Thoughts on Memorization

Deal with your servant according to your steadfast love, and teach me your statutes. I am your servant; give me understanding, that I may know your testimonies! It is time for the Lord to act, for your law has been broken. Therefore I love your commandments above gold, above fine gold. Therefore I consider all your precepts to be right; I hate every false way. Your testimonies are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them. The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple. (Psalm 119:124–130)

Yesterday’s sermon was about hiding God's Word in my heart. I’ve never been able to do rote memorization. I struggle with focus and being easily distracted. However, the guest speaker memorized the entire NT so I listened carefully for ways to overcome that problem.

He was clear in all he said and gave tips, like go somewhere with no distractions. That is my challenge. My mind can come up with many distractions, even in a dark room without anything in it. Yet one tip helped: he said to attach memory practice to something I already do without prompting. It could be brushing my teeth, but better yet, I spend ten minutes each morning walking and singing worship songs. I can add memory practice to that.

The other problem is being pragmatic. He said it helped when tempted as verses needed would more quickly come to mind. Yet doesn’t the Holy Spirit do that? If I’m relying on my memory, that is one thing, but relying on the Lord is amazing. He answers my need with His thoughts. I am not certain memorization is the best way to rely on for resisting temptation. Desiring to obey seems more important than retention. I could be wrong, yet relying on the Lord seems less about what I know and more about what and who I am trusting.

The passage above elevates understanding before knowing, and loving God's commands above keeping them. Knowing them by memorization can happen without doing what they say. Doing what they say means I have them in my heart far deeper than just being able to recite them.

All that said, at the end of the sermon, two men stood up and after three months of memory work, they said the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) from memory. It was not only motivational, but mesmerizing, better than if they had read it.

Jesus, I am so in agreement with the psalmist. I love Your Word and challenged daily to do what You tell me through its pages. It makes me realize what I do not know and how wise You are. Thank You for the Holy Spirit who is an enduring and powerful gift to my memory.

If people don’t do what I say . . .

In studying spiritual gifts, I’ve learned that when a Christian is relying on their own strength, their giftedness will show up in predictable and negative ways. For example, leaders governed by the Holy Spirit inspire others to use their gifts, but in the flesh, they can be overbearing and bossy. Teachers who walk in the Spirit will share God’s truths with others in appropriate ways, but in the flesh, a teacher will still gather information but tend to think knowing it is the goal and fail to put it into practice.

Both the OT and the NT emphasize the importance of applying Scripture. When Joshua was leading God’s people into the Promised Land, God told him:

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. (Joshua 1:8)

This was not only Joshua’s key to success; it is true for all. I’ve read of people who memorize vast chunks of Scripture without any change in their lives. I’ve also read of a boy who amazed others at his ability to memorize and when asked his method, he said it was easy: everything he set out to memorize, he obeyed it. In that obedience, the passage became deeply important to him, part of his heart and life.

James 1:22 compares to Joshua 1:8 in saying the same thing, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” yet adds that just reading it without obedience leads to deception. That is, if I read John 3:16 without doing what it says (believing in Christ), I could think I had eternal life, but was really perishing.

This reminds me of a man who mockingly said, “Sure, I believe that Jesus died for the sins of the world, so what’s so hard about that?” He knew what the Bible said, but had not applied it. I replied, “But what about your sin?” He immediately sobered, was silent for a moment, then said, “Oh, I see what you mean.”

It is not enough to hear what God says. I need to do what He says. In years of teaching, I’m painfully aware of that tendency to think that knowing it is enough, but that is not correct. Hearing is easy compared to doing what I hear. Effective Bible study is far more than just reading it. Inductive study asks these key questions: What does the Bible say? What does it mean (both to the original readers and to me)? And how does it apply to my life?

This is so important to me that I seldom look at studious commentaries that dissect the Bible but say nothing about the changes it should make in the way I think, talk, and act. Knowledge without application is useless.

MacArthur points out that “doer of the word” is not about periodic obedience but about a person who habitually and characteristically obeys. He says, “It’s one thing to run a race; it’s something else to be a runner. It’s one thing to teach a class; it’s something else to be a teacher.” I cannot say I am a runner unless that is part of my life, nor can I say I am a teacher if I spout off knowledge without any results in my life or the lives of those who hear me. To be a doer of the Word, I must do what it says! Besides, if people do not learn from me, then I have not taught them anyway.

PRAY: Lord, You know how easy it is for me to slip into a ‘useless teacher mode’ of spewing out what I’ve learned without doing what You have taught me. That would be like passing a piece of pie to someone and urging them to “Eat this, it is really good” but I had not tasted it myself. No one wants to obey a rude person who tells them to be kind, or a liar who asks everyone to believe what they say. May You keep working on me so I am never content to merely know what Your Word says, but to do it, obeying You because I love You.

DO: Read Psalm 1 and memorize Joshua 1:8. Confess any lack of action that the Holy Spirit points out to me and then practice what I know before sharing it with others.