Q: You’ve taught us how to study the Bible “SYSTEMATICALLY.” What system do YOU have in place, for quoting Scripture the way you do?
A:Now, that’s a good question! Some friends say, they don’t feel that they can memorize their way off a one-story building, much less remember Bible verses and/or where they are located in the Word of God.
Due to the hectic pace of our day-to-day lives, it’s becoming increasingly hard for people to truly focus on what’s really important. In actually, all of us memorize do’s and don’tsevery day of our human lives…as well as important numbers we must store in the back of our brains, such as our social security number, bank card number, distant relatives, etc. Therefore, the problem isn’t that people can’t memorize…it’s that they won’t memorize.
It has been said that, “The Bible is the foundation for witnessing and you must memorize verses to be able to use it…this applies to your devotional life as well as witnessing; and that most people haven’t memorized more that seven verses, whereby the average Jehovah Witness has committed many more to memory and, given the opportunity, could make the average Christian feel about as knowledgeable as a loaf of banana bread.”
There are simple techniques to memorizing verses of scripture. For example, let’s use Philippians 4:19, But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
STEP ONE: Memorize the location of the verse in the Bible…not the actual verse. The reason for this approach is simple…if you forget the verse, but memorized the location, you can always go to the Bible and look the verse up.
STEP TWO:Learn the significance of what the verse is saying. In this case, it’s very simple, “God shall supply all your need.” If you say it enough times during the day/week, it will become easier to remember that Philippians 4:19 states that God shall supply all my need.
STEP THREE:When you reach this step, memorizing the verse and its location should be like second nature, because this is where you actually associate the two together. As you quote the verse, you will automatically thing of the scripture, itself. For example, let’s say someone asks you one day, “Where in the Bible is the scripture found that mentions God supplying all my needs?” Your immediate reply would be, “Philippians 4:19!”
STEP FOUR:To really develop a gift for memorization, you can do what the Lord gave me as the perfect idea, several years back. Simply isolate about an hour each night for several days, and with your Bible at hand and a stack of 3×5 index cards, spend some quality time going through various Old and New Testament books, writing down important scriptures and verses you desire to memorize. You can carry this small stack of cards with you where ever you go.
Isolate about 15 minutes of time each night to simply rehearse the information on the cards. The day will come when you will amaze yourself at how fast you can quote passages of scripture, especially when the unsaved (during a time of witnessing) or a Christian friend enquires about a verse.
Thanks for the question: and I sincerely hope this technique helps!