Daily Devotional

At our VBS program this year, I had one second grade student who could not wrap his head around the concept of Bible memory. He did a great job reading the verse from the whiteboard, but when I told him to do it “without looking,” he covered his eyes with his hands... then peeked through his fingers to read the verse again. When I explained to him that if he worked hard, he would be able to say the entire verse anywhere, anytime, without having it in front of him, he was astonished. “That’s so hard!” he said. In that moment, I experienced a very strange combination of sorrow, frustration, and amusement.

Unlike this student, I grew up in a context in which Bible memory was hugely important. By the age of four, I was being drilled by my parents using a set of brightly colored cards with important Scripture verses. (Matthew 4:4 was on an orange card.) I started AWANA as a “Cubbie” at about the same time, continuing all the way through high school. I have no idea how many verses I memorized across fifteen years of Awana, but my guess would be somewhere in the 600-700 range. From ages eight to thirteen, I competed in the National Bible Bee, which was like a spelling bee, but for Bible verses. Even the boys’ camp I attended as a teen gave out points for memorizing entire chapters of Scripture. I still drill verses using an online tool every once in a while. All that to say, Bible memory was a big deal in my family. My parents actually met through coaching Bible quizzing. So, in a very real sense, without Bible memory... I wouldn’t exist!

I don’t say this to brag. First, because I had tremendous help from both parents, but especially my dad, the greatest Bible quizzing coach to ever walk the planet. And second, because as Paul says, “it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). But the gap between my experience and this VBS student’s experience illustrates a paradigm shift.

Bible memory is a dying skill. Even AWANA has become less stringent in its Bible memory emphasis (in all fairness, to increase its emphasis on other tools of discipleship). In education more generally, rote memorization is an antiquated relic, used by teachers who make their students write in cursive or ban electronics in the classroom. Memorization is just less important in the digital age: the argument that “you won’t always have a Bible with you” doesn’t hold up when we all have phones with Bible apps in our pockets. Even if I can’t remember the reference, a quick Google search for “Bible verse about praying without ceasing” is usually enough to do the trick.

So why bother memorizing Scripture? First and most importantly, memorizing Scripture is highly commended by Scripture itself. Paul commands the Christians at Colossae to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Colossians 3:16). While this means more than just memorization, it certainly doesn’t mean less. Scripture promises spiritual blessing on those who fill their minds with God’s word; Psalm 1:2 tells us that the person is “blessed” whose “delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” “Meditate” here means more than just “quiet time” in the morning and before bed. This verse was written 2500 years before the printing press, let alone the Bible app – so meditate necessarily included memorize.
 
Second, Bible memory is still incredibly useful for spiritual conversations. Peter tells us to “always [be] prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). Even with the Bible at our digital fingertips, I think memorizing Scripture is still the best way to be prepared to make that defense. I can’t tell you the number of times when I’ve been counseling a student and a memorized verse weaved perfectly into the conversation. So “I’ll always have a Bible with me” doesn’t mean memorized Scripture is useless. In my experience, someone with even fifty verses memorized on key subjects is better “prepared” than the person reliant on his Bible app.

Third, memorized Bible verses help fight temptation. In Psalm 119, the psalmist says, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word” (v. 9). This “guarding” takes the form of memorization: “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” We see this in action in Matthew 4, when Jesus defeats each of Satan’s three temptations by quoting a single Bible verse (all of them from the book of Deuteronomy!). I’ve found that in those moments of temptation (or of anxiety, depression, or fear), the Holy Spirit often brings a memorized verse or two to mind. The most common one, my favorite weapon against intrusive thoughts, comes from 2 Corinthians 10:5: “...take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

Finally, memorized Bible verses shape our worldview. Some of the most sanctified people I’ve known have their vocabulary infused with the language of Scripture from years of memorized Bible verses. This is because “the word of God is living and active” (Hebrews 4:12) and God’s word “will not return to him empty” (Isaiah 55:11). It has the power to transform our thinking and our lives unlike anything else. But anything we fill our minds with affects us on a deep level: “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). My youth pastor called this principle “garbage in, garbage out;” we could just as easily say “Scripture in, Scripture out.” In this sense, taking the effort to memorize Scripture is a commitment to let our thoughts, our attitudes, and our actions be shaped by God’s word, not by entertainment, human wisdom, or even our own feelings.

I have to admit, in writing this devotional, I’m convicted of how much I’ve neglected my own practice of memorizing Scripture in recent days. What about you? Is memorizing Scripture part of your interaction with God’s word? Part of your family devotions? When was the last time you memorized a Bible verse? Don’t feel obligated to jump straight to memorizing dozens or hundreds of verses: there is great power in even a single verse of God’s inspired word (2 Timothy 3:16-17). After all, the word of God will never pass away (Matthew 24:35): memorizing it is never a waste of time!

"English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers."