My New Year’s Resolution
A dying woman inspired my New Year’s resolution for 2008. Seven weeks before her death, Jeanne Clem (Pastor Bill Clem’s wife) told Mars Hill about her efforts to memorize scripture during her last days on earth. Specifically, she was working on a portion of 2 Corinthians, which she recited for us:
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (4:16-18) (click here to watch the interview).
I admit, guiltily, that I wondered why she was wasting her time memorizing scripture when she didn’t have much time left. I mean, once she got to heaven, she’d know it all anyway, and she didn’t have that long to wait. But, God slapped me upside the head (as he often does), and he reminded me that there might be value to knowing scripture by heart, even if you know it for a few days of your life, even if you know it for a few hours of your life.
I felt convicted.
Now that I recognize the value of memorizing scripture (thank you God for opening my eyes), I’m faced with some rather insurmountable looking obstacles. I have some confessions to make before you all.
I don’t know my cell phone number. I’ve had it for many months now, and I have no clue 
what it is. When people ask, I have to look it up. I don’t even recognize my husband’s cell phone number, so when he calls, I never know it’s him until I answer the call (so much for caller ID).
I don’t know the order of the books in the bible. When the pastor announces that we should turn to some obscure minor prophet, I either flip through the bible from Genesis to Revelation, hoping to see it as I skim by or give up and go right to the table of contents.
Memorization is an issue for me, and I don’t undertake this resolution lightly. I only have a handful of verses memorized, and even then, they’re mostly in French (a result of a wonderful French instructor who thought it was the best way to learn the language).
I recently tried to memorize the fruits of the spirit, and I got love, joy, and peace, but after that, it’s all a blur. I tried learning it via an annoying song I found on the internet, but now, all I remember is the tune, which is now permanently stuck in my head (click here to hear it, if you dare).
Because of my own weakness, I know that more than ever, I’ll need to rely on God’s strength to accomplish this resolution. God has impressed upon me the goal of memorizing the entire book of James, and to tell you the truth, I’m terrified. But, I’m choosing to trust him.
Please let me know if you have any tips or tricks for memorizing scripture!
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Memorizing scripture was my resolution for 2007. That went about as well as my diet!
So, it’s 2008 and I saw this post. I’ve always wondered why we require our kids to memorize scripture and not the adults! My 9 year old daughter knows all 66 books (in order) of the Bible and I don’t!
Just tonight, I tried to find the Book of Jonah and Esther and had to rely on the ESV table of contents. So, I’m convicted too!
So, here’s a tip. I acquired this technique to help you memorize scripture from a local pastor:
Transcribe the first letter of the passage that you want to memorize.
For example (Galatians 5:22-23):
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law
becomes
B T F O T S I L, J, P, P, K, G, F, G, S-C;
A S T T I N L.
Put the verse to memorize on one side of a 5 by 7 card. Put the abbreviated letters on the flip side.
Place the 5×7 cards in a public place (fridge), type them into a recurring calendar event (Outlook, Yahoo) and e-mail it to yourself, have your kids/spouse/friends give you a pop-quiz, etc.
Give it a try!
In fact, the pastor that gave me this idea would create 5X7 cards and place them on each chair before his Saturday night service and would challenge the congregation to memorize them. Later, the congregation would recite the memory versus and “prizes” were given out as an encouragement to study.
While, it doesn’t seem like something that Mars Hill would do, it does seem like a good thing to introduce into Community Groups in some fashion. Why should the kids have all the fun!
All you need to do is study the book of James every day. Study it as a text. Study how the verses relate to each other. Write outlines. Write sermons that relate the book of James to your life. I just spent two days in chapters 3 and 4 of John. I totally have verses memorized from those chapters now. I was not trying to memorize verses. I was reading the text and the context.
I am sorry to everyone who says to do the flashcard. I did that a couple of years ago and it worked.
But if Amy wants to memorize the book of James, she needs to study it, which means reading it over and over again. But don’t take one verse at a time. Do it section by section. Figure out how it all comes together as a whole. The more you read it, the more you will be able to memorize.
Thanks for sharing this, Amy.
Thanks so much for your great ideas and your encouragement. So far, I’ve got three verses from James down, and I’m still shooting for my goal.
Darren, I LOVE your idea about listing out the first letters of each word. Since you mentioned it, i’ve been listing that on the back of my notecards, above the full text version. That way, I can look at the limited version first, and if I’m stumped, I can look at the other one.
Amity, thanks for the reminder to stay focused on context. I find myself getting so engrossed in each verse that I forget to look at the larger picture, so I need to remind myself to step back frequently and look at the entire message. One way I’m doing this is through a recording I made of me reading the book aloud to myself. I’ll sit and listen to myself read it, which helps me remember it but also it gets me thinking about the chapter as a whole.
I’d love to hear any more ideas from those of you who have memorized scripture and have struggled with it as I have!