Reading Time: 2 minutesDo you want to improve your retention of the Bible in this new year? Something new can help you — the method devised by Prof. Tom Meyer, The Bible Memory Man. While earning two master’s degrees in Jerusalem, Tom learned how to memorize Scripture from the Jews and Christians in the Holy Land. He now has 20 complete books of the Bible memorized, is the author of The Memorization Study Bible, and teaches Christians all over the country how to hide God’s Word in their heart (Psalm 119:11).
A professor at Shasta Bible College, Tom Meyer is also a guest speaker at churches and conferences where he presents the Bible spoken dramatically from memory. For more information, visit www.thescripturecannotbebroken.com.
Here are some tips from Tom.
- Prayerfully select a verse.
- Divide the verse into several lines. Count the words in each line and write the number in the right-hand column as a memory aid. When the ancients used this technique, they would always keep eight words or less on each line. They called this an eye’s glance; it was a phrase short enough that you could keep it in your short-term memory.
- Copy the right-hand column’s numbers onto a fresh sheet of paper. Write out the verse with pen and paper just the way you’ve divided it using the numbers as a crutch. If you draw a blank, you can look at the number column as a cheat sheet to help you know how many words go on that line.
- While you are writing the verse, try speaking it aloud. That way your mind, eyes, mouth, hand, and ears are working together in unison. You can’t use any more of your members than that.
Finally, whether you memorize Scripture by Reading, Hearing, or Writing, or a combination of those techniques, the way to retain it is to review it. We know that if we don’t use it, we lose it. The process of reviewing Scripture you have memorized is called meditation in the Bible (Joshua 1:8) and is critical to our spiritual life. If we can let the Word of Christ “abide” or remain in us (1 John 2:14), then we can draw upon it in times of need. This will give you or your kids the best fighting chance to overcome the world. With the Word of God hidden in our hearts we can now have the mind of the living God in reach, we can provide words of comfort from the Scripture to ourselves or others in a time of need, we can continually remind ourselves of who we are in the light of God’s Word, and we can be like Jesus who quoted the Word of God from memory when he was under attack from our enemy (Matthew 4:1-4).
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