Memorize With Other Christians
A great way to grow and mature in Christ is to study and memorise with other Christians. They can help you and hold you accountable.
Most groups like this will get together once a week for an hour to read, pray, work on memory verses, and spend time with each other. You not only learn by learning and doing memory work with other Christians at this kind of meeting, but you also get to know each other better.
Having a friendship makes studying with someone more important and useful. As time goes on, you learn to trust each other. Being around each other doesn’t make you feel bad or scared, so you can relax and let God’s Word speak to your heart and mind.
People often meet in small groups to study the Bible these days. But the groups that work together to memorise Scripture have the most profound effect on the lives of those in the group and on those they interact with. Read what Dale has to say if you don’t agree…
I’ve been a Christian for a long time. I like reading my Bible every day and am a leader in my church. It’s not hard for me to find Bible lines that I want to share with others or use in a lesson, but I’ve never tried to remember them.
I was sure I could not. Not me. But when our preacher asked me to join a serious Bible study group where we would learn several important Bible lines by heart, I agreed. I was still sure I would never be able to do it, but I chose to try anyway.
The group was great. Eight of us had been going to church together for years. Someone who was afraid of the memory work was not the only old person in the group.
Read and Learn More Memorize Bible Scripture and Verses Quickly and Easily
So every week, we would pair up and read our texts to each other. Even though it was hard at first, I found that it wasn’t as bad or as hard as I thought it would be after memorising a few lines.
You can always ask someone to read the verse to you or read it out loud to yourself if none of these ways of listening to memorise Bible verses sound good to you or are easy for you to use.
Reading the line out loud to yourself over and over again does work, take it from someone who learns best by hearing.
When you read verses out loud to other people, especially young children, you have someone to listen while you and your child learn to say the verse by heart. Some people need to feel accountable, but reading it out loud to yourself doesn’t do that for me.
Hearing the words, even if it’s their own voice, helps a lot of people remember them. If reading God’s Word out loud is the best way for you to remember it, do it. You can do it to music, an app on your phone, or just to yourself as you study. It will make a huge difference in your life.
Write On
Writing verses down on note cards, in a small notebook, or using the ‘sticky note’ function of your tablet, laptop, or phone, is how some people memorize best.
Writing the verses down requires you to look at them and think about what you are writing. In some ways, this method makes the verses more real just words you read on a page.
Writing the verses down gives you the ability to take them with you everywhere you go; meaning you can look at them and work on memorizing them anytime and anywhere. If you write the verses you want to memorize on notecards, you can put them on:
- Your mirror
- Cabinet of closet doors
- In your Bible to be part of your daily Bible study
- On the treadmill so you can memorize and walk at the same time
- By the TV remote to remind you of what is really important
- On your pillow or on your nightstand to say before you go to bed each night
- By the coffee maker so you can work on them while you enjoy your morning coffee
- On the dashboard of your car
Some people who memorize best by writing verses keep a notebook-virtual or hard copy-in which they write the verses they are memorizing over and over…and over again. In doing so they are able to remember the verses because they have to put focused thought on what they are writing.
As for putting them on your phone or computer, I think it’s safe to say you will rarely be more than an arm’s reach away from these things, so you will have plenty of opportunities to stop what you are doing for a few minutes several times a day to work on memorizing God’s Word.
Remember, though, you have to make and take those opportunities in order for them to produce results. I sent myself an email from one account to another. It listed several of the verses I want to memorize.
Every time I check my email, I take a few minutes to read that one, too. I say the verses I’ve already memorized so I don’t forget them and then work on the next one.
Sometimes I say them out loud and other times I say them to myself-depending on where I am. This might not work for everyone, but it’s worked for me. -Dave
Once you have a verse or verses memorized, you can also ask someone to test or quiz you on what you’ve learned. This proved to be highly effective in the study group Darla was in…
We used notecards in our group. On one side we wrote the verse and where it is found and on the other side we only wrote where the verse was found.
We would quiz each other by holding up the side of the card with the scripture references and our partner would have to say the verse. It was a great way to learn.
If you are unsure of how Darla’s group’s flashcard system worked, look at the example below that follows to help you better understand it.
I realize some of you may not have the blessing of having others to study and memorize with or the time to do so on a regular basis. Sometimes life requires us to set our study time late at night or early in the morning when we have a bit of quiet time to ourselves-neither being conducive to studying with a group.
If this is the case, you can still use the flashcard system—it just might not be quite as much fun doing it by yourself as it is doing it with a group of your brothers and sisters in Christ.
NOTE: The flashcard system is also a great way for families to work together to commit Bible verses to memory. School-age children are familiar with this form of learning and usually pick it up quite easily.
Let your artistic side show through
No one said memorizing Bible verses was supposed to be boring. When making your notecards or notes on your phone or computer, get creative! Use bright-colored markers and paper or cards. There are lots of options out there so don’t think you have to settle for boring old white cards or even the neon-colored ones if that isn’t your ‘thing’.
You can use a journal or create a SMASH book of Bible verses complete with doodles, drawings, stickers, or whatever you want to add.
Use different fonts to emphasize words or phrases in a verse you are having trouble with to help them stand out. Use fonts that are fun to look at ones that remind you of the doodling you did when you were a kid.
If you write out your cards, write them out in your best handwriting. This small, seemingly unimportant gesture makes you focus on what is being written and subconsciously retains at least a portion of it. Your neatness also validates the fact that God’s Word is worth your best effort.
The Israelites were instructed by Moses to make the Law a prominent part of their lives. He told them to talk about it, bind it to their foreheads, and make it visible in their homes
We’re no longer under the Law of Moses, but these verses can and should still apply to us today in regard to both the Old and New Testaments.