Continuing our conversation from the last two episodes, episode 274 and 275, does this digital revolution and the abundance of Bible apps that we have access to today, does this undermine our need for Bible memorization? So if I know there's an important verse in the Bible about a vine and a branch, but I can't remember the details, I don't need to memorize the details because I can just pull out my app and do a quick search just for those two key words and in a moment the verse appears.

Do you think, Pastor John, that digital Bible access will undermine Bible memory and should it? Absolutely not. That argument would proceed on the assumption that the only or the chief motive for memorizing Scripture is the functional availability to use in some context. Well, that's a good motivation. It's just not the only one or I would say not the main one.

The main one is what happens to your mind when it is structured and here I think things go very deep, Tony. I don't know, I'm not a neuroscientist. I don't know how the synapses and chemicals and electricity in the brain work, but I know enough to know that the memorizing of anything or the habituation of the mind to anything is a physiological and a spiritual phenomenon and the mind is being shaped.

So when Paul said, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind," that's amazing. I mean, that's one of those powerful statements in the world, that your mind that God has given you is to be renewed, and I would say the primary way that happens is immersion in the mind of God, and one of the primary ways immersion in the mind of God happens is through memorizing the Scriptures.

And back to the practical part, it is far more powerful. I've seen this again and again, Tony. I've seen it in worship, I've seen it at the Lord's table, I've seen it at the hospital bed, I've seen it in the counseling room. If, as you're chatting with somebody or as you're leading in the Lord's table or as you're standing at a bedside, the Lord brings to mind a precious part of the Bible, and you can look a dying man right in the face and recite to him the last five verses of Romans 8, there isn't anything more powerful than if you...it's just so much more powerful than if you say, "Well, let me reach in here and get my phone, click, click, click, click, click." At that moment, that just feels so distant, so artificial, but if it's brimming within you with power because God has put it there, he's woven it into your brain, then there's a kind of authenticity and power in the delivery.

In the hospital bed or, I said, at the communion table. I remember one time at the communion table, I recited all of Isaiah 53 from memory. One of the pastor's wives came up to me afterwards, so moved, and she said, "I love that chapter, and it has never had such power for me as when you simply looked at me and said the whole thing." And I know that's true.

When I'm around somebody who can look at me and exhort me eye-to-eye with the Scripture, there's more there than if he is reading it to me. So my answer is no. The digital revolution will not, God please, will not replace memorization. Yes, that's wise counsel. Thank you, Pastor John.

And this conversation reminds me of a previous Ask Pastor John episode we recorded titled, "Bible Memory as Ministry to Others," which was episode number 131, and you can find that in the archives. Tomorrow I'll ask you, Pastor John, a question we get from time to time. Why is John Piper's preaching so intellectual and sometimes so hard to understand?

I look forward to hearing what you have to say, Pastor John. Until then, I'm your host Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening. you you