Speaker 1: Life Audio. Hello, Welcome to the Praying Christian Women Podcast.
Speaker 1: I am Alana here with Jamie. How are you.
Speaker 2: I'm doing well, how are you? God?
Speaker 1: I am just really really excited about today's topic. I
Speaker 1: always love meeting with you, but today's topic, I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, I cannot wait to talk about this. That makes
Speaker 2: me so happy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is a topic that's like, it's not revolutionary,
Speaker 3: it's a very basic topic. But I love going back
Speaker 3: to some of these basics because they're so important, and
Speaker 3: sometimes we gloss over them for the you know, frillier more,
Speaker 3: you know, obscure things. But this topic is yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I want to tell everybody what the topic is.
Speaker 2: Are we going to leave?
Speaker 1: No? No, let's let's drag it out for at least
Speaker 1: another ten minutes, because they most certainly have not read
Speaker 1: the episode title, so they.
Speaker 2: Have no idea, no idea whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Talking with a friend yesterday and she asked how the
Speaker 1: podcast was going, but she was really sweet about it.
Speaker 1: And if I went in to be like snarky, I
Speaker 1: could tell you in the mean way She's like, so
Speaker 1: are you still podcasting about prayer? And truly it was
Speaker 1: just kind of a like, hey, are you still doing
Speaker 1: this thing that I remember at one point you said
Speaker 1: you were doing. But it brought me back to when
Speaker 1: you and I started this idea. It was like, how
Speaker 1: much is there to say about prayer? It's like, prayer
Speaker 1: is talking to God. It is important to do.
Speaker 3: So I think we even had the conversation of, like, well,
Speaker 3: when we eventually run out of topics, and you know,
Speaker 3: maybe we'll switch gears and do it as something else.
Speaker 3: Like I think it was a foregone conclusion that we
Speaker 3: were eventually going to kind of run out of topics.
Speaker 3: But here we are, what like over five hundred episodes, and.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm so thankful and I'm I love today
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about memorizing scripture. So recently
Speaker 1: you and I have been talking just about practical ways
Speaker 1: to add more Bible reading into our day to day lives,
Speaker 1: which is a struggle that going into this new year,
Speaker 1: you and I both confessed that we were having. And
Speaker 1: so this is a tangent off of that, and we're
Speaker 1: going to be spending some time to talk about scripture memory.
Speaker 1: And the moment it popped into my head that we
Speaker 1: were going to do an episode about this, I realized,
Speaker 1: like Oh, I've been sitting on like the book in
Speaker 1: my brain, like I have so much to say about this.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's exciting.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited. So, because we're talking about scripture memory,
Speaker 1: I went to think about things you remember from your childhood.
Speaker 1: What is some just like jingle or something just so
Speaker 1: random that you still remember super clearly from growing up.
Speaker 3: Okay, I remember this commercial and it was funny because
Speaker 3: I was in the process of learning the song for
Speaker 3: Elease on the piano and there was a McDonald's commercial
Speaker 3: that came on and it was to the tune of
Speaker 3: for Elease. Oh yeah it was, And I still remember
Speaker 3: the words and the girls going she's singing along as
Speaker 3: she's playing her piano recital, and she goes, then I
Speaker 3: will have my chuckle at shake and cheeseburger and also
Speaker 3: ones and also fries, and I'll eat all my fries
Speaker 3: myself and not give any to my dumb brother, hands off,
Speaker 3: all mine, all mine.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it really shows I think that every single
Speaker 1: one of us can go back and remember some kind
Speaker 1: of jingle or some kind of playground ditty or for me,
Speaker 1: it was all the jump rope songs.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 2: I loved that.
Speaker 3: The double Dutch and all the difference and the Miss
Speaker 3: Mary Max the hand.
Speaker 1: Yes, all of those ages live in your head forever,
Speaker 1: which is what we're talking about. So like for me,
Speaker 1: it was always like bubblegum commercials. For some reason, those
Speaker 1: were jingles that always stood out the most. And so
Speaker 1: it's kind of this idea of if the people who
Speaker 1: made the bubblegum commercials know how to get something in
Speaker 1: your head that you remember it forty years later, we
Speaker 1: could probably find a way that we can remember a
Speaker 1: Bible verse. Right.
Speaker 2: I would get to do that, I surely hope.
Speaker 1: So another thing, memory wise, it just flips in my brain.
Speaker 1: I read so much to the kids that there are
Speaker 1: certain children books that I could either just sit down
Speaker 1: and recite to you without having it in front of me,
Speaker 1: or if I hear a phrase, it will bring me
Speaker 1: like right back to that whole book and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, like I'm resigning the whole book in my head.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you know, as an aside, what's so funny?
Speaker 3: So Baby Beluga was a song, yes, and it was
Speaker 3: by Raffi. It was also we had the like board
Speaker 3: book of Baby Beluga that was our oldest favorite book
Speaker 3: and like it was just kind of his theme song.
Speaker 2: He loved it.
Speaker 3: And I recently, like, after having no ever known this before,
Speaker 3: someone sent me a song.
Speaker 2: It's called the Hockey Song by Raffi.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and our kids all play hockey, and I
Speaker 3: can't believe that I never knew that the author of
Speaker 3: Baby Yuga also had a hockey song.
Speaker 2: Anyway, that's fun, that's just fun. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that there is something beautiful about having
Speaker 1: shared collective memories. It's something that I feel a little
Speaker 1: sad for our kids generation. I think they have it
Speaker 1: a little less because when we were growing up, it
Speaker 1: was like nursery rhymes, and now our kids, because of
Speaker 1: TikTok and YouTube, it can be anything, right, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: heard the funnest little Kids song, but I'm guaranteed that
Speaker 1: most little kids are never going to know it, and
Speaker 1: my grandkids will never know unless I teach it to them.
Speaker 1: But it was like it was an Internet sensation for
Speaker 1: all of a week. Do you know the Oh no,
Speaker 1: now it's out of my brain. I'm gonna need to
Speaker 1: run upstairs and ask my son. Those little funny salamanders
Speaker 1: what are they called? The axe lottles?
Speaker 2: Oh? Those are I love accel Lottles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is an axe Lottle preschool song which is
Speaker 1: know that so cute and so catchy. But if I
Speaker 1: taught it to like my baby or my grandbabies who
Speaker 1: don't exist yet, it's not like they're going to go
Speaker 1: to preschool and their teacher is going to know the
Speaker 1: same song and then when they go to their best
Speaker 1: friend's house or grandma's going to know the same song.
Speaker 1: And when you and I were younger, there was a
Speaker 1: little more of that, you.
Speaker 3: Know, there were fewer collective songs, like everything was. Things
Speaker 3: were passed on from person to person, and there were
Speaker 3: only so many, right exactly, and so it's just a
Speaker 3: quantity thing.
Speaker 2: It is sad, it is.
Speaker 1: But everybody with preschool or or everybody who thinks that
Speaker 1: axel Lottles are super cute and adorable, just do yourself
Speaker 1: a favor and look up the axl Lottle song. You
Speaker 1: don't need to have kids in the house or young
Speaker 1: kids to appreciate it. It's really fun.
Speaker 2: I'm doing it all right.
Speaker 1: Well while people have you know, paused us to go
Speaker 1: listen to the axl Lottle song and then come back,
Speaker 1: do you have a verse of the day for us
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 3: This is a verse about God's word from Deuteronomy six,
Speaker 3: verses six through nine. These commandments that I give you
Speaker 3: today are to be on your hearts, Impress them on
Speaker 3: your children, Talk about them when you sit at home
Speaker 3: and when you walk along the road, when you lie down,
Speaker 3: and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on
Speaker 3: your hands, and bind them on your foreheads. Write them
Speaker 3: on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Speaker 1: I love this one, and I didn't even realize. There's
Speaker 1: a whole other aspect to this topic that I wasn't
Speaker 1: even planning to talk about, and that is how to
Speaker 1: help your children learn how to memorize Bible verses. Because
Speaker 1: our kids were in a Wana, which I think is
Speaker 1: a great program for scripture memory, but we would also
Speaker 1: memorize longer passages. This is one of the first longer
Speaker 1: passages that I talked to the kids, and a few
Speaker 1: of the tips I used we did it real sing songy,
Speaker 1: so it was talk about them when you sit at home,
Speaker 1: when you lie down, and when you stand up. Because
Speaker 1: it's way easier to learn a song than it is
Speaker 1: to learn a poem. For example, right. How many of
Speaker 1: us know songs that we just know the words too
Speaker 1: and didn't work to memorize versus how many poems do
Speaker 1: you have memorize it? You didn't like work to memorize, right, right,
Speaker 1: And so there was that. We combined it with some
Speaker 1: hand emotions, which can also be really, really useful. I
Speaker 1: think those were the two biggies for that specific one.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'll add that to the list. This might
Speaker 1: turn into a mini series about scripture memorization, but no,
Speaker 1: I love that passage. I think it's a beautiful reminder
Speaker 1: of the importance of imparting scripture to your chill specifically, well,
Speaker 1: before we dive into the meat, you want to open
Speaker 1: us up in prayer, Yes I will.
Speaker 3: Lord, We thank you for your word, and just pray
Speaker 3: that this time would just be informative and that it
Speaker 3: would be something that would really enrich our desire to
Speaker 3: and excitement for memorizing scripture. It can sound like a
Speaker 3: very dry academic thing, but Lord, we love it. We
Speaker 3: hear word is a lamp to our feet, a light
Speaker 3: to our path is it is everything, And we just
Speaker 3: pray that you would help us just to continue to
Speaker 3: cultivate an excitement for your word to cultivate a hunger
Speaker 3: and thirst to take it in and incorporate it into
Speaker 3: our lives and help us to find creative ways to
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 2: In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to figure out the best place to start,
Speaker 1: because so much of what I want to share is
Speaker 1: really more of a testimony of my journey with Bible memory,
Speaker 1: and through that there will be lots of tips and
Speaker 1: tricks and takeaways. But before we even jump into that,
Speaker 1: let's just all get on the exact same page. Why
Speaker 1: is this even important? Why are we talking about it?
Speaker 1: How would you answer a cynic who says, and you
Speaker 1: don't even have to be a cynic to say this,
Speaker 1: What's point of memorizing scripture? When I could just look
Speaker 1: it up on my phone? Right? Like? What's the point
Speaker 1: of memorizing the Times table now that I could just
Speaker 1: ask Siri to do it for me? Is what I'm
Speaker 1: sure some elementary kids are asking their teachers.
Speaker 3: Oh, don't get me started. So I have very strong
Speaker 3: So we had a conversation. I and our middle kid
Speaker 3: had a very lengthy conversation on this about math. It
Speaker 3: was the very same thing because there's a certain type
Speaker 3: of math and statistics that you need to know the
Speaker 3: formula for, but there's also a whole training on how
Speaker 3: to use your calculator to find the same answer, and
Speaker 3: they're learning both. He was trying to convince me that
Speaker 3: his teacher said they only need to know the calculator version,
Speaker 3: and I just I was like, no, that's not true.
Speaker 3: His worksheet actually clearly in the instructions said that they
Speaker 3: needed to do both.
Speaker 2: So you know, I was right.
Speaker 3: But when we talked about it, I told him it's yes,
Speaker 3: it's important to be able to use the tools that
Speaker 3: we've been given, and this is for both math and scripture.
Speaker 2: Memory. Yes, use the tools. I have embraced AI.
Speaker 3: I've embraced search engines, and they literally have replaced at
Speaker 3: this point my concordance because they incorporate concordances. I don't
Speaker 3: open up my physical concordance anymore. But you also need
Speaker 3: to know how to find these things and come up
Speaker 3: with the answers if those things aren't available. And where
Speaker 3: scripture differs is it's not just finding it, it's having
Speaker 3: it available to you. And I don't want to be morbid,
Speaker 3: but look at the signs of the times. Look at
Speaker 3: our reliance on technology.
Speaker 2: It's going to crash. It just is it has to.
Speaker 3: I don't want to, you know it, just at some point,
Speaker 3: whether it's temporarily you lose power, whether it's you end
Speaker 3: up Heaven forbid, you're in a prison cell and you're
Speaker 3: not given access to an electronic or.
Speaker 2: Maybe even a Bible.
Speaker 3: I don't want to go down a fear route because
Speaker 3: that's not what I'm intending. But we have to get
Speaker 3: to the point where we are able to recall God's
Speaker 3: word without having to rely on anything but our brain
Speaker 3: and our spirit and the Holy Spirit, because at some
Speaker 3: point you're not going to have it. What if you're
Speaker 3: hiking with a friend and you have no cell service
Speaker 3: and you're talking to them, and you have no Bible
Speaker 3: on you, and they ask you a really important question
Speaker 3: about faith and about God, and you don't have anything
Speaker 3: because there's no well of knowledge to draw from for
Speaker 3: the Holy Spirit to kind of dig from. And I'm
Speaker 3: not saying that as a Christian like that has a
Speaker 3: background in the Bible, that you won't have something for
Speaker 3: the Holy Spirit to bring to your mind. God is
Speaker 3: very creative, but we I believe firmly and strongly that
Speaker 3: it is our responsibility as believers to do just this.
Speaker 3: These commandments are to be on your hearts. They're not
Speaker 3: just to be things that you read during church service
Speaker 3: on Sundays or Saturdays. You know when they were in synagogue.
Speaker 3: Impress them on your children, talk about them, and tie
Speaker 3: them as symbols on your hands, bind them on your foreheads.
Speaker 3: Those hands and foreheads are symbolic of your identity. This
Speaker 3: is who you are. This isn't just words on a page.
Speaker 3: So I can't emphasize enough that we cannot rely on
Speaker 3: electronics to bring to mind the things that the Holy
Speaker 3: Spirit was always meant to bring to mind. And if
Speaker 3: we don't have a well for the Holy Spirit to
Speaker 3: draw from, it's going to be very difficult, and at
Speaker 3: the very least, it's not going to be nearly as
Speaker 3: effective as if you have committed some scripture to memory,
Speaker 3: and at the very worst, it's going to be ineffective
Speaker 3: and you're not going to have anything to be drawn from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think that makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 1: I would add to that that the act of memorizing
Speaker 1: scripture can really help you slow down and absorb the
Speaker 1: meat of a passage in a way that just reading
Speaker 1: it for a lot of people wouldn't let it sink in.
Speaker 1: So even if I knew that, I would always have
Speaker 1: a digital Bible and a concordance at my fingertips whenever
Speaker 1: I went in, I would still be able to rattle
Speaker 1: off a lot of benefits of memorizing scripture or another
Speaker 1: one lying in bed at night, especially if you're prone
Speaker 1: to and so, or you're prone to anxiety, learning to
Speaker 1: just go through Bible passages as you're falling asleep and
Speaker 1: you don't want to have to have your phone in
Speaker 1: your hands do that, because that's going to make it
Speaker 1: even harder to fall asleep or get you more distracted.
Speaker 1: So in addition, I would list those some of the
Speaker 1: big benefits. I think of it kind of like a paramedic.
Speaker 1: I know that since you've taken organic chemistry, you're going
Speaker 1: to get the irony of this. So, knowing what you
Speaker 1: know about organic chemistry as a class and what it
Speaker 1: requires of students, you will understand how insulting it was
Speaker 1: when I went to office hours with my organic chemistry professor,
Speaker 1: and hugely printed up behind his desk was this quote
Speaker 1: that said I never memorized something that I could look up,
Speaker 1: and like, dude, you are literally making us memorize like
Speaker 1: a a jillion different rules and formula and nomenclatures. But
Speaker 1: on the one hand, I get what your son is saying,
Speaker 1: Why do I need to memorize a formula if my
Speaker 1: calculator will do it for me? Especially if I have
Speaker 1: a decent understanding of what went into getting this formula,
Speaker 1: so I at least know what the numbers are kind
Speaker 1: of telling me I do I need more than that? Like,
Speaker 1: I totally get that kind of question. And so I
Speaker 1: think about the paramedic who theoretically there is nothing a
Speaker 1: paramedic is going to encounter on the field that a
Speaker 1: textbook or an AI or a Google search wouldn't walk
Speaker 1: them through. But sometimes you got to just react. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you've got to just have that knowledge at your fingertips.
Speaker 1: You can't say, hold on, let me, let me find
Speaker 1: where it is in the book. You just needs to
Speaker 1: have that muscle memory. And I think sometimes Bible memory
Speaker 1: can also be muscle memory for when you're confronted with temptation,
Speaker 1: or you're confronted with fear, or or you're confronted with anger,
Speaker 1: or I think having Bible versus memorized can really help
Speaker 1: you when it comes to being convicted. Right Like, honestly,
Speaker 1: when I think of the Bible verses that just pop
Speaker 1: into my head so versus that I've memorized that pop
Speaker 1: into my head when I'm not trying to conjure them,
Speaker 1: up ninety five percent of the time, they're probably Bible
Speaker 1: verses that the Lord uses to convict me, which is
Speaker 1: really important. You know, It's like toxins in your soul.
Speaker 1: You want to get those out of you. And so
Speaker 1: I would add those to the list of reasons why
Speaker 1: all of this is important to be talking about.
Speaker 3: If I would add another analogy, if you look at
Speaker 3: just either looking up a verse when you need it
Speaker 3: or versus actually memorizing it. As someone who's not good
Speaker 3: with directions, I see it as a difference between relying
Speaker 3: on my GPS. There are places in this town. We've
Speaker 3: lived here for almost two years. There are places in
Speaker 3: this town I have gone tens dozens of times, and
Speaker 3: I've used the GPS every single time, and because of
Speaker 3: how I'm wired, I couldn't get there if I had to,
Speaker 3: because I just look at my instructions and I go
Speaker 3: on autopilot when I don't have the GPS and I
Speaker 3: actually need to go through the act of Okay, I
Speaker 3: need to turn left at this road and right at
Speaker 3: this landmark. It only takes one or two times, and
Speaker 3: I've remembered it. So with scripture, it's the same thing.
Speaker 3: If you're only looking it up based on a word
Speaker 3: or two, it's not going to incorporate itself into you
Speaker 3: in the same way as memorizing it in its entirety
Speaker 3: without that crutch.
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. I remember being so
Speaker 1: proud this ISI decided about directions. I had learned how
Speaker 1: to drive to your home and anchorage from Glen Allen,
Speaker 1: like to get up with Glenn Highway and get to
Speaker 1: your home. I knew how to do that, and I
Speaker 1: also knew how to get from your house to the airport.
Speaker 1: And once I had to go right from the Glenn
Speaker 1: Highway to the airport.
Speaker 2: Oh no, did you know my house first?
Speaker 1: I know, I figured it out, and I was so
Speaker 1: proud of myself. I was like, I know how to
Speaker 1: do this.
Speaker 2: That was pretty cool. I thought you were going.
Speaker 3: To say that you didn't have to go to your house,
Speaker 3: you had to get to my house and then go
Speaker 3: to the airport, which I don't think would have been
Speaker 3: the best route, but.
Speaker 1: I mean I probably went pretty close to your house.
Speaker 1: We lived close to the airport, so it might have
Speaker 1: made it.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you my sense of direction really circuitously, but
Speaker 3: I made it.
Speaker 1: So Yeah, I think those are all all reasons, and
Speaker 1: you don't need to be a fearmonger.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: We had a four day power outage when my husband
Speaker 1: was a pastor and he had to finish his sermon
Speaker 1: without any of the tools that he typically relied on,
Speaker 1: and it was just a good reminder that, yeah, that
Speaker 1: these are important and skills to have. I think that,
Speaker 1: as much as it could make me sound like an
Speaker 1: old phobia, I think it's really important for every household
Speaker 1: to have Bible in print to rely on during a
Speaker 1: power outage or something like that. And yeah, hiding that
Speaker 1: word in your heart four times when you don't have
Speaker 1: access to it, or times where you just need like
Speaker 1: that emergency kit, the information or the verse to come
Speaker 1: to you immediately, those are all really important. But honestly,
Speaker 1: I would say that the best benefit, and this is
Speaker 1: going to hopefully resonate to our praying Christian women audience.
Speaker 1: Is the act of memorizing itself helps you to be
Speaker 1: more prayerful and meditative. So honestly, even if like I
Speaker 1: had short term memory loss and I could memorize a
Speaker 1: verse for like two minutes and then forget it, which
Speaker 1: honestly like is a tiny bit accurate, it still is beneficial.
Speaker 1: It still is beneficial to take the time to memorize that.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so I'm really excited that it gets to
Speaker 1: jump into.
Speaker 2: All of this.
Speaker 1: So I think I want to start is just with
Speaker 1: kind of my story and through that you can jump
Speaker 1: in and we can glean out tips and tricks for
Speaker 1: people and all the Bible memory hacks. But this is
Speaker 1: basically just a testimony of Bible memorization. So one of
Speaker 1: the things I want to start with, and this kind
Speaker 1: of ties into helping your kids scripture. I want to
Speaker 1: talk about some of the things that my dad did
Speaker 1: great to help me because I did have a really
Speaker 1: good Bible memory foundation. I wasn't in a Wannas, but
Speaker 1: I know that that's a really good kids program. But
Speaker 1: we listens to a lot of different Bible versus set
Speaker 1: to song. Did you ever listen to or know about
Speaker 1: the GT and the Halo Express Music. No, they are great,
Speaker 1: and but they were cute little audio dramas. But each
Speaker 1: story had maybe like a dozen songs that were just
Speaker 1: forbade and Bible Versus set to music, and there were
Speaker 1: maybe like six or eight episodes, And so by the
Speaker 1: time you learn all of those, I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: couple hundred Bible versus right there. So Bible Versus set
Speaker 1: to song, I think is great. I think we all
Speaker 1: need to get over this hang up that some of
Speaker 1: these tips and tricks are childish. They work for kids,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean that as older people we shouldn't
Speaker 1: use them as well. So honestly, that's probably if we're
Speaker 1: looking for tips and tricks. Trick number one the fallback
Speaker 1: set it to music, just like we talked about these jingles,
Speaker 1: right like, you're never not gonna know for release, but
Speaker 1: also you know the words to that little song she
Speaker 1: was singing to herself.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, where is how many thirty five years later?
Speaker 1: Yes, another really fun one. This isn't Bible memory, but
Speaker 1: it just reminded me another fun music resource for kids.
Speaker 1: Do you know about Beethoven's wigs? The CDs they're really cute.
Speaker 1: It teaches kids classical music, but it sets it to
Speaker 1: funny lyrics. And so it's called Beethoven's Wig because it
Speaker 1: goes that one of the you know, their flagship song
Speaker 1: is Beethoven's Wig is very big.
Speaker 3: This is like the Little Einstein's before the Little Einstein's
Speaker 3: got it, because that's what the Little Einstein is, the
Speaker 3: same kind of thing where they set these songs to
Speaker 3: you know, I mean I can't.
Speaker 2: I could sing any.
Speaker 3: Number of them to the Little Einstein's version. Okay, interesting,
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So if you've got kids that you want to
Speaker 1: introduce to classical music, you've got grandkids. Beethoven's Wigs super
Speaker 1: super fun. Like I grew up with classical music and
Speaker 1: playing an orchestra, and there are some songs that I
Speaker 1: would recognize, but I wouldn't know their name or who
Speaker 1: wrote them. If it worked for Beetho, It's Wig, which
Speaker 1: I didn't listen to till I had kids, and they're
Speaker 1: just hilarious. But anyway, that's an aside, but it illustrates
Speaker 1: how setting something to music can help you memorize. What
Speaker 1: I did with our kids is I would often take
Speaker 1: songs that they already knew, so I know we set
Speaker 1: something to the Darth Vader theme song. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think of a few others if i could remember off
Speaker 1: the top of my head. We learned all of their
Speaker 1: multiplication tables to song, and a lot of Bible verses
Speaker 1: to song.
Speaker 2: I love you.
Speaker 3: I love that you mentioned that, though, because in our
Speaker 3: last episode, I found myself thinking, I wonder if people
Speaker 3: are thinking that memorizing Bible verse this is for kids,
Speaker 3: because we kind of associate it with.
Speaker 2: That, you know it like Awana, like the songs.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think it's important to just be like, hey,
Speaker 3: don't be afraid to use what we would consider juvenile
Speaker 3: tactics to memorize God's word. I mean, there's yeah, yes,
Speaker 3: it's important.
Speaker 1: I love a quote from C. S. Lewis, and unfortunately
Speaker 1: I need to paraphrase it, but it's something to the
Speaker 1: effect of I'm now old enough to start reading fairy
Speaker 1: tales again or something like that. That's yes, I like that,
Speaker 1: And I feel like I'm kind of coming back around
Speaker 1: because I've been working on a lot of I'm doing
Speaker 1: a lot with like children's books for our store and
Speaker 1: things like that, and I'm thinking about all these books
Speaker 1: that I used to love to read to our kids,
Speaker 1: to the point where like once I was talking to
Speaker 1: my husband about it and got like teary eyed because
Speaker 1: reading to our kids was such a special experience, and
Speaker 1: then realizing like I don't need to be a kid
Speaker 1: or to have a young kid to love Doctor Seuss right,
Speaker 1: Or when I had the flu and I just I
Speaker 1: didn't want to listen to like a full audiobook, and
Speaker 1: I just wanted something comforting. I listened to an aa
Speaker 1: Milmi poem collection and it made me really happy, you know.
Speaker 1: And so there's there's something to be said for coming
Speaker 1: back to some of these things that yeah, maybe they
Speaker 1: were even designed for kids, but they are effective a
Speaker 1: be there fun, so why not, right, It's more fun
Speaker 1: to learn a Bible versus to the tune of the
Speaker 1: Darth Vader theme song than to just sit down and
Speaker 1: try to force it into your head. So let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and do it. So I had those things, and
Speaker 1: we were also just a family where I knew that
Speaker 1: Bible literacy was important, right, Like it was just something
Speaker 1: that was part of our dat day lives. I'm going
Speaker 1: to go on a tiny bit of a tangent. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've heard me rants. Have you heard my NIV rant?
Speaker 1: No you have not. Okay, No, this is truly and
Speaker 1: it's going to sound like I'm just being petty. This
Speaker 1: is the biggest block. I have not been into Bible
Speaker 1: memorization the last several years like I used to. In
Speaker 1: around twenty twelve. The NIV the New International Version of
Speaker 1: the Bible, which is what I grew up, like, all
Speaker 1: of my pastors preached from it. All of the GT
Speaker 1: songs I learned were from it. All the Bibles I
Speaker 1: had growing up were from it. They changed it, so
Speaker 1: the NIV that you by now is differently worded than
Speaker 1: the NIV that I used to memorize, and it threw
Speaker 1: me off so bad that I have not That is
Speaker 1: one of the biggest reasons why I have not gone
Speaker 1: back into memorizing huge chunks like I got to wear,
Speaker 1: like I had over half of the entire Book of
Speaker 1: Matthew me like I could just recite Matthew one through
Speaker 1: seventeen or eighteen or so. And one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why I don't do that kind of intense memorization anymore
Speaker 1: is because I'm really mad about what they did, but
Speaker 1: some of it also is that same phenomenon we talked
Speaker 1: about with like nursery rhymes versus TikTok videos is now
Speaker 1: like our pastor preaches from the ESV, this podcast I
Speaker 1: listen to uses the NASV. Like there's so many versions
Speaker 1: now that there's not one version that's getting reinforced in
Speaker 1: my head. And so when I think about a verse,
Speaker 1: I've got multiple versions of it in my head, and
Speaker 1: it's harder to like, Okay, what's the actual real version,
Speaker 1: Like when I do hymns at church, and sometimes I
Speaker 1: will need to ask our pianists like play this for
Speaker 1: me once, because there's like three different versions of it
Speaker 1: that it could be and they're all just like slightly
Speaker 1: different from each other. But you know, that's kind of
Speaker 1: what happens, kind of like there's multiple versions of a
Speaker 1: tall tale, right, And you know, I'm not saying the
Speaker 1: Bible is a tall tale, but I think you get
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. It has gotten to where instead of
Speaker 1: like every single time I hear John three sixteen, I'm
Speaker 1: hearing these exact same words in this exact same order,
Speaker 1: I'm hearing twenty different versions of it, and so it's
Speaker 1: hard to memorize when you've got that it is.
Speaker 3: And it's interesting for me because of my input tendencies.
Speaker 3: I love multiple versions and I look at, you know,
Speaker 3: the Greek and the Hebrew to kind of see what
Speaker 3: is the root word.
Speaker 2: And I understand why they revise things.
Speaker 3: I think they have a better understanding of what the
Speaker 3: original Greek or Hebrew meant.
Speaker 2: And that's good. But when it comes to scripture memory,
Speaker 2: I'm with you.
Speaker 3: I have a very hard time because when I go
Speaker 3: back and I didn't realize. I don't think that they
Speaker 3: changed it in whenever that was twenty twelve, but I
Speaker 3: did realize.
Speaker 2: I'm like, where did my version go? What version did
Speaker 2: I memorize it in?
Speaker 3: Was it the re because that's what I grew up
Speaker 3: with in the Methodist Church was revised standard, and then
Speaker 3: I started going non denominational and it was an IV.
Speaker 2: I think I memorized an IV. But you're right, because
Speaker 2: I remember.
Speaker 3: That solves a mystery for me because what throws me
Speaker 3: off is I had already memorized it. So when you
Speaker 3: have already memorized something, it should be easier to re
Speaker 3: memorize it, unless they throw a wrench shit. I think
Speaker 3: that has been like an unknown block for me.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, So thank you for saying that, because I
Speaker 1: truly did think that it was eighty five percent of
Speaker 1: me being petty and being like, well you changed my
Speaker 1: versions to No, it's not like a.
Speaker 2: Vendetta that you have.
Speaker 3: I think it's just a I put all this time
Speaker 3: and effort into memorizing this. Now when I go back
Speaker 3: and re memorize it, it's different. And so I'm going
Speaker 3: to have to start from scratch because I can't fall
Speaker 3: into that da da da da da da da da
Speaker 3: like rhythm of memorizing because then you get to the
Speaker 3: word that sticks and it makes it difficult. Very interesting,
Speaker 3: that solves a mystery for me.
Speaker 1: Well good, I'm so glad that we got to overcome
Speaker 1: some of our blocks today, which hopefully this is going
Speaker 1: to do for a lot of people.
Speaker 3: The other thing, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I
Speaker 3: want to go back to you, having memorized like half
Speaker 3: of the Book of Matthew. What is your process? How
Speaker 3: did you get like what did that look like? Because
Speaker 3: that is fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So it started with something that I had in
Speaker 1: my teens. I was part of the Bible Quiz team,
Speaker 1: which again used the NIV. And for anybody whose children
Speaker 1: have access to Bible Quizzing, I really highly recommend it.
Speaker 1: And if you're an adult and you're not going to
Speaker 1: be on a Bible Quiz competitive team, I can give
Speaker 1: you some of the tips and tricks. But the year
Speaker 1: that I was most involved in the Bible Quiz team,
Speaker 1: it was the Book of Matthew and so I was
Speaker 1: already very familiar with it as an adult from my
Speaker 1: experience doing it for Bible Quiz. So let me tell
Speaker 1: you about Bible quizzing and then I'll tell you about
Speaker 1: how I extrapolated that to memorize it as an adult.
Speaker 1: The thing that I loved about Bible Quiz was have
Speaker 1: you ever done anything like that? Or do you know
Speaker 1: about Bible quizzing?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: I know you did it with your kids, but I
Speaker 2: don't even know exactly what it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So picture something kind of like academic to cathlon.
Speaker 1: We're like, you get a team, you all learn the
Speaker 1: same material, and then you go and compete against other
Speaker 1: teams to see who knows the material best. And so
Speaker 1: it was, here's a bunch of teenagers who are all
Speaker 1: studying the Book of Matthew, and so like the first
Speaker 1: meet or tournament or whatever they call it, it might
Speaker 1: be like Matthew one through five, and then the next
Speaker 1: one might be like Matthew five through ten, with a
Speaker 1: few questions about Matthew one through five, and so over
Speaker 1: the course of a school year, you're working your way
Speaker 1: through the entire book of Matthew. Cool. That's how it
Speaker 1: goes and the way it was set up. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if this is more to do with the
Speaker 1: way Bible quiz is set up, or just the way
Speaker 1: our coach is taught it, or probably if I had
Speaker 1: to guess it, some of both. It allowed me to
Speaker 1: get really good at looking at a passage and asking myself, Okay,
Speaker 1: how many questions can I make from this? Because it's
Speaker 1: never the questions I ask are never about interpretation. It's
Speaker 1: never like when Jesus says, blessed are the pure in heart?
Speaker 1: Who do you think he's talking about? It would be like,
Speaker 1: why are the pure and heart blessed? And you would say,
Speaker 1: because there's is a kingdom of heaven, right, And so
Speaker 1: it's always if it's not there written in the text,
Speaker 1: it is not part of the answer. In the way
Speaker 1: that it's taught. So it's almost like sat reading comprehension
Speaker 1: where you just learn the answer is always there, or.
Speaker 2: Battle of the Books. It reminds me of Battle of
Speaker 2: the Books.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the answer is always there, you just need
Speaker 1: to access it. So let me pull up I'm going
Speaker 1: to pull up seventeen since we're recording this going into
Speaker 1: Good Friday, and I love some of Jesus's discourse. So
Speaker 1: this is Jesus's prayer and John seventeen using the nal NIV.
Speaker 1: And so I will show you the way that if
Speaker 1: I were reading this for a Bible quizzing, what I
Speaker 1: would be asking myself after Jesus said this he looked
Speaker 1: toward heaven and prayed, I would literally say, where did
Speaker 1: Jesus look he looked to heaven? And then I would say,
Speaker 1: what did Jesus do he prayed? And then I would say,
Speaker 1: when did Jesus look toward heaven and pray after he
Speaker 1: said this? And so basically, you take one verse at
Speaker 1: a time and you ask yourself, how many reading comprehension
Speaker 1: questions can I create from this verse? So, for example,
Speaker 1: verse ten, Jesus is praying and he says, all I
Speaker 1: have is yours and all you have is mind, and
Speaker 1: glory has come to me through them. So my questions
Speaker 1: would be, what is Jesus's okay? All I have speaking
Speaker 1: of God the Father? And then what has come to Jesus?
Speaker 1: Glory has come to Jesus? How has glory come to Jesus?
Speaker 1: Glory has come to me through them? So you read
Speaker 1: the verse and then you just go through how many
Speaker 1: of those questions can you come up with? And so
Speaker 1: basically I was doing it as a teen to be
Speaker 1: ready for any question that they might ask in a competition.
Speaker 1: But what I was truly doing was making sure that
Speaker 1: I was looking at the verse from every single side
Speaker 1: an angle. And so that was the Bible quiz method
Speaker 1: and way to do that. And I think it's extremely
Speaker 1: helpful even if you're not doing it for a competitive setting,
Speaker 1: to just if you get to where you really just
Speaker 1: want to or need to slow down your Bible reading,
Speaker 1: ask so what does this per se?
Speaker 2: What does this per se?
Speaker 1: And it might sound a little moundane. Let's take Genesis
Speaker 1: one one. What did God create the heavens and the earth?
Speaker 1: When did God create it in the beginning? Who created
Speaker 1: the heavens and the earth. God created the heavens and
Speaker 1: the earth. So that's right there. That's three different ways
Speaker 1: of looking at that verse. And maybe in the process
Speaker 1: of doing that, something is going to jump out to you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh wow, in the beginning that like that's kind of
Speaker 1: profound as opposed to just in the beginning God created
Speaker 1: you know, I've known that forever. Or maybe it's He
Speaker 1: created the heaven and the earth, right, Like, you can
Speaker 1: even practice putting the emphasis on different words to see
Speaker 1: like in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Speaker 1: Or in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Speaker 1: Or in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, right, Like,
Speaker 1: there's different different ways. So again I go back to
Speaker 1: kind of my tactile way of thinking and learning, and
Speaker 1: you're really just manipulating the verse from his as many
Speaker 1: angles as you can.
Speaker 2: That is so cool. So how did you take that
Speaker 2: strategy and extrapolate it to scripture memory, like actually memorizing
Speaker 2: one verse after another, because that's what I would have
Speaker 2: no problem coming up with the questions, but doing the
Speaker 2: actual memory work is just sounds really daunting.
Speaker 1: The biggest thing I would say is you need to
Speaker 1: identify your blocks and figure out how to get over them.
Speaker 1: I had a couple of blocks as an adult going
Speaker 1: back into memorizing. Right now, my biggest block is this
Speaker 1: whole thing about the NIV changing, And theoretically, what I
Speaker 1: know I need to do is just get the version
Speaker 1: that I'm used to and still learn from that. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to try to do all the new stuff.
Speaker 1: And honestly, this is gonna sound so over dramatic. I
Speaker 1: need to forgive the NIV for throwing this huge wrench
Speaker 1: in what was such a huge part of my Bible
Speaker 1: study for the majority of my life, because it really
Speaker 1: did throw me off, and there's part of me that
Speaker 1: I think has been holding on to. Well, if I
Speaker 1: just stopped memorizing in description, then won't they be sorry? No,
Speaker 1: they don't know who I am and they don't care
Speaker 1: you know so. But one of the blocks I had
Speaker 1: it as an adult getting back into memorizing is the
Speaker 1: act of memorizing would get mentally so taxing that it
Speaker 1: could trigger like a depressive episode, and I needed to
Speaker 1: look at it as like, basically I saw it as
Speaker 1: a spiritual attack. It was when I get into really
Speaker 1: intense Bible memorization, I get this spiritual attack and get
Speaker 1: really depressed. I think if I were to go back
Speaker 1: and coach myself now, I would actually make myself question that.
Speaker 1: I would say, are you truly under spiritual attack or
Speaker 1: are you just expecting because of coincidence that a couple
Speaker 1: times you have memory scripture and have had depressive episodes
Speaker 1: after that? Have you made a false association that now
Speaker 1: is becoming a self fulfilling prophecy?
Speaker 3: Or is there a physiological thing that happens you know
Speaker 3: something about like you know how bright lights activate seizures,
Speaker 3: you know, can induce the seizure. What if something about
Speaker 3: firing your brain in that space constantly might trigger something?
Speaker 1: Or I know, for me, if I focus on one
Speaker 1: thing for more than several hours, like really intense focus,
Speaker 1: I get a sore throat. Like physiologically that probably shouldn't happen.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe I'm clenching or something. Who knows, but
Speaker 1: you know, so, yeah, there's all kinds of reasons it
Speaker 1: could be. But at the time, what I chose to
Speaker 1: do was to say, even if it makes me feel depressed,
Speaker 1: this is important enough that I'm gonna do it. I
Speaker 1: think now I would also go ahead and question the
Speaker 1: premise and be like, is this really like is it
Speaker 1: a foregone conclusion that memorizing the Bible makes.
Speaker 2: Feel depressed or or not?
Speaker 1: But that was that was one of the big blocks.
Speaker 1: The second block was a little more practical, and it
Speaker 1: was I by that point I had memorized chap like
Speaker 1: a chapter of multiple passages of Scripture. I had ninety
Speaker 1: percent memorized some of the shorter epistles like I could.
Speaker 1: I could have recited them with eighty to ninety percent accuracy.
Speaker 1: When you get to something as long as what I
Speaker 1: was doing, it was it's really hard to mentally say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start at Matthew one one and just lying
Speaker 1: a bed at night, I'm going to see how far
Speaker 1: I can go, you know. But it's also really good
Speaker 1: mental training to do that. And so what I would
Speaker 1: do is at night, before bed and in the morning
Speaker 1: when I woke up, I would try to like pick
Speaker 1: a place to start and see how far I could
Speaker 1: go without getting distracted. And the reason why I finally
Speaker 1: quit and didn't go beyond Matthew seventeen or eighteen was
Speaker 1: I got to where to progress. I really did need
Speaker 1: somebody to sit and listen to me recite the whole thing,
Speaker 1: like with the Bible in front of them, and A
Speaker 1: that's a lot to ask of somebody, and B I
Speaker 1: didn't have the voice capacity to like just recite that
Speaker 1: much without getting worse. Yeah, so that's how's But basically
Speaker 1: it was it was a very similar process to what
Speaker 1: I did for Bible quiz, in that I would read
Speaker 1: a verse and kind of just examine that versu mentally
Speaker 1: from as many angles as I could until like that
Speaker 1: versus in my head, and then I would go to
Speaker 1: the next first. So it was like, okay, read verse
Speaker 1: one enough to yourself that you can do that, and
Speaker 1: then read verse two enough to yourself three you can
Speaker 1: get that. Next step is put verse one and two together,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, and then keep going. Another
Speaker 1: tip that worked well for me is, and this is
Speaker 1: another reason why just finding a pirated copy of the
Speaker 1: old NIV and just printing it off would be harder.
Speaker 1: Is the way I memorize is I see on the
Speaker 1: page where I'm at, and so it would be harder
Speaker 1: for me to memorize with like here's this Bible here,
Speaker 1: and here's this Bible here, because even if it's the
Speaker 1: same words, there are different parts of the page, right.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: You're definitely visually learning.
Speaker 1: Yes, so I'm almost like picturing myself in the location
Speaker 1: on the page that I am trying to recite from.
Speaker 1: And so then once you get to where you can
Speaker 1: put two or three verses together, then you just go
Speaker 1: to the next chunk. And so I would learn it
Speaker 1: chunks at a time, and then not until then when
Speaker 1: I try to put the chunks together.
Speaker 3: So you try and just build it like a train
Speaker 3: where you're doing one you do a chunk, and then
Speaker 3: you do another chunk, and then you kind of put
Speaker 3: them together. That that definitely is a good tip and
Speaker 3: seems more doable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then another block. And this wouldn't I wouldn't
Speaker 1: even call a mental block. This is just a logistical block.
Speaker 1: Is eventually, if you don't keep reciting something to yourself
Speaker 1: that you've memorized, you don't retain it verbatim. And so
Speaker 1: it's one thing to be like, Okay, I think the
Speaker 1: very first book of the Bible I memorized was Philippians,
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, that was cool. But unless
Speaker 1: I say it to myself like once a week, or something.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna not going to remember all of it,
Speaker 1: And so then it turns into how do I this, Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I memorized Philippians and now I want to memorize First Peter.
Speaker 1: Does that mean I need to work on First Peter
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the time and ten percent of the
Speaker 1: time refresh on Philippians. So I had to get over
Speaker 1: this idea of once I memorize it, it needs to
Speaker 1: stay memorized in my head for it to be effective.
Speaker 1: Because the act of memorizing it, even though I still
Speaker 1: do not have the Book of Philippians memorized, was a benefit,
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean? So I could see
Speaker 1: that being another hang up. People have another hang up.
Speaker 1: I could see people getting into is how do I
Speaker 1: even know what to start with? Why why Philippians are
Speaker 1: not Galatians? Are you saying that Philippians is better than
Speaker 1: Galatians or things like that? So, yeah, lots of things
Speaker 1: like that, And you're mind, what would be some of
Speaker 1: the blocks that you think.
Speaker 2: You would bet up against.
Speaker 3: I think I have a tendency to look at to
Speaker 3: have like overwhelmed paralysis, and so I would just be
Speaker 3: like I would tell myself kind of like you told
Speaker 3: yourself get I get depressive episodes when I do scripture.
Speaker 3: I would tell myself, I'm not really that good at
Speaker 3: memorizing things. I mean I said that earlier. I mean
Speaker 3: that's a label, that's like something. I'm a story I'm
Speaker 3: telling myself about myself. You know what, Maybe I'm not
Speaker 3: that bad at memorizing things. Maybe I just need to
Speaker 3: go try it. And so I think self fulfilling limitations
Speaker 3: and just saying that's too big, that's too much, There's
Speaker 3: no way I'll be able to do that. I'm not
Speaker 3: good at memorizing things, is what would stand in my way.
Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest blocks that a lot
Speaker 1: of people are going to come across is that block
Speaker 1: of well, i'm too old, right, Like, I was fortunate
Speaker 1: to have a strong basis for memorization when I was
Speaker 1: a kid. So going back to the NIV that I'm
Speaker 1: used to, even if it's a passage that I hadn't
Speaker 1: actively memorized when I was a teen, for example, I'm
Speaker 1: familiar enough with it that it would be easier for
Speaker 1: me to memorize that than it would be for me
Speaker 1: to memorize like a passage of Shakespeare or something, do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? It's in my head and
Speaker 1: in my brain.
Speaker 3: And it makes sense because the context, the ideas are
Speaker 3: all very familiar. Mm hm.
Speaker 1: However, I really feel like we are called to be
Speaker 1: faithful with what we've been given my brain. Probably, and
Speaker 1: maybe this is a cop out, and maybe this is
Speaker 1: not true. I don't know that my brain is designed
Speaker 1: to memorize eighteen chapters of the Bible anymore.
Speaker 2: It might not be.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that I am off the hook
Speaker 1: from ever being I don't want to say supposed to.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean that God doesn't expect me to
Speaker 1: ever memory scripturegen just because I don't have the brain
Speaker 1: capacity I might have had in my twenties, I still
Speaker 1: have some brain capacity, right Like I can still remember
Speaker 1: your name, I still remember what you look like. I
Speaker 1: remember the name of your kids. I mean, obviously I
Speaker 1: have some working memory. And obviously, again, like the more
Speaker 1: you use your brain, the better it gets it and
Speaker 1: I find the mental benefits. I mean, this could be
Speaker 1: its own total episode, the mental benefits of memorizing scripture
Speaker 1: in addition to just the spiritual benefits. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: sure that would take an entire episode to list out
Speaker 1: just the focus that you get and this idea of neuroplasticity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: memorizing your first chapter of the Bible is going to
Speaker 1: be harder than memorizing your tenth chapter of the Bible
Speaker 1: because your brain isn't used to that. And don't bite
Speaker 1: off more than you can chew. If I were to
Speaker 1: get back into it, I would probably start with a paragraph.
Speaker 1: For me, a paragraph makes the most sense because it's
Speaker 1: not something I could do in just like a single sitting,
Speaker 1: like you know, John three sixteen or something like that.
Speaker 1: But it's also not something that is so daunting that
Speaker 1: I would never complete it. Right, So figure out where
Speaker 1: is your brain capacity? What is your opacity for memorizing something?
Speaker 1: And then this other question like you talked about, of
Speaker 1: decision or overwhelm, just ask God to bring to mind
Speaker 1: what is best and to me it. And this sounds
Speaker 1: really morbid, and you and I have talked before about
Speaker 1: this most likely over the top, probably not super healthy
Speaker 1: fixation with like being martyred or suffering for my faith.
Speaker 1: But one of the questions I would ask is, Hey,
Speaker 1: if I was in prison for being a Christian and
Speaker 1: had no Bible. What passage would I have wished I
Speaker 1: had memorized, you know? And if you strip out maybe
Speaker 1: the fear mongering behind that, but just ask it kind
Speaker 1: of without a ton of emotion attached to it, that
Speaker 1: might not be a bad place to start, Like do
Speaker 1: you have if if you and I both committed to
Speaker 1: memorizing a passage of scripture, do you have one that
Speaker 1: pops to the forefront of your mind.
Speaker 3: I don't have an actual scripture. I can take a
Speaker 3: stab at it. But before that, I want to make
Speaker 3: a note. I didn't realize until you started, until you
Speaker 3: said that that my little rant at the beginning about
Speaker 3: you know, the grid's going to fail, or if you're
Speaker 3: in prison for your faith and don't have a Bible
Speaker 3: that idea came from. I know there's a scene in
Speaker 3: one of your North Korea books, and I don't remember
Speaker 3: the details, but I think the person doesn't have a
Speaker 3: Bible and they're either trying to remember or they're glad
Speaker 3: that they remembered. But that is the image I have
Speaker 3: in my mind, is the same image that I had
Speaker 3: when I was reading about that person imprisoned. That makes
Speaker 3: me think exactly that if I were in prison, yes,
Speaker 3: and I didn't have a Bible, and I didn't have
Speaker 3: an electronic way of looking up things. What would I
Speaker 3: want to know? And that is that is such a
Speaker 3: good question. It would definitely be something in the New Testament.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, although I've like fallen in love with the
Speaker 3: psalms through doing the songs every week, I love them,
Speaker 3: so I would probably say I would I'll pick one
Speaker 3: psalm and it will be a psalm that is one
Speaker 3: of the ones where David is just being.
Speaker 2: Persecuted and.
Speaker 3: Reflecting on God's greatness, which I think Psalm fifty six
Speaker 3: was the one that I most recently recorded, and it
Speaker 3: was in the line of that, and so you know,
Speaker 3: something like that. But I think I would also want
Speaker 3: something from the New Testament, and I don't know what
Speaker 3: that would be. I'm trying to do you have any
Speaker 3: I don't think I that.
Speaker 1: My next would be from Romans eight for New Testament.
Speaker 1: There are lots of beautiful parts in that, but it's
Speaker 1: some one where more than conquerors, it's also the neither
Speaker 1: height nor depths, you know, nor anything else can separate
Speaker 1: us from the love of Christ. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: beautiful encouragement in Romans eight. So I think New Testament,
Speaker 1: I think pretty much hands down Romans eight. I would
Speaker 1: love to brush up on the Sermon of the Mountain,
Speaker 1: have a little that more access to that as well,
Speaker 1: And then Old Testament Psalm ninety one jumps way up
Speaker 1: in the forefront, just a beautiful prayer of protection. You
Speaker 1: sent me a prayer based on Psalm ninety one forever
Speaker 1: ago that meant the world to me. Do you even
Speaker 1: remember that?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: You think it was like the very first prayer text
Speaker 1: that you ever sent me.
Speaker 2: I don't remember.
Speaker 1: And it was also the basis for a prayer I
Speaker 1: wrote before I wrote The Beloved Daughter, my first North
Speaker 1: Korean novel. I wrote out a prayer that I prayed
Speaker 1: every day before I started writing, and it was based
Speaker 1: off of Psalm ninety one. Wow. And honestly, I mean
Speaker 1: tons of Isaiah. If I if I had to pick
Speaker 1: like Isaiah forty through the end of Isaiah, I would
Speaker 1: learn to have axs so for me to pick. But yeah,
Speaker 1: if I were to just jump in own, I would
Speaker 1: do like the last section of Romans eight is where
Speaker 1: I would start.
Speaker 3: I would also want because I'm assuming I might be
Speaker 3: in prison with other people, and I will definitely have
Speaker 3: prison guards like Paul. I would want access to, word
Speaker 3: for word a nutshell of the Gospel. Mm hmmm, so
Speaker 3: that I could like actually present it word for word.
Speaker 3: That would be cool, or at least look back on
Speaker 3: that mentally, so that I'm expressing it in a way
Speaker 3: that's biblical.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1: Well, actually, that's a perfect segue to a plug for
Speaker 1: our Christian True Crime Junkies podcast, because we recently did
Speaker 1: the entire story of Stephen the First Martyr and his
Speaker 1: entire sermon to the people persecuting him.
Speaker 2: So for people who.
Speaker 1: Haven't checked out are Christian True Crime Junkies, you can
Speaker 1: listen to that if you're not into crime and you've
Speaker 1: avoided it for that reason. We have a recent episode
Speaker 1: about Steven, which is all right from the Bible. So
Speaker 1: with that, let's go ahead and just plan on chatting
Speaker 1: more about Bible memorization next time as well. I have
Speaker 1: an entire part of my testimony is losing the ability
Speaker 1: to memorize script and having zero recall. Oh wow, there
Speaker 1: were a couple of years I if you had asked
Speaker 1: me John three sixteen, I would have been like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I learned that one once. So there's yeah,
Speaker 1: there's more to that, and then more just practical tips
Speaker 1: and tricks for people interested in Bible memorization. Should you
Speaker 1: and I are we going to do an accountability thing?
Speaker 1: Are we gonna come back next week with a passage memorize? Oh?
Speaker 2: Let's do it? Yes?
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 2: What are we going to memorize?
Speaker 1: Why don't we each just pick one and come to
Speaker 1: come and we'll make those our versus the day. I'll
Speaker 1: recite mind tiero and you can you recite yours to me?
Speaker 2: Okay, that'll be good. Don't let me forget I'm gonna.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we need to you need a hack to provide yourself.
Speaker 4: I need to start with just remembering to memorize scripture.
Speaker 4: Just not even the memory of the scripture, just remembering
Speaker 4: to memorize it.
Speaker 1: Let me let me put a digital memo in my memory.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll be doomed when technology fails us.
Speaker 1: Don't say that.
Speaker 3: No, no, I'm not.
Speaker 2: I'm in good shape.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm so glad we get to discuss this. Let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and closed for today, at least with our
Speaker 1: blessing and men addiction. May the Lord open the eyes
Speaker 1: of your heart and fill you with wisdom in the
Speaker 1: inmost places. May the Glorious Father grant you a spirit
Speaker 1: of wisdom and our relation, so you may know Christ,
Speaker 1: who has become for us wisdom from God. On the
Speaker 1: areas of your life in need of guidance, May God
Speaker 1: grant you His wisdom and abundance, so that you will
Speaker 1: not lean on your own insight, but rely on the
Speaker 1: full riches of complete understanding, which are yours in abundance through.
Speaker 3: Christ and our benediction comes from Psalm twenty nine, verse eleven.
Speaker 3: May we shout for joy over your salvation, and in
Speaker 3: the name of our God, set up our banners. May
Speaker 3: the Lord fulfill all your petitions. May the Lord give
Speaker 3: strength to his people. May the Lord bless his people
Speaker 3: with peace.
Speaker 2: Amen.
Speaker 3: We'd like to take just a quick second to thank
Speaker 3: the team at life Audio for their partnership with us
Speaker 3: on the podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com,
Speaker 3: you will find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in
Speaker 3: their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting,
Speaker 3: and so much more.
Speaker 2: That's lifeaudio dot Com.