Bible Memory: Essential or Optional?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Mr. Rovi Lopez, a listener from the Philippines,
00:00:08.000 | writes in to ask this.
00:00:09.440 | Pastor John, I love the Bible.
00:00:10.960 | I want my whole life to be gladly given
00:00:12.400 | to know Jesus Christ and the scriptures.
00:00:14.480 | So how do you memorize the Bible?
00:00:16.440 | And what would you advise a 20-year-old like me?
00:00:19.040 | Where should I start?
00:00:20.120 | - Well, I do have a concrete idea
00:00:22.880 | where I'd like him to start.
00:00:24.880 | And it's partly because of where I'm starting here
00:00:28.820 | at the beginning of the year.
00:00:31.680 | I was asked at the Cross Conference several weeks ago
00:00:37.960 | in Louisville about Bible memorization,
00:00:40.400 | and I was very excited.
00:00:41.320 | This was just before David Platt stood up to speak,
00:00:44.000 | which is kind of an amazing providence
00:00:46.520 | because David recited from memory
00:00:48.920 | the entire Romans 1 to 8 in front of 3,500 students,
00:00:53.920 | and we were all wonderfully blown away.
00:00:56.840 | In fact, it's interesting just to show the power
00:00:59.580 | of the memorized and recited word.
00:01:01.700 | I know a young woman, 13 years old, who was saved,
00:01:05.420 | she says, between chapters four and five of that recitation.
00:01:09.660 | I heard about that the next morning after that.
00:01:12.520 | So I just want to encourage Rovi
00:01:16.060 | that it is worth whatever efforts you make
00:01:20.100 | to memorize the scriptures.
00:01:22.060 | The reason I told those students
00:01:24.620 | that I'm setting off on a higher level of commitment
00:01:27.580 | to Bible memory in 2014 is one, because I'm getting older.
00:01:32.580 | Things don't stick.
00:01:35.500 | Short-term memory doesn't work so well
00:01:38.280 | in my brain like it used to,
00:01:39.740 | so I have to work harder to make things stick.
00:01:43.100 | And so I need to beef up the time commitment
00:01:46.700 | and the intentionality of my scripture memory efforts,
00:01:50.640 | which I want to do.
00:01:53.820 | And another reason is because I've never met
00:01:58.820 | a strong Christian who doesn't give themselves
00:02:02.340 | to Bible reading and Bible memory.
00:02:04.220 | And all the weak and worldly Christians I know
00:02:07.940 | neglect the Bible, especially Bible memorization.
00:02:12.100 | Love for the word of God and attention to it
00:02:15.620 | and memorization of it has always been a mark
00:02:19.020 | of the mature, it seems like, a signature.
00:02:22.940 | It's a signature of the sanctified people.
00:02:26.020 | Low-level interest in the Bible and Bible memory
00:02:30.340 | almost always goes hand-in-hand
00:02:32.620 | with high-level interest in superficial things.
00:02:36.020 | And whenever Christians with high-level interest
00:02:39.980 | in superficial things hear this,
00:02:42.420 | they instinctively protect themselves
00:02:45.780 | and their love of superficial things
00:02:47.820 | by calling this legalistic.
00:02:49.740 | They say this talk about focusing the Bible
00:02:52.740 | and reading the Bible and memorizing scripture is legalism.
00:02:56.420 | And of course, it's not about earning anything
00:02:59.340 | and it's not about keeping rules.
00:03:02.260 | It's about what you love and what you're passionate about
00:03:07.260 | and what you feel a need for in your heart.
00:03:10.260 | Do you love God's word?
00:03:11.380 | Are you passionate about him and what he has said?
00:03:15.440 | Do you feel a need for his word every day?
00:03:17.340 | Well, I do, and I do more than just in the morning
00:03:20.680 | when I read my Bible, I feel it all day long.
00:03:22.820 | And so I want to treasure the Bible.
00:03:26.220 | Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
00:03:29.540 | If you treasure God and his word,
00:03:32.380 | then your heart will be there, be there in his word.
00:03:35.340 | And you'll want it to be there in the word all day long.
00:03:38.140 | And one of the great ways to do that
00:03:39.760 | is to memorize scripture.
00:03:41.540 | So I told those students,
00:03:43.460 | let's all memorize Romans 8 together.
00:03:45.420 | So that's my concrete suggestion.
00:03:46.980 | Where do you start?
00:03:48.820 | I would suggest that,
00:03:51.680 | there are a lot of people who've never memorized
00:03:53.440 | a whole chapter of the Bible in their lives.
00:03:57.100 | And I would just plead with Rovi
00:04:00.800 | to give himself to Romans 8.
00:04:03.600 | And my guess is the vast majority of those
00:04:06.120 | who've listened to this have never memorized Romans 8.
00:04:11.080 | I had never memorized a chapter in the Bible
00:04:16.080 | before I was 28 years old.
00:04:18.520 | I had only worked on verses.
00:04:20.780 | And then I heard Art Lewis recite in chapel
00:04:24.660 | at Bethel College, Matthew 6, 25 to 34.
00:04:29.180 | That's all, just those verses on anxiety.
00:04:31.640 | Don't be anxious about what you should eat
00:04:33.700 | or what you should drink.
00:04:34.740 | He just recited.
00:04:35.940 | And I was watching him and I said,
00:04:37.100 | I've never seen anybody do that.
00:04:39.180 | And isn't that amazing?
00:04:40.020 | I was 28, I was teaching at Bethel College,
00:04:42.840 | and I was watching a man recite one single paragraph
00:04:45.620 | from the Sermon on the Mount.
00:04:46.760 | And I was blown away by it
00:04:48.200 | because I'd never seen anybody stand up
00:04:50.440 | and recite an entire paragraph of the Bible from memory.
00:04:55.440 | And since then, I've just given myself to do it
00:05:00.180 | and I've seen the power of it.
00:05:02.360 | I remember reciting Isaiah 53 from memory
00:05:06.720 | over a communion service one time
00:05:08.340 | and a woman just broke down with the power of it.
00:05:12.340 | I remember reciting all of Revelation 5
00:05:14.520 | at a New Year's Eve service some years ago.
00:05:17.280 | I did it again at Passion last year.
00:05:19.920 | I remember reciting all of Psalm 118
00:05:22.680 | when the north campus of our church opened
00:05:25.440 | and I wanted to welcome the people
00:05:26.760 | with something significant.
00:05:27.880 | And so I just recited that Psalm.
00:05:30.560 | But the reason I suggest that we all get going
00:05:34.080 | with Romans 8, if we haven't done it,
00:05:36.400 | is that this paragraph is probably the greatest.
00:05:40.680 | I mean, this chapter is probably the greatest chapter
00:05:42.880 | in the Bible and it's always relevant.
00:05:44.800 | It's always got something to say.
00:05:46.960 | I told the students, I don't think you'll ever be
00:05:49.480 | in a situation where Romans 8 will not be useful to you.
00:05:54.360 | It goes from no condemnation to the substitution of Christ
00:05:58.760 | in our condemnation to peace and life
00:06:01.360 | that the Spirit brings, to the inability
00:06:03.840 | of the flesh to do anything,
00:06:06.240 | to the promise of the resurrection,
00:06:07.880 | to the assurance of our adoption
00:06:09.520 | and the witness of the Spirit,
00:06:11.200 | to the promise of glorification
00:06:13.560 | and the sufferings of the entire creation
00:06:15.920 | and the sufferings and groanings of us believers
00:06:18.920 | as we wait for redemption,
00:06:20.720 | the struggle of prayer and the Spirit's help in prayer,
00:06:24.840 | the great promise that everything works for our good,
00:06:27.560 | the foundation of that promise in predestination
00:06:31.560 | and calling and justification and glorification,
00:06:34.300 | the promise that He'll give us all things,
00:06:36.240 | the impossibility of separating us from Christ,
00:06:38.640 | the invincible love of God.
00:06:40.440 | I mean, this chapter is just so full.
00:06:44.520 | And so I wish every believer would give the time
00:06:48.320 | and effort to memorizing this chapter.
00:06:52.240 | It's absolutely incomparable.
00:06:54.840 | And I would love to talk about how to do it,
00:06:57.160 | but maybe we've been probably going long enough.
00:07:00.360 | Maybe we should do that tomorrow.
00:07:02.240 | 'Cause I have really concrete suggestions for Rovian,
00:07:06.040 | for anybody else who wants to know,
00:07:08.200 | well, how would you even go about memorizing
00:07:11.000 | a chapter of the Bible?
00:07:12.960 | - Thank you, Pastor John.
00:07:14.360 | And tomorrow we'll get into those concrete suggestions.
00:07:16.880 | Until then, if you're looking for even more motivation
00:07:19.120 | to memorize scripture,
00:07:20.520 | look in the Ask Pastor John podcast archive
00:07:22.640 | for an episode titled Bible Memory as Ministry to Others.
00:07:26.440 | That was episode number 131,
00:07:28.400 | Bible Memory as Ministry to Others.
00:07:31.240 | Bible memory has a key community dimension to it,
00:07:34.000 | and that episode addresses it.
00:07:35.840 | Also, for those of you who are writers,
00:07:37.580 | there's an old episode titled Writing Poetry,
00:07:40.240 | Where Do I Start?
00:07:41.200 | Which was episode number 24.
00:07:42.960 | And there, Pastor John commends the memorizing of the Psalms
00:07:45.960 | as a way to improve your stock of language as a writer.
00:07:49.240 | And finally, speaking of the Cross Conference,
00:07:51.600 | that was mentioned earlier,
00:07:52.800 | you can watch all of the main sessions online right now
00:07:55.760 | at crosscon.com, crosscon.com.
00:07:59.680 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:08:00.680 | We'll see you tomorrow.
00:08:01.840 | (upbeat music)
00:08:04.420 | (upbeat music)
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