The Benefits of Scripture Memory

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Memorizing whole chapters and books of the Bible has many benefits. Memorizing single verses, while helpful, can often take the verse out of context and be misunderstood. There are a lot of great resources out there for aiding in Scripture memory. One that I find incredibly useful is ScriptureTyper. But when memorizing Scripture it is important to be doing it not just as a rote exercise, but to actually be thinking about what it is these verses are saying.

1. In memorizing Scripture, we are putting God’s truth into our minds and hearts. As we go about our day, it becomes a useful tool in shaping our attitudes and actions. For example, in the book of Philippians there are some very practical exhortations such as “Do everything without complaining or arguing,” and “Do not be anxious about anything,” as well as “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit…

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Bible Memorization

Along with my passion for Bible reading and Bible study is a desire to memorize Scripture. I learned a lot of verses growing up through Awana and Sunday School, as well as going to Christian schools. When in college, I was able to memorize the book of Philippians. God has gifted me with a really good memory and it is easy for me to learn things. Because of that, I want to take advantage of this gift and learn as much Scripture as I can while I still have a good memory. But I also think it’s important for all Christians to learn and memorize the Bible to the best of their ability. And not just individual verses (which can easily be taken out of context and mis-used), but chapters and passages. Some of the easier passages to memorize are chapters of Psalms.

What I have found works well for me in memorizing verses and eventually chapters is to print out the verses and tape them to index cards. Then I can carry the cards around with me to work on and review when out and about. But as I started accumulating more verses, individual index cards were harder to keep organized. One of my friends suggested the spiral index card notebook that keeps them all together for easy carrying. So I grabbed one of those and put Acts 1 in it (one of the chapters I’m currently working on memorizing, due to joining Bible Quizzing this fall at our church and Acts being the book that Bible Quizzing will be working on this coming school year). Per my friend’s suggestion, I added a colorful cover.

Here’s what the inside looks like – I print out the verses (from Scripturetyper) and then cut them out and tape them to the index card.

I am also working on memorizing the book of Ephesians. But those would be more index cards than what comes in a typical spiral index card notebook and I wanted to try to keep them all together. So I grabbed one of these memo notebooks and used it to put all the Ephesians verses. 

An online resource that I have found works wonderfully for helping me to memorize is ScriptureTyper. It is a free resource that you can add what verses you are memorizing (there are several translations you can choose from). You then can type out the verse, gaining some familiarity with it, then move on to memorizing where ScriptureTyper removes every other word. Eventually you move on to mastering, where you are able to type the whole verse from memory at a certain speed. Then it goes on your review list. I have found it a great way to learn verses and then review them.

Do you memorize Scripture? What tips have you found helpful?