Do Digital Bible Searches Relativize Memorization?
00:00:00.000 | Continuing our conversation from the last two episodes, episode 274 and 275,
00:00:09.120 | does this digital revolution and the abundance of Bible apps that we have
00:00:13.520 | access to today, does this undermine our need for Bible memorization? So if I know
00:00:17.760 | there's an important verse in the Bible about a vine and a branch, but I can't
00:00:21.440 | remember the details, I don't need to memorize the details because I can just
00:00:24.160 | pull out my app and do a quick search just for those two key words and in a
00:00:28.440 | moment the verse appears. Do you think, Pastor John, that digital Bible access
00:00:33.040 | will undermine Bible memory and should it? Absolutely not. That argument would
00:00:41.800 | proceed on the assumption that the only or the chief motive for memorizing
00:00:48.440 | Scripture is the functional availability to use in some context. Well, that's a
00:00:54.760 | good motivation. It's just not the only one or I would say not the main one. The
00:01:01.360 | main one is what happens to your mind when it is structured and here I think
00:01:09.680 | things go very deep, Tony. I don't know, I'm not a neuroscientist. I don't
00:01:16.120 | know how the synapses and chemicals and electricity in the brain work, but I
00:01:24.080 | know enough to know that the memorizing of anything or the habituation of the
00:01:33.000 | mind to anything is a physiological and a spiritual phenomenon and the mind is
00:01:40.680 | being shaped. So when Paul said, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be
00:01:45.640 | transformed by the renewing of your mind," that's amazing. I mean, that's one of
00:01:51.320 | those powerful statements in the world, that your mind that God has given you is
00:01:56.600 | to be renewed, and I would say the primary way that happens is immersion in
00:02:03.480 | the mind of God, and one of the primary ways immersion in the mind of God
00:02:09.680 | happens is through memorizing the Scriptures. And back to the practical
00:02:15.960 | part, it is far more powerful. I've seen this again and again, Tony. I've seen it
00:02:25.000 | in worship, I've seen it at the Lord's table, I've seen it at the hospital bed,
00:02:29.240 | I've seen it in the counseling room. If, as you're chatting with somebody or as
00:02:34.080 | you're leading in the Lord's table or as you're standing at a bedside, the Lord
00:02:39.560 | brings to mind a precious part of the Bible, and you can look a dying man right
00:02:47.160 | in the face and recite to him the last five verses of Romans 8, there isn't
00:02:52.200 | anything more powerful than if you...it's just so much more powerful than if you
00:02:56.440 | say, "Well, let me reach in here and get my phone, click, click, click, click, click." At
00:03:00.320 | that moment, that just feels so distant, so artificial, but if it's brimming
00:03:05.720 | within you with power because God has put it there, he's woven it into your
00:03:09.880 | brain, then there's a kind of authenticity and power in the delivery.
00:03:15.160 | In the hospital bed or, I said, at the communion table. I remember one time at
00:03:21.880 | the communion table, I recited all of Isaiah 53 from memory. One of the
00:03:26.880 | pastor's wives came up to me afterwards, so moved, and she said, "I love that
00:03:33.800 | chapter, and it has never had such power for me as when you simply looked at me
00:03:41.040 | and said the whole thing." And I know that's true. When I'm around somebody
00:03:46.160 | who can look at me and exhort me eye-to-eye with the Scripture, there's
00:03:52.840 | more there than if he is reading it to me. So my answer is no. The digital
00:04:01.560 | revolution will not, God please, will not replace memorization. Yes, that's wise
00:04:09.200 | counsel. Thank you, Pastor John. And this conversation reminds me of a previous
00:04:12.720 | Ask Pastor John episode we recorded titled, "Bible Memory as Ministry to
00:04:17.120 | Others," which was episode number 131, and you can find that in the archives.
00:04:20.920 | Tomorrow I'll ask you, Pastor John, a question we get from time to time. Why is
00:04:25.600 | John Piper's preaching so intellectual and sometimes so hard to understand? I
00:04:30.080 | look forward to hearing what you have to say, Pastor John. Until then, I'm your
00:04:34.040 | host Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening.
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