible. What passage would I have wished I
had memorized, you know? And if you strip out maybe
the fear mongering behind that, but just ask it kind
(48:41):
of without a ton of emotion attached to it, that
might not be a bad place to start, Like do
you have if if you and I both committed to
memorizing a passage of scripture, do you have one that
pops to the forefront of your mind.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
I don't have an actual scripture. I can take a
stab at it. But before that, I want to make
a note. I didn't realize until you started, until you
said that that my little rant at the beginning about
you know, the grid's going to fail, or if you're
in prison for your faith and don't have a Bible
that idea came from. I know there's a scene in
one of your North Korea books, and I don't remember
(49:18):
the details, but I think the person doesn't have a
Bible and they're either trying to remember or they're glad
that they remembered. But that is the image I have
in my mind, is the same image that I had
when I was reading about that person imprisoned. That makes
me think exactly that if I were in prison, yes,
(49:39):
and I didn't have a Bible, and I didn't have
an electronic way of looking up things. What would I
want to know? And that is that is such a
good question. It would definitely be something in the New Testament.
I'm thinking, although I've like fallen in love with the
psalms through doing the songs every week, I love them,
(50:00):
so I would probably say I would I'll pick one
psalm and it will be a psalm that is one
of the ones where David is just being.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Persecuted and.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
Reflecting on God's greatness, which I think Psalm fifty six
was the one that I most recently recorded, and it
was in the line of that, and so you know,
something like that. But I think I would also want
something from the New Testament, and I don't know what
that would be. I'm trying to do you have any
I don't think I that.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
My next would be from Romans eight for New Testament.
There are lots of beautiful parts in that, but it's
some one where more than conquerors, it's also the neither
height nor depths, you know, nor anything else can separate
us from the love of Christ. There's a lot of
beautiful encouragement in Romans eight. So I think New Testament,
I think pretty much hands down Romans eight. I would
(50:54):
love to brush up on the Sermon of the Mountain,
have a little that more access to that as well,
And then Old Testament Psalm ninety one jumps way up
in the forefront, just a beautiful prayer of protection. You
sent me a prayer based on Psalm ninety one forever
ago that meant the world to me. Do you even
remember that?
Speaker 3 (51:15):
No?
Speaker 2 (51:15):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
You think it was like the very first prayer text
that you ever sent me.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
And it was also the basis for a prayer I
wrote before I wrote The Beloved Daughter, my first North
Korean novel. I wrote out a prayer that I prayed
every day before I started writing, and it was based
off of Psalm ninety one. Wow. And honestly, I mean
tons of Isaiah. If I if I had to pick
like Isaiah forty through the end of Isaiah, I would
(51:43):
learn to have axs so for me to pick. But yeah,
if I were to just jump in own, I would
do like the last section of Romans eight is where
I would start.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
I would also want because I'm assuming I might be
in prison with other people, and I will definitely have
prison guards like Paul. I would want access to, word
for word a nutshell of the Gospel. Mm hmmm, so
that I could like actually present it word for word.
That would be cool, or at least look back on
that mentally, so that I'm expressing it in a way
(52:15):
that's biblical.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
And yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
Well, actually, that's a perfect segue to a plug for
our Christian True Crime Junkies podcast, because we recently did
the entire story of Stephen the First Martyr and his
entire sermon to the people persecuting him.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
So for people who.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
Haven't checked out are Christian True Crime Junkies, you can
listen to that if you're not into crime and you've
avoided it for that reason. We have a recent episode
about Steven, which is all right from the Bible. So
with that, let's go ahead and just plan on chatting
more about Bible memorization next time as well. I have
(52:55):
an entire part of my testimony is losing the ability
to memorize script and having zero recall. Oh wow, there
were a couple of years I if you had asked
me John three sixteen, I would have been like, oh, yeah,
I think I learned that one once. So there's yeah,
there's more to that, and then more just practical tips
and tricks for people interested in Bible memorization. Should you
(53:19):
and I are we going to do an accountability thing?
Are we gonna come back next week with a passage memorize? Oh?
Speaker 2 (53:26):
Let's do it? Yes?
Speaker 4 (53:27):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (53:28):
What are we going to memorize?
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Why don't we each just pick one and come to
come and we'll make those our versus the day. I'll
recite mind tiero and you can you recite yours to me?
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Okay, that'll be good. Don't let me forget I'm gonna.
Speaker 4 (53:43):
Yeah, we need to you need a hack to provide yourself.
I need to start with just remembering to memorize scripture.
Just not even the memory of the scripture, just remembering
to memorize it.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
Let me let me put a digital memo in my memory.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
Yeah, I'll be doomed when technology fails us.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
Don't say that.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
No, no, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (54:10):
I'm in good shape.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
Well, I'm so glad we get to discuss this. Let's
go ahead and closed for today, at least with our
blessing and men addiction. May the Lord open the eyes
of your heart and fill you with wisdom in the
inmost places. May the Glorious Father grant you a spirit
of wisdom and our relation, so you may know Christ,
who has become for us wisdom from God. On the
areas of your life in need of guidance, May God
(54:32):
grant you His wisdom and abundance, so that you will
not lean on your own insight, but rely on the
full riches of complete understanding, which are yours in abundance through.
Speaker 3 (54:41):
Christ and our benediction comes from Psalm twenty nine, verse eleven.
May we shout for joy over your salvation, and in
the name of our God, set up our banners. May
the Lord fulfill all your petitions. May the Lord give
strength to his people. May the Lord bless his people
with peace.
Speaker 2 (54:57):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (55:01):
We'd like to take just a quick second to thank
the team at life Audio for their partnership with us
on the podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com,
you will find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in
their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting,
and so much more.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
That's lifeaudio dot Com.
Life Audio. Hello, Welcome to the Praying Christian Women Podcast.
I am Alana here with Jamie. How are you.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm doing well, how are you? God?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I am just really really excited about today's topic. I
always love meeting with you, but today's topic, I'm.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Like, I cannot wait to talk about this. That makes
me so happy.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah, and this is a topic that's like, it's not revolutionary,
it's a very basic topic. But I love going back
to some of these basics because they're so important, and
sometimes we gloss over them for the you know, frillier more,
you know, obscure things. But this topic is yeah, yeah,
I want to tell everybody what the topic is.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Are we going to leave?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
No? No, let's let's drag it out for at least
another ten minutes, because they most certainly have not read
the episode title, so they.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Have no idea, no idea whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Talking with a friend yesterday and she asked how the
podcast was going, but she was really sweet about it.
And if I went in to be like snarky, I
could tell you in the mean way She's like, so
are you still podcasting about prayer? And truly it was
just kind of a like, hey, are you still doing
this thing that I remember at one point you said
you were doing. But it brought me back to when
(01:22):
you and I started this idea. It was like, how
much is there to say about prayer? It's like, prayer
is talking to God. It is important to do.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
So I think we even had the conversation of, like, well,
when we eventually run out of topics, and you know,
maybe we'll switch gears and do it as something else.
Like I think it was a foregone conclusion that we
were eventually going to kind of run out of topics.
But here we are, what like over five hundred episodes, and.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
You know, I'm so thankful and I'm I love today
we're going to be talking about memorizing scripture. So recently
you and I have been talking just about practical ways
to add more Bible reading into our day to day lives,
which is a struggle that going into this new year,
you and I both confessed that we were having. And
(02:12):
so this is a tangent off of that, and we're
going to be spending some time to talk about scripture memory.
And the moment it popped into my head that we
were going to do an episode about this, I realized,
like Oh, I've been sitting on like the book in
my brain, like I have so much to say about this.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Wow, that's exciting.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I'm so excited. So, because we're talking about scripture memory,
I went to think about things you remember from your childhood.
What is some just like jingle or something just so
random that you still remember super clearly from growing up.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Okay, I remember this commercial and it was funny because
I was in the process of learning the song for
Elease on the piano and there was a McDonald's commercial
that came on and it was to the tune of
for Elease. Oh yeah it was, And I still remember
the words and the girls going she's singing along as
(03:11):
she's playing her piano recital, and she goes, then I
will have my chuckle at shake and cheeseburger and also
ones and also fries, and I'll eat all my fries
myself and not give any to my dumb brother, hands off,
all mine, all mine.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I think it really shows I think that every single
one of us can go back and remember some kind
of jingle or some kind of playground ditty or for me,
it was all the jump rope songs.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I loved that.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
The double Dutch and all the difference and the Miss
Mary Max the hand.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yes, all of those ages live in your head forever,
which is what we're talking about. So like for me,
it was always like bubblegum commercials. For some reason, those
were jingles that always stood out the most. And so
it's kind of this idea of if the people who
made the bubblegum commercials know how to get something in
(04:08):
your head that you remember it forty years later, we
could probably find a way that we can remember a
Bible verse. Right.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I would get to do that, I surely hope.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
So another thing, memory wise, it just flips in my brain.
I read so much to the kids that there are
certain children books that I could either just sit down
and recite to you without having it in front of me,
or if I hear a phrase, it will bring me
like right back to that whole book and all of
a sudden, like I'm resigning the whole book in my head.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah, So you know, as an aside, what's so funny?
So Baby Beluga was a song, yes, and it was
by Raffi. It was also we had the like board
book of Baby Beluga that was our oldest favorite book
and like it was just kind of his theme song.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
He loved it.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
And I recently, like, after having no ever known this before,
someone sent me a song.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
It's called the Hockey Song by Raffi.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Oh yeah, and our kids all play hockey, and I
can't believe that I never knew that the author of
Baby Yuga also had a hockey song.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Anyway, that's fun, that's just fun. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Yeah. I think that there is something beautiful about having
shared collective memories. It's something that I feel a little
sad for our kids generation. I think they have it
a little less because when we were growing up, it
was like nursery rhymes, and now our kids, because of
(05:40):
TikTok and YouTube, it can be anything, right, Yeah, I
heard the funnest little Kids song, but I'm guaranteed that
most little kids are never going to know it, and
my grandkids will never know unless I teach it to them.
But it was like it was an Internet sensation for
(06:01):
all of a week. Do you know the Oh no,
now it's out of my brain. I'm gonna need to
run upstairs and ask my son. Those little funny salamanders
what are they called? The axe lottles?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Oh? Those are I love accel Lottles.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, there is an axe Lottle preschool song which is
know that so cute and so catchy. But if I
taught it to like my baby or my grandbabies who
don't exist yet, it's not like they're going to go
to preschool and their teacher is going to know the
same song and then when they go to their best
(06:38):
friend's house or grandma's going to know the same song.
And when you and I were younger, there was a
little more of that, you.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Know, there were fewer collective songs, like everything was. Things
were passed on from person to person, and there were
only so many, right exactly, and so it's just a
quantity thing.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
It is sad, it is.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
But everybody with preschool or or everybody who thinks that
axel Lottles are super cute and adorable, just do yourself
a favor and look up the axl Lottle song. You
don't need to have kids in the house or young
kids to appreciate it. It's really fun.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I'm doing it all right.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Well while people have you know, paused us to go
listen to the axl Lottle song and then come back,
do you have a verse of the day for us
I do.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
This is a verse about God's word from Deuteronomy six,
verses six through nine. These commandments that I give you
today are to be on your hearts, Impress them on
your children, Talk about them when you sit at home
and when you walk along the road, when you lie down,
and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on
your hands, and bind them on your foreheads. Write them
on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I love this one, and I didn't even realize. There's
a whole other aspect to this topic that I wasn't
even planning to talk about, and that is how to
help your children learn how to memorize Bible verses. Because
our kids were in a Wana, which I think is
a great program for scripture memory, but we would also
(08:02):
memorize longer passages. This is one of the first longer
passages that I talked to the kids, and a few
of the tips I used we did it real sing songy,
so it was talk about them when you sit at home,
when you lie down, and when you stand up. Because
it's way easier to learn a song than it is
(08:23):
to learn a poem. For example, right. How many of
us know songs that we just know the words too
and didn't work to memorize versus how many poems do
you have memorize it? You didn't like work to memorize, right, right,
And so there was that. We combined it with some
hand emotions, which can also be really, really useful. I
(08:43):
think those were the two biggies for that specific one.
But yeah, I'll add that to the list. This might
turn into a mini series about scripture memorization, but no,
I love that passage. I think it's a beautiful reminder
of the importance of imparting scripture to your chill specifically, well,
before we dive into the meat, you want to open
(09:04):
us up in prayer, Yes I will.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Lord, We thank you for your word, and just pray
that this time would just be informative and that it
would be something that would really enrich our desire to
and excitement for memorizing scripture. It can sound like a
very dry academic thing, but Lord, we love it. We
(09:30):
hear word is a lamp to our feet, a light
to our path is it is everything, And we just
pray that you would help us just to continue to
cultivate an excitement for your word to cultivate a hunger
and thirst to take it in and incorporate it into
our lives and help us to find creative ways to
do that.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
So I'm trying to figure out the best place to start,
because so much of what I want to share is
really more of a testimony of my journey with Bible memory,
and through that there will be lots of tips and
tricks and takeaways. But before we even jump into that,
let's just all get on the exact same page. Why
is this even important? Why are we talking about it?
(10:14):
How would you answer a cynic who says, and you
don't even have to be a cynic to say this,
What's point of memorizing scripture? When I could just look
it up on my phone? Right? Like? What's the point
of memorizing the Times table now that I could just
ask Siri to do it for me? Is what I'm
sure some elementary kids are asking their teachers.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Oh, don't get me started. So I have very strong
So we had a conversation. I and our middle kid
had a very lengthy conversation on this about math. It
was the very same thing because there's a certain type
of math and statistics that you need to know the
formula for, but there's also a whole training on how
(10:55):
to use your calculator to find the same answer, and
they're learning both. He was trying to convince me that
his teacher said they only need to know the calculator version,
and I just I was like, no, that's not true.
His worksheet actually clearly in the instructions said that they
needed to do both.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
So you know, I was right.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
But when we talked about it, I told him it's yes,
it's important to be able to use the tools that
we've been given, and this is for both math and scripture.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Memory. Yes, use the tools. I have embraced AI.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I've embraced search engines, and they literally have replaced at
this point my concordance because they incorporate concordances. I don't
open up my physical concordance anymore. But you also need
to know how to find these things and come up
with the answers if those things aren't available. And where
(11:50):
scripture differs is it's not just finding it, it's having
it available to you. And I don't want to be morbid,
but look at the signs of the times. Look at
our reliance on technology.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
It's going to crash. It just is it has to.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
I don't want to, you know it, just at some point,
whether it's temporarily you lose power, whether it's you end
up Heaven forbid, you're in a prison cell and you're
not given access to an electronic or.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Maybe even a Bible.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
I don't want to go down a fear route because
that's not what I'm intending. But we have to get
to the point where we are able to recall God's
word without having to rely on anything but our brain
and our spirit and the Holy Spirit, because at some
point you're not going to have it. What if you're
(12:45):
hiking with a friend and you have no cell service
and you're talking to them, and you have no Bible
on you, and they ask you a really important question
about faith and about God, and you don't have anything
because there's no well of knowledge to draw from for
the Holy Spirit to kind of dig from. And I'm
not saying that as a Christian like that has a
(13:07):
background in the Bible, that you won't have something for
the Holy Spirit to bring to your mind. God is
very creative, but we I believe firmly and strongly that
it is our responsibility as believers to do just this.
These commandments are to be on your hearts. They're not
(13:27):
just to be things that you read during church service
on Sundays or Saturdays. You know when they were in synagogue.
Impress them on your children, talk about them, and tie
them as symbols on your hands, bind them on your foreheads.
Those hands and foreheads are symbolic of your identity. This
is who you are. This isn't just words on a page.
So I can't emphasize enough that we cannot rely on
(13:51):
electronics to bring to mind the things that the Holy
Spirit was always meant to bring to mind. And if
we don't have a well for the Holy Spirit to
draw from, it's going to be very difficult, and at
the very least, it's not going to be nearly as
effective as if you have committed some scripture to memory,
and at the very worst, it's going to be ineffective
(14:12):
and you're not going to have anything to be drawn from.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, no, I think that makes a ton of sense.
I would add to that that the act of memorizing
scripture can really help you slow down and absorb the
meat of a passage in a way that just reading
it for a lot of people wouldn't let it sink in.
So even if I knew that, I would always have
a digital Bible and a concordance at my fingertips whenever
(14:49):
I went in, I would still be able to rattle
off a lot of benefits of memorizing scripture or another
one lying in bed at night, especially if you're prone
to and so, or you're prone to anxiety, learning to
just go through Bible passages as you're falling asleep and
you don't want to have to have your phone in
(15:10):
your hands do that, because that's going to make it
even harder to fall asleep or get you more distracted.
So in addition, I would list those some of the
big benefits. I think of it kind of like a paramedic.
I know that since you've taken organic chemistry, you're going
to get the irony of this. So, knowing what you
know about organic chemistry as a class and what it
(15:32):
requires of students, you will understand how insulting it was
when I went to office hours with my organic chemistry professor,
and hugely printed up behind his desk was this quote
that said I never memorized something that I could look up,
and like, dude, you are literally making us memorize like
(15:55):
a a jillion different rules and formula and nomenclatures. But
on the one hand, I get what your son is saying,
Why do I need to memorize a formula if my
calculator will do it for me? Especially if I have
a decent understanding of what went into getting this formula,
so I at least know what the numbers are kind
(16:17):
of telling me I do I need more than that? Like,
I totally get that kind of question. And so I
think about the paramedic who theoretically there is nothing a
paramedic is going to encounter on the field that a
textbook or an AI or a Google search wouldn't walk
(16:37):
them through. But sometimes you got to just react. Sometimes
you've got to just have that knowledge at your fingertips.
You can't say, hold on, let me, let me find
where it is in the book. You just needs to
have that muscle memory. And I think sometimes Bible memory
can also be muscle memory for when you're confronted with temptation,
(16:58):
or you're confronted with fear, or or you're confronted with anger,
or I think having Bible versus memorized can really help
you when it comes to being convicted. Right Like, honestly,
when I think of the Bible verses that just pop
into my head so versus that I've memorized that pop
into my head when I'm not trying to conjure them,
(17:20):
up ninety five percent of the time, they're probably Bible
verses that the Lord uses to convict me, which is
really important. You know, It's like toxins in your soul.
You want to get those out of you. And so
I would add those to the list of reasons why
all of this is important to be talking about.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
If I would add another analogy, if you look at
just either looking up a verse when you need it
or versus actually memorizing it. As someone who's not good
with directions, I see it as a difference between relying
on my GPS. There are places in this town. We've
lived here for almost two years. There are places in
(18:01):
this town I have gone tens dozens of times, and
I've used the GPS every single time, and because of
how I'm wired, I couldn't get there if I had to,
because I just look at my instructions and I go
on autopilot when I don't have the GPS and I
actually need to go through the act of Okay, I
(18:22):
need to turn left at this road and right at
this landmark. It only takes one or two times, and
I've remembered it. So with scripture, it's the same thing.
If you're only looking it up based on a word
or two, it's not going to incorporate itself into you
in the same way as memorizing it in its entirety
(18:43):
without that crutch.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
That makes a lot of sense. I remember being so
proud this ISI decided about directions. I had learned how
to drive to your home and anchorage from Glen Allen,
like to get up with Glenn Highway and get to
your home. I knew how to do that, and I
also knew how to get from your house to the airport.
And once I had to go right from the Glenn
(19:06):
Highway to the airport.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Oh no, did you know my house first?
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I know, I figured it out, and I was so
proud of myself. I was like, I know how to
do this.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
That was pretty cool. I thought you were going.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
To say that you didn't have to go to your house,
you had to get to my house and then go
to the airport, which I don't think would have been
the best route, but.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
I mean I probably went pretty close to your house.
We lived close to the airport, so it might have
made it.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
I'm telling you my sense of direction really circuitously, but
I made it.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
So Yeah, I think those are all all reasons, and
you don't need to be a fearmonger.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
We had a four day power outage when my husband
was a pastor and he had to finish his sermon
without any of the tools that he typically relied on,
and it was just a good reminder that, yeah, that
these are important and skills to have. I think that,
as much as it could make me sound like an
(20:06):
old phobia, I think it's really important for every household
to have Bible in print to rely on during a
power outage or something like that. And yeah, hiding that
word in your heart four times when you don't have
access to it, or times where you just need like
that emergency kit, the information or the verse to come
(20:27):
to you immediately, those are all really important. But honestly,
I would say that the best benefit, and this is
going to hopefully resonate to our praying Christian women audience.
Is the act of memorizing itself helps you to be
more prayerful and meditative. So honestly, even if like I
(20:48):
had short term memory loss and I could memorize a
verse for like two minutes and then forget it, which
honestly like is a tiny bit accurate, it still is beneficial.
It still is beneficial to take the time to memorize that.
And yeah, so I'm really excited that it gets to
jump into.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
All of this.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
So I think I want to start is just with
kind of my story and through that you can jump
in and we can glean out tips and tricks for
people and all the Bible memory hacks. But this is
basically just a testimony of Bible memorization. So one of
(21:33):
the things I want to start with, and this kind
of ties into helping your kids scripture. I want to
talk about some of the things that my dad did
great to help me because I did have a really
good Bible memory foundation. I wasn't in a Wannas, but
I know that that's a really good kids program. But
(21:55):
we listens to a lot of different Bible versus set
to song. Did you ever listen to or know about
the GT and the Halo Express Music. No, they are great,
and but they were cute little audio dramas. But each
story had maybe like a dozen songs that were just
(22:18):
forbade and Bible Versus set to music, and there were
maybe like six or eight episodes, And so by the
time you learn all of those, I mean, that's a
couple hundred Bible versus right there. So Bible Versus set
to song, I think is great. I think we all
need to get over this hang up that some of
these tips and tricks are childish. They work for kids,
(22:42):
but that doesn't mean that as older people we shouldn't
use them as well. So honestly, that's probably if we're
looking for tips and tricks. Trick number one the fallback
set it to music, just like we talked about these jingles,
right like, you're never not gonna know for release, but
also you know the words to that little song she
(23:03):
was singing to herself.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Oh yeah, where is how many thirty five years later?
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yes, another really fun one. This isn't Bible memory, but
it just reminded me another fun music resource for kids.
Do you know about Beethoven's wigs? The CDs they're really cute.
It teaches kids classical music, but it sets it to
funny lyrics. And so it's called Beethoven's Wig because it
(23:29):
goes that one of the you know, their flagship song
is Beethoven's Wig is very big.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
This is like the Little Einstein's before the Little Einstein's
got it, because that's what the Little Einstein is, the
same kind of thing where they set these songs to
you know, I mean I can't.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I could sing any.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Number of them to the Little Einstein's version. Okay, interesting,
I love that.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, So if you've got kids that you want to
introduce to classical music, you've got grandkids. Beethoven's Wigs super
super fun. Like I grew up with classical music and
playing an orchestra, and there are some songs that I
would recognize, but I wouldn't know their name or who
wrote them. If it worked for Beetho, It's Wig, which
I didn't listen to till I had kids, and they're
(24:16):
just hilarious. But anyway, that's an aside, but it illustrates
how setting something to music can help you memorize. What
I did with our kids is I would often take
songs that they already knew, so I know we set
something to the Darth Vader theme song. I'm trying to
(24:39):
think of a few others if i could remember off
the top of my head. We learned all of their
multiplication tables to song, and a lot of Bible verses
to song.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I love you.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
I love that you mentioned that, though, because in our
last episode, I found myself thinking, I wonder if people
are thinking that memorizing Bible verse this is for kids,
because we kind of associate it with.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
That, you know it like Awana, like the songs.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
But yeah, I think it's important to just be like, hey,
don't be afraid to use what we would consider juvenile
tactics to memorize God's word. I mean, there's yeah, yes,
it's important.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
I love a quote from C. S. Lewis, and unfortunately
I need to paraphrase it, but it's something to the
effect of I'm now old enough to start reading fairy
tales again or something like that. That's yes, I like that,
And I feel like I'm kind of coming back around
because I've been working on a lot of I'm doing
(25:42):
a lot with like children's books for our store and
things like that, and I'm thinking about all these books
that I used to love to read to our kids,
to the point where like once I was talking to
my husband about it and got like teary eyed because
reading to our kids was such a special experience, and
then realizing like I don't need to be a kid
(26:03):
or to have a young kid to love Doctor Seuss right,
Or when I had the flu and I just I
didn't want to listen to like a full audiobook, and
I just wanted something comforting. I listened to an aa
Milmi poem collection and it made me really happy, you know.
And so there's there's something to be said for coming
(26:24):
back to some of these things that yeah, maybe they
were even designed for kids, but they are effective a
be there fun, so why not, right, It's more fun
to learn a Bible versus to the tune of the
Darth Vader theme song than to just sit down and
try to force it into your head. So let's go
(26:45):
ahead and do it. So I had those things, and
we were also just a family where I knew that
Bible literacy was important, right, Like it was just something
that was part of our dat day lives. I'm going
to go on a tiny bit of a tangent. I'm
sure you've heard me rants. Have you heard my NIV rant?
(27:07):
No you have not. Okay, No, this is truly and
it's going to sound like I'm just being petty. This
is the biggest block. I have not been into Bible
memorization the last several years like I used to. In
around twenty twelve. The NIV the New International Version of
the Bible, which is what I grew up, like, all
(27:27):
of my pastors preached from it. All of the GT
songs I learned were from it. All the Bibles I
had growing up were from it. They changed it, so
the NIV that you by now is differently worded than
the NIV that I used to memorize, and it threw
me off so bad that I have not That is
(27:50):
one of the biggest reasons why I have not gone
back into memorizing huge chunks like I got to wear,
like I had over half of the entire Book of
Matthew me like I could just recite Matthew one through
seventeen or eighteen or so. And one of the reasons
why I don't do that kind of intense memorization anymore
(28:13):
is because I'm really mad about what they did, but
some of it also is that same phenomenon we talked
about with like nursery rhymes versus TikTok videos is now
like our pastor preaches from the ESV, this podcast I
listen to uses the NASV. Like there's so many versions
now that there's not one version that's getting reinforced in
(28:34):
my head. And so when I think about a verse,
I've got multiple versions of it in my head, and
it's harder to like, Okay, what's the actual real version,
Like when I do hymns at church, and sometimes I
will need to ask our pianists like play this for
me once, because there's like three different versions of it
(28:54):
that it could be and they're all just like slightly
different from each other. But you know, that's kind of
what happens, kind of like there's multiple versions of a
tall tale, right, And you know, I'm not saying the
Bible is a tall tale, but I think you get
what I'm saying. It has gotten to where instead of
like every single time I hear John three sixteen, I'm
hearing these exact same words in this exact same order,
(29:16):
I'm hearing twenty different versions of it, and so it's
hard to memorize when you've got that it is.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
And it's interesting for me because of my input tendencies.
I love multiple versions and I look at, you know,
the Greek and the Hebrew to kind of see what
is the root word.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
And I understand why they revise things.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
I think they have a better understanding of what the
original Greek or Hebrew meant.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
And that's good. But when it comes to scripture memory,
I'm with you.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I have a very hard time because when I go
back and I didn't realize. I don't think that they
changed it in whenever that was twenty twelve, but I
did realize.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I'm like, where did my version go? What version did
I memorize it in?
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Was it the re because that's what I grew up
with in the Methodist Church was revised standard, and then
I started going non denominational and it was an IV.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
I think I memorized an IV. But you're right, because
I remember.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
That solves a mystery for me because what throws me
off is I had already memorized it. So when you
have already memorized something, it should be easier to re
memorize it, unless they throw a wrench shit. I think
that has been like an unknown block for me.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yes, okay, So thank you for saying that, because I
truly did think that it was eighty five percent of
me being petty and being like, well you changed my
versions to No, it's not like a.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Vendetta that you have.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
I think it's just a I put all this time
and effort into memorizing this. Now when I go back
and re memorize it, it's different. And so I'm going
to have to start from scratch because I can't fall
into that da da da da da da da da
like rhythm of memorizing because then you get to the
word that sticks and it makes it difficult. Very interesting,
(31:02):
that solves a mystery for me.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Well good, I'm so glad that we got to overcome
some of our blocks today, which hopefully this is going
to do for a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
The other thing, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I
want to go back to you, having memorized like half
of the Book of Matthew. What is your process? How
did you get like what did that look like? Because
that is fascinating to me.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah. So it started with something that I had in
my teens. I was part of the Bible Quiz team,
which again used the NIV. And for anybody whose children
have access to Bible Quizzing, I really highly recommend it.
And if you're an adult and you're not going to
be on a Bible Quiz competitive team, I can give
(31:50):
you some of the tips and tricks. But the year
that I was most involved in the Bible Quiz team,
it was the Book of Matthew and so I was
already very familiar with it as an adult from my
experience doing it for Bible Quiz. So let me tell
you about Bible quizzing and then I'll tell you about
how I extrapolated that to memorize it as an adult.
(32:10):
The thing that I loved about Bible Quiz was have
you ever done anything like that? Or do you know
about Bible quizzing?
Speaker 3 (32:16):
No?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
I know you did it with your kids, but I
don't even know exactly what it is.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah, So picture something kind of like academic to cathlon.
We're like, you get a team, you all learn the
same material, and then you go and compete against other
teams to see who knows the material best. And so
it was, here's a bunch of teenagers who are all
studying the Book of Matthew, and so like the first
meet or tournament or whatever they call it, it might
(32:43):
be like Matthew one through five, and then the next
one might be like Matthew five through ten, with a
few questions about Matthew one through five, and so over
the course of a school year, you're working your way
through the entire book of Matthew. Cool. That's how it
goes and the way it was set up. And I
don't know if this is more to do with the
way Bible quiz is set up, or just the way
(33:04):
our coach is taught it, or probably if I had
to guess it, some of both. It allowed me to
get really good at looking at a passage and asking myself, Okay,
how many questions can I make from this? Because it's
never the questions I ask are never about interpretation. It's
(33:27):
never like when Jesus says, blessed are the pure in heart?
Who do you think he's talking about? It would be like,
why are the pure and heart blessed? And you would say,
because there's is a kingdom of heaven, right, And so
it's always if it's not there written in the text,
it is not part of the answer. In the way
that it's taught. So it's almost like sat reading comprehension
(33:48):
where you just learn the answer is always there, or.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Battle of the Books. It reminds me of Battle of
the Books.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yeah, and the answer is always there, you just need
to access it. So let me pull up I'm going
to pull up seventeen since we're recording this going into
Good Friday, and I love some of Jesus's discourse. So
this is Jesus's prayer and John seventeen using the nal NIV.
And so I will show you the way that if
(34:16):
I were reading this for a Bible quizzing, what I
would be asking myself after Jesus said this he looked
toward heaven and prayed, I would literally say, where did
Jesus look he looked to heaven? And then I would say,
what did Jesus do he prayed? And then I would say,
when did Jesus look toward heaven and pray after he
(34:38):
said this? And so basically, you take one verse at
a time and you ask yourself, how many reading comprehension
questions can I create from this verse? So, for example,
verse ten, Jesus is praying and he says, all I
have is yours and all you have is mind, and
glory has come to me through them. So my questions
(35:00):
would be, what is Jesus's okay? All I have speaking
of God the Father? And then what has come to Jesus?
Glory has come to Jesus? How has glory come to Jesus?
Glory has come to me through them? So you read
the verse and then you just go through how many
(35:21):
of those questions can you come up with? And so
basically I was doing it as a teen to be
ready for any question that they might ask in a competition.
But what I was truly doing was making sure that
I was looking at the verse from every single side
an angle. And so that was the Bible quiz method
(35:45):
and way to do that. And I think it's extremely
helpful even if you're not doing it for a competitive setting,
to just if you get to where you really just
want to or need to slow down your Bible reading,
ask so what does this per se?
Speaker 2 (36:01):
What does this per se?
Speaker 1 (36:02):
And it might sound a little moundane. Let's take Genesis
one one. What did God create the heavens and the earth?
When did God create it in the beginning? Who created
the heavens and the earth. God created the heavens and
the earth. So that's right there. That's three different ways
of looking at that verse. And maybe in the process
(36:23):
of doing that, something is going to jump out to you. Yeah,
oh wow, in the beginning that like that's kind of
profound as opposed to just in the beginning God created
you know, I've known that forever. Or maybe it's He
created the heaven and the earth, right, Like, you can
even practice putting the emphasis on different words to see
like in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
(36:44):
Or in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Or in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, right, Like,
there's different different ways. So again I go back to
kind of my tactile way of thinking and learning, and
you're really just manipulating the verse from his as many
angles as you can.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
That is so cool. So how did you take that
strategy and extrapolate it to scripture memory, like actually memorizing
one verse after another, because that's what I would have
no problem coming up with the questions, but doing the
actual memory work is just sounds really daunting.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
The biggest thing I would say is you need to
identify your blocks and figure out how to get over them.
I had a couple of blocks as an adult going
back into memorizing. Right now, my biggest block is this
whole thing about the NIV changing, And theoretically, what I
know I need to do is just get the version
(37:54):
that I'm used to and still learn from that. I'm
not going to try to do all the new stuff.
And honestly, this is gonna sound so over dramatic. I
need to forgive the NIV for throwing this huge wrench
in what was such a huge part of my Bible
study for the majority of my life, because it really
(38:15):
did throw me off, and there's part of me that
I think has been holding on to. Well, if I
just stopped memorizing in description, then won't they be sorry? No,
they don't know who I am and they don't care
you know so. But one of the blocks I had
it as an adult getting back into memorizing is the
act of memorizing would get mentally so taxing that it
(38:38):
could trigger like a depressive episode, and I needed to
look at it as like, basically I saw it as
a spiritual attack. It was when I get into really
intense Bible memorization, I get this spiritual attack and get
really depressed. I think if I were to go back
(38:59):
and coach myself now, I would actually make myself question that.
I would say, are you truly under spiritual attack or
are you just expecting because of coincidence that a couple
times you have memory scripture and have had depressive episodes
after that? Have you made a false association that now
is becoming a self fulfilling prophecy?
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Or is there a physiological thing that happens you know
something about like you know how bright lights activate seizures,
you know, can induce the seizure. What if something about
firing your brain in that space constantly might trigger something?
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Or I know, for me, if I focus on one
thing for more than several hours, like really intense focus,
I get a sore throat. Like physiologically that probably shouldn't happen.
I mean, maybe I'm clenching or something. Who knows, but
you know, so, yeah, there's all kinds of reasons it
could be. But at the time, what I chose to
(40:01):
do was to say, even if it makes me feel depressed,
this is important enough that I'm gonna do it. I
think now I would also go ahead and question the
premise and be like, is this really like is it
a foregone conclusion that memorizing the Bible makes.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Feel depressed or or not?
Speaker 1 (40:18):
But that was that was one of the big blocks.
The second block was a little more practical, and it
was I by that point I had memorized chap like
a chapter of multiple passages of Scripture. I had ninety
percent memorized some of the shorter epistles like I could.
I could have recited them with eighty to ninety percent accuracy.
(40:41):
When you get to something as long as what I
was doing, it was it's really hard to mentally say, Okay,
I'm gonna start at Matthew one one and just lying
a bed at night, I'm going to see how far
I can go, you know. But it's also really good
mental training to do that. And so what I would
do is at night, before bed and in the morning
(41:03):
when I woke up, I would try to like pick
a place to start and see how far I could
go without getting distracted. And the reason why I finally
quit and didn't go beyond Matthew seventeen or eighteen was
I got to where to progress. I really did need
(41:24):
somebody to sit and listen to me recite the whole thing,
like with the Bible in front of them, and A
that's a lot to ask of somebody, and B I
didn't have the voice capacity to like just recite that
much without getting worse. Yeah, so that's how's But basically
it was it was a very similar process to what
(41:45):
I did for Bible quiz, in that I would read
a verse and kind of just examine that versu mentally
from as many angles as I could until like that
versus in my head, and then I would go to
the next first. So it was like, okay, read verse
one enough to yourself that you can do that, and
(42:07):
then read verse two enough to yourself three you can
get that. Next step is put verse one and two together,
you know what I mean, and then keep going. Another
tip that worked well for me is, and this is
another reason why just finding a pirated copy of the
old NIV and just printing it off would be harder.
Is the way I memorize is I see on the
(42:29):
page where I'm at, and so it would be harder
for me to memorize with like here's this Bible here,
and here's this Bible here, because even if it's the
same words, there are different parts of the page, right.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
So.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
You're definitely visually learning.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Yes, so I'm almost like picturing myself in the location
on the page that I am trying to recite from.
And so then once you get to where you can
put two or three verses together, then you just go
to the next chunk. And so I would learn it
chunks at a time, and then not until then when
(43:12):
I try to put the chunks together.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
So you try and just build it like a train
where you're doing one you do a chunk, and then
you do another chunk, and then you kind of put
them together. That that definitely is a good tip and
seems more doable.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Yeah, and then another block. And this wouldn't I wouldn't
even call a mental block. This is just a logistical block.
Is eventually, if you don't keep reciting something to yourself
that you've memorized, you don't retain it verbatim. And so
it's one thing to be like, Okay, I think the
very first book of the Bible I memorized was Philippians,
(43:48):
and I was like, okay, that was cool. But unless
I say it to myself like once a week, or something.
I'm not gonna not going to remember all of it,
And so then it turns into how do I this, Like, Okay,
I memorized Philippians and now I want to memorize First Peter.
Does that mean I need to work on First Peter
ninety percent of the time and ten percent of the
(44:10):
time refresh on Philippians. So I had to get over
this idea of once I memorize it, it needs to
stay memorized in my head for it to be effective.
Because the act of memorizing it, even though I still
do not have the Book of Philippians memorized, was a benefit,
do you know what I mean? So I could see
that being another hang up. People have another hang up.
(44:30):
I could see people getting into is how do I
even know what to start with? Why why Philippians are
not Galatians? Are you saying that Philippians is better than
Galatians or things like that? So, yeah, lots of things
like that, And you're mind, what would be some of
the blocks that you think.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
You would bet up against.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
I think I have a tendency to look at to
have like overwhelmed paralysis, and so I would just be
like I would tell myself kind of like you told
yourself get I get depressive episodes when I do scripture.
I would tell myself, I'm not really that good at
memorizing things. I mean I said that earlier. I mean
that's a label, that's like something. I'm a story I'm
(45:07):
telling myself about myself. You know what, Maybe I'm not
that bad at memorizing things. Maybe I just need to
go try it. And so I think self fulfilling limitations
and just saying that's too big, that's too much, There's
no way I'll be able to do that. I'm not
good at memorizing things, is what would stand in my way.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
I think one of the biggest blocks that a lot
of people are going to come across is that block
of well, i'm too old, right, Like, I was fortunate
to have a strong basis for memorization when I was
a kid. So going back to the NIV that I'm
used to, even if it's a passage that I hadn't
actively memorized when I was a teen, for example, I'm
(45:49):
familiar enough with it that it would be easier for
me to memorize that than it would be for me
to memorize like a passage of Shakespeare or something, do
you know what I mean? It's in my head and
in my brain.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
And it makes sense because the context, the ideas are
all very familiar. Mm hm.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
However, I really feel like we are called to be
faithful with what we've been given my brain. Probably, and
maybe this is a cop out, and maybe this is
not true. I don't know that my brain is designed
to memorize eighteen chapters of the Bible anymore.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
It might not be.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
But that doesn't mean that I am off the hook
from ever being I don't want to say supposed to.
But it doesn't mean that God doesn't expect me to
ever memory scripturegen just because I don't have the brain
capacity I might have had in my twenties, I still
have some brain capacity, right Like I can still remember
(46:50):
your name, I still remember what you look like. I
remember the name of your kids. I mean, obviously I
have some working memory. And obviously, again, like the more
you use your brain, the better it gets it and
I find the mental benefits. I mean, this could be
its own total episode, the mental benefits of memorizing scripture
(47:11):
in addition to just the spiritual benefits. I mean, I'm
sure that would take an entire episode to list out
just the focus that you get and this idea of neuroplasticity. Yeah,
memorizing your first chapter of the Bible is going to
be harder than memorizing your tenth chapter of the Bible
because your brain isn't used to that. And don't bite
(47:33):
off more than you can chew. If I were to
get back into it, I would probably start with a paragraph.
For me, a paragraph makes the most sense because it's
not something I could do in just like a single sitting,
like you know, John three sixteen or something like that.
But it's also not something that is so daunting that
I would never complete it. Right, So figure out where
(47:57):
is your brain capacity? What is your opacity for memorizing something?
And then this other question like you talked about, of
decision or overwhelm, just ask God to bring to mind
what is best and to me it. And this sounds
really morbid, and you and I have talked before about
this most likely over the top, probably not super healthy
(48:21):
fixation with like being martyred or suffering for my faith.
But one of the questions I would ask is, Hey,
if I was in prison for being a Christian and
had no Bible. What passage would I have wished I
had memorized, you know? And if you strip out maybe
the fear mongering behind that, but just ask it kind
(48:41):
of without a ton of emotion attached to it, that
might not be a bad place to start, Like do
you have if if you and I both committed to
memorizing a passage of scripture, do you have one that
pops to the forefront of your mind.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
I don't have an actual scripture. I can take a
stab at it. But before that, I want to make
a note. I didn't realize until you started, until you
said that that my little rant at the beginning about
you know, the grid's going to fail, or if you're
in prison for your faith and don't have a Bible
that idea came from. I know there's a scene in
one of your North Korea books, and I don't remember
(49:18):
the details, but I think the person doesn't have a
Bible and they're either trying to remember or they're glad
that they remembered. But that is the image I have
in my mind, is the same image that I had
when I was reading about that person imprisoned. That makes
me think exactly that if I were in prison, yes,
(49:39):
and I didn't have a Bible, and I didn't have
an electronic way of looking up things. What would I
want to know? And that is that is such a
good question. It would definitely be something in the New Testament.
I'm thinking, although I've like fallen in love with the
psalms through doing the songs every week, I love them,
(50:00):
so I would probably say I would I'll pick one
psalm and it will be a psalm that is one
of the ones where David is just being.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Persecuted and.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
Reflecting on God's greatness, which I think Psalm fifty six
was the one that I most recently recorded, and it
was in the line of that, and so you know,
something like that. But I think I would also want
something from the New Testament, and I don't know what
that would be. I'm trying to do you have any
I don't think I that.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
My next would be from Romans eight for New Testament.
There are lots of beautiful parts in that, but it's
some one where more than conquerors, it's also the neither
height nor depths, you know, nor anything else can separate
us from the love of Christ. There's a lot of
beautiful encouragement in Romans eight. So I think New Testament,
I think pretty much hands down Romans eight. I would
(50:54):
love to brush up on the Sermon of the Mountain,
have a little that more access to that as well,
And then Old Testament Psalm ninety one jumps way up
in the forefront, just a beautiful prayer of protection. You
sent me a prayer based on Psalm ninety one forever
ago that meant the world to me. Do you even
remember that?
Speaker 3 (51:15):
No?
Speaker 2 (51:15):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
You think it was like the very first prayer text
that you ever sent me.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
And it was also the basis for a prayer I
wrote before I wrote The Beloved Daughter, my first North
Korean novel. I wrote out a prayer that I prayed
every day before I started writing, and it was based
off of Psalm ninety one. Wow. And honestly, I mean
tons of Isaiah. If I if I had to pick
like Isaiah forty through the end of Isaiah, I would
(51:43):
learn to have axs so for me to pick. But yeah,
if I were to just jump in own, I would
do like the last section of Romans eight is where
I would start.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
I would also want because I'm assuming I might be
in prison with other people, and I will definitely have
prison guards like Paul. I would want access to, word
for word a nutshell of the Gospel. Mm hmmm, so
that I could like actually present it word for word.
That would be cool, or at least look back on
that mentally, so that I'm expressing it in a way
(52:15):
that's biblical.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
And yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
Well, actually, that's a perfect segue to a plug for
our Christian True Crime Junkies podcast, because we recently did
the entire story of Stephen the First Martyr and his
entire sermon to the people persecuting him.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
So for people who.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
Haven't checked out are Christian True Crime Junkies, you can
listen to that if you're not into crime and you've
avoided it for that reason. We have a recent episode
about Steven, which is all right from the Bible. So
with that, let's go ahead and just plan on chatting
more about Bible memorization next time as well. I have
(52:55):
an entire part of my testimony is losing the ability
to memorize script and having zero recall. Oh wow, there
were a couple of years I if you had asked
me John three sixteen, I would have been like, oh, yeah,
I think I learned that one once. So there's yeah,
there's more to that, and then more just practical tips
and tricks for people interested in Bible memorization. Should you
(53:19):
and I are we going to do an accountability thing?
Are we gonna come back next week with a passage memorize? Oh?
Speaker 2 (53:26):
Let's do it? Yes?
Speaker 4 (53:27):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (53:28):
What are we going to memorize?
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Why don't we each just pick one and come to
come and we'll make those our versus the day. I'll
recite mind tiero and you can you recite yours to me?
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Okay, that'll be good. Don't let me forget I'm gonna.
Speaker 4 (53:43):
Yeah, we need to you need a hack to provide yourself.
I need to start with just remembering to memorize scripture.
Just not even the memory of the scripture, just remembering
to memorize it.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
Let me let me put a digital memo in my memory.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
Yeah, I'll be doomed when technology fails us.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
Don't say that.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
No, no, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (54:10):
I'm in good shape.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
Well, I'm so glad we get to discuss this. Let's
go ahead and closed for today, at least with our
blessing and men addiction. May the Lord open the eyes
of your heart and fill you with wisdom in the
inmost places. May the Glorious Father grant you a spirit
of wisdom and our relation, so you may know Christ,
who has become for us wisdom from God. On the
areas of your life in need of guidance, May God
(54:32):
grant you His wisdom and abundance, so that you will
not lean on your own insight, but rely on the
full riches of complete understanding, which are yours in abundance through.
Speaker 3 (54:41):
Christ and our benediction comes from Psalm twenty nine, verse eleven.
May we shout for joy over your salvation, and in
the name of our God, set up our banners. May
the Lord fulfill all your petitions. May the Lord give
strength to his people. May the Lord bless his people
with peace.
Speaker 2 (54:57):
Amen.
Speaker 3 (55:01):
We'd like to take just a quick second to thank
the team at life Audio for their partnership with us
on the podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com,
you will find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in
their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting,
and so much more.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
That's lifeaudio dot Com.
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