The Goal of Scripture Memorization is Not Recitation

When I was in sixth grade, my teacher had our class memorize Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death!” speech. I remember rehearsing the speech over and over with my classmates, trying to memorize it word for word with enough emotion to convince our teacher we knew exactly what Henry meant when he said, “The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!” But we didn’t know what he meant (and we didn’t care) because we were a bunch of eleven-year-olds trying feverishly to stuff our brains with words long enough to recite them for our teacher in hopes of earning an A. I can only quote the one famous line from that speech today, but that’s what happens when the goal of memorization is only recitation. We forget the things that hold no meaning for us.

I used to have a similar approach to Scripture memorization. In my experience as a child growing up in a small Baptist church, I was taught to memorize verses in order to recite them at competitions with other churches. Bible Drill was the program that taught me to memorize, but without an understanding of what I was memorizing, I left the practice of Scripture memory somewhere around the fourth grade. If the goal of memorizing Scripture was to recite it for others, I wasn’t interested.

As I’ve grown up in the faith and studied God’s Word, though, I’ve realized that the goal of Scripture memorization is never to recite it for the applause of men or to win a competition. Though the programs of my childhood smartly utilized games and competitions to encourage us to memorize, the goal was to store up God’s Word like a treasure so that when we needed to remember the gospel or God’s character or how to live as His people, the words of the Bible would already be buried deep within us. The point of Scripture memorization, I realized, was to remember.

REMEMBER GOD
When God gave Israel the law after their deliverance from slavery in Egypt, He charged them to keep His words ever before them. He told them to keep the law “in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deut. 11:18-19). He also told them to write His words on the gates and doorposts of their homes. Why would God have His people talk, write, and think about His law so often and in so many different ways? He wanted them to remember. He wanted them to remember who they were before He delivered them, what He had done in rescuing them, how He was keeping them, and how to live as people who belonged to Him. He wanted them to think about Him every day so that they wouldn’t stray and adopt the pagan practices of worship of their idolatrous neighbors. Reciting and rehearsing the words of His law kept them tethered to the God who loved them and freed them from oppression. Keeping His words in their mouths and before their eyes and in their hearts reminded them how holy and sovereign and powerful He was. The goal of keeping the law before them at all times was to remember the God who gave it to them.

We sit on the other side of redemptive history with all of God’s Word available to us. But, like the Israelites wandering through the wilderness, we too are prone to forget what is true. When trials come, we forget that God has always been faithful. When we’re tempted to disobey Him, we forget that He knows what is best for us. When we’re lonely, we forget that He is always with us. When we hold a grudge toward someone else, we forget how much God has forgiven us. We are forgetful people! But, we have God’s Word to help us remember. And when we practice storing it in our hearts, rehearsing and reciting the phrases of Scripture, we will remember the God who wrote it.

REMEMBER THE GOSPEL
In the book of Colossians, Paul charges the church to “let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Col. 3:16). I love the imagery here. The good news of Jesus should live in us extravagantly. Not just in little bits and not just once in a while. No, the gospel should take up residence in our hearts in big, generous ways. We should be filled up with the good words of the Lord! And when you are filled up with His Word, Scripture will spill over into your speech, actions, and reactions. What a beautiful thing to be overflowing with the Word of God!

But, this kind of Scripture-soaked living requires a regular saturation of Scripture. If you back up in Colossians to chapter 1, Paul gives the church a stunning portrait of Jesus Christ:

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning the firstborn from he dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross.” (Col. 1:15-20)

This is Jesus. He is God’s Son, the One who revealed God the Father to us and through whom we can have a relationship with the Father. He has made peace between God and man through His death on the cross. And in case you wondered if you needed Him to even do that, Paul goes on:

“And you, who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heave, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.” (Col. 1:21-23)

Why is Paul belaboring this gospel that the Colossians had already heard and believed? Because he wanted them to remember! He wanted them to remember who they were before Jesus saved them: alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds. He wanted them to remember who they were now: holy and blameless and above reproach because of Jesus’s death on the cross. And he wanted them to know how to live as people who have been changed by faith in Christ: continuing in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel.

We need regular reminders of this gospel that we’ve heard and believed. We need to remember who we used to be, what Christ has done for us, who we are now, and how we are to live until we see Jesus face-to-face. God’s Word gives us all that we need in this life to persevere in the faith, but we are as plagued by forgetfulness as the Israelites on the shore of the Red Sea. We are easily distracted by fear, by busyness, by entertainment, money, suffering. Life can be very hard on this fallen earth, and we can quickly forget that the God who gave us salvation in Jesus is also with us in every trial, providing comfort in sorrow and escape in temptation.  

Meditating on God’s Word—thinking deeply about it as we work to memorize it—helps us to remember what the world would like us to forget: Christ has died. Christ is coming. Christ will come again! Committing God’s words to memory helps us remember that this life is not all there is, that Christ has saved us and has put us on mission to share this gospel we’ve believed, that He will return for His church. The more we meditate on God’s Word, the more we remember our purpose in God’s kingdom, our identity in Jesus, and our future with God forever in the new heavens and the new earth. In all the repeating and rehearsing of verses, you aren’t memorizing to recite. You’re memorizing to remember.

In all the repeating and rehearsing of verses, you aren’t memorizing to recite. You’re memorizing to remember. Share on X

For more on Scripture memorization, check out my new book, Memorizing Scripture: The Basics, Blessings, and Benefits of Meditating on God’s Word. 

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