MEMORIZE THE BIBLE (Part 1)

WHY SHOULD WE MEMORIZE THE BIBLE?

Text: Heb. 8:10,11.
"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.
Every Christian has supernatural ability to understand and remember Bible verses. God has covenanted with the new creation in Christ to engrave His law on our hearts and put His commandments in our inward parts (Jer. 31:31 – 33).
Secondly, when we were in the world, our understanding was darkened and the god of this world blinded our minds (2 Cor.4:4). Yet when we turned to the Lord, this veil on our minds has been taken off (2 Cor.3:15-16). 1 Cor. 2:16 declares that we have the mind of Christ. This means because we are born of God, we have a supernatural ability to think and understand things like the Lord Jesus Christ, Phil.2:5. Moreover, we have the indwelling Holy Spirit to bring to our rememberance all those things which the Lord Jesus tells us ( Jn. 14:26). Jesus himself assures us that anyone who draws near to Him has been taught by God ( Jn. 6:44, 45). Yes, we do have the potential to hear God teach us. This should give us confidence that we have a God-given ability to understand and remember Bible verses.

DEFINITION
Bible memorisation is the habit of imprinting or fixing a verse of the scripture in your mind so that you can reproduce it word for word. It is the practice of learning verses of the Bible by heart so that you can have them at your fingertips from any version of your choice.
Ps 119:11 Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You!
WHY MEMORIZE BIBLE VERSES?
Here are a few reasons why scripture memorisation is critical for today’s Christian.

1. Spiritual Cleansing:
It keeps from sin. Psalm 119:9, 11 The words of God do not only cleanse individuals from sin and defilement (Jn 15: 3), they are the means by which the whole church of God is washed (Eph.5: 25-27). You need a lot of courage to go about without a bath for two or three days. Words of the Scripture stored daily in your heart bathe your convictions. They sand-paper your conscience and sharpen the difference between good and evil for you. The Bible distinguishes clearly between right and wrong before God. You can detect and refute error immediately. (Mat. 22:29).

2. Spiritual warfare:
God’s word is the sword of the Spirit against Satan’s temptations ( Eph. 6:17; Matt. 4:4). When Satan confronted our Lord in the wilderness with his fiery temptations, Jesus stuck to the quotations from the scriptures. Surprisingly, all His three quotations were from Deuteronomy, written at least one thousand years before his time. It is obvious that God’s words are eternal; that Satan fears and respects every Bible verse whether it is from the Old or New Testament; and that Satan himself uses Bible verses to tempt Christians to sin. Jesus’ reply, “It is written again,” shows that when Satan misquotes a Bible verse, the solution is to use another verse in context to defeat his suggestion. The authority of the scripture was not a subject for discussion. Both Jesus and Satan knew that the scripture could not be broken ( Jn. 10: 35).

3. Spiritual upliftment of brethren who meet you:
Col. 3:16 demands that we edify and challenge the brotherhood by the richness of the indwelling of the word of God. Nothing affects fellow Christians who meet you as positively as when they discover that you have relevant Bible verses to answer every thorny current question they ask. Is it not much better to keep more of the conversation on the scripture than on the weather? You cannot speak God’s word if it is not already stored in you.

4. Personal Spiritual Growth and Transformation:
Memorized scripture increases your faith. Romans 10:17. You develop positive Christlike character and strong convictions as your attitudes, thought patterns, and habits are soaked in the wisdom of God rather than the wisdom of the world. You lay hold of the transformation that only comes from a renewed mind. (1 Pet. 2:2; Romans 12:2).

5. God Speaks To You:
Memorized scripture fine tunes your spirit to God’s voice and opens more channels for the Holy Spirit to speak to you. (Jn. 14:26; Heb. 3:7, 8). It is the same God who spoke these words in the Bible who is on the throne today. He does not change. (Mal. 3:6; Heb.9:14, 13:8). When the verses are already buried in your mind, God’s Spirit can burn the same words onto your heart for you to hear Him clearly in the midst of a busy day.

6. A first step to Obedience:
Memorized scripture shows heaven your willingness to obey God. It is impossible to obey a command you do not know or remember. Once you bother to learn the command, heaven can understand that you wish to know in order to obey (John 14:21, 23). The habit of a forgetful hearer must be avoided like a plague. James 1:22-25.

7. Better Service for God:
Your usefulness, effectiveness, skill and professionalism in ministry and God’s service increases with the number of verses you can comfortably and confidently produce on the spot (2 Tim 2:15). You need to authoritatively handle Bible verses whether in counselling or in witnessing, whether in Sunday school teaching or in refuting the doctrinal error of false prophets. 1 Pet. 3:15; Titus. 1: 9 – 11. The more command you have over carefully memorized scripture, the more excellent and bold you will be in service for God.

8. The backbone of the new covenant:
The main difference between the Old and New Covenants is that the Old covenant was written on tablets of stone, but God has now put His laws in our minds and engraved it on the fleshy tablets of our hearts. We must take advantage of this through scripture memorisation. We are Christ’s ambassadors who should speak his words wherever we go. It is God’s way of telling the believer in Christ that He does not want us to forget His laws (Heb.8: 8-13).

9. The example of Jesus and the early church:
The record of the life of Jesus is amazing. We see clearly that Jesus both meditated upon and memorized the Old Testament until his words, sermons, rebukes and examples were saturated with God’s word. Even though the Lord Jesus himself never wrote a book, the disciples did not take his words lightly. They memorized and rehearsed Jesus’ words alongside the Old Testament until we now have the four gospels intact. About 10 percent of Jesus’ daily conversation was Old Testament quoted literally. Consider the quotes in Peter’s Pentecost Day sermon of Ac.2 and Stephen’s defence in Ac.7 and you will be convinced that the early church memorised scripture in imitation of the master.
It is impossible to grow in Christlikeness without copying the Lord in scripture memorisation. The disciple is not above his master, the servant is not above his lord, he that is sent is not above him that sent him, Matt. 10:24; Lk.6:40; Jn.13:16.

10. The control of the tongue:
The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9), but it is out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matt.12:34). So if the heart is saturated with Bible verses, the tongue can be tamed to speak as an oracle of God, 1 Pet.4:10,11.

11. Increased effectiveness in prayer
The greater the number of Bible verses you know and remember, the easier it is to know God’s will in prayer, pray with more conviction and take a firm hold of God in His promises (Jn.15:7). God’s word in your mouth as you pray increases faith and boldness before the throne of grace.