Scripture Memorization

Over this year as a church, we are exploring different spiritual practices together, focusing on each one for about a month. For the month of May, our focus is memorizing Scripture.

My senior year of high school and again during my senior year in college, I was tasked with memorizing the first fifteen lines of the “General Prologue” of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in Middle English. An arduous task, but effective since I can still recite most of it. Those words are just stuck in the recesses of my brain brought to the surface at seemingly random times. Memory is funny like that. But while I find the Canterbury Tales fascinating, this collection of stories impacts my life only minutely, and my ability to recite Middle English amounts to little more than a trivial party trick.

What comes to your mind when you think about memorization? Is it something from your past? We memorize many things over the course of our lives- phone numbers, addresses, spelling words, songs, directions, recipes, and the list could continue. A phrase we often use to describe this is “knowing it by heart.” What is something you know by heart?

But despite our minds’ ability to memorize and store words from a dead version of English, memorization is becoming an increasingly lost art in our modern world with endless information at our fingertips. Why do I need to memorize anything when Google will spit out an answer to any question in under a second from a handheld computer I can carry in my pocket?

Adele Ahlburg Calhoun, the author of Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, writes about the importance of memorization as a spiritual practice this way:

“A mind so overwhelmed with information that nothing is known by heart can leave the soul at the mercy of the last mental image that took our fancy. Memorization allows us to choose words and images that shape our minds and hearts. It gives the mind somewhere to go when all the media is turned off. Furthermore, memorizing God’s Word allows us to access divinely inspired thought and wisdom. And it works in us even when we are not conscious of its doing so.”¹

Memorizing Scripture, then, is not about accumulating information or regurgitating facts. Rather, Scripture memorization is about formation. When we memorize Scripture we are infused with the Word of God, the words of Scripture coursing through our veins impacting every cell with nothing left untouched. Thus, our mindset when we memorize Scripture is for it to become a part of us and transform us. So we live with the same passage for a period of time, reading, reflecting, reciting, and letting it impact the way we live. That’s why the phrase, “know it by heart” is so fitting. When we know something by heart, it has become a part of us and overflows into every area of our lives.

This month we are going to be infused with God’s Word as we seek to memorize Scripture together.

The Practice: Be Infused with God’s Word
Spend some time reflecting on the impact of Scripture on your life. What verses do you already know by heart? What is your attitude toward Scripture memory? A helpful reflection companion is Psalm 119 in which the psalmist offers his own extensive reflection on the importance of a life immersed in God’s Word. It is from this Psalm that we get such verses as “I have hidden your words in my heart that I might not sin against you” (v. 11), “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (v. 103), and “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path” (v. 105).

The next step is to pray. Talk to God about your desire to be infused with his Word. Talk to him about your excitement and concerns about this practice. Then, seek his guidance as you choose a passage to memorize. You might consider one of the following passages or choose one of your own.

Over the course of this month, commit to memorizing this passage, letting the words of Scripture infuse every part of you. Here are a few ideas to help with memorization: Read the passage through multiple times each day. Write it on a card and place it somewhere you will see it often. Put it on the lock screen of your phone so you see it every time you pick up your phone. Listen to the passage using the Bible app or the Dwell app. Write it in fancy handwriting. Illustrate it. If singing helps you, sing the passage. Check out Verses on Spotify for Scripture set to music.

Most importantly, be sure to share your plan with someone who will hold you accountable for your intention to be infused with Scripture. May we be formed and transformed as we journey together this month.

1. Adele Ahlburg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices that Transform Us. 195. ↩︎