“In My Heart”
A verse we preachers seem to use a lot is Psalm 119:11, where David wrote, “Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” Often, we use those words to remind people of the importance of not only reading the Bible, but of trying to memorize it.
But let’s be honest, sometimes we throw that out as a suggestion, then people see how many verses there are in the Bible, and they see it as overwhelming.
Can the entire Bible be memorized? I’m sure it can. But that’s not the emphasis I want to make today.
I want to emphasize that we challenge ourselves to memorize parts of the Bible, because having that knowledge keeps us from sin.
Many have lamented that over the past few decades, sin has crept into our society and into our churches in real and clear ways. Could it be that one reason we are seeing that is simply that we are not challenging our children (and adults!) in Bible classes to memorize passages of Scripture? I am thankful that those who teach my children are doing that! It may only be a verse or two at a time, but that’s a start, and it gives a foundation to teach them about sin in the future.
Parents, teachers, elders, preachers…let’s challenge people of all ages to not only read God’s Word, but to hid it in their heart. The results will be great, but they will be predictable. We will still sin from time-to-time, but we will be less likely to commit sin.
If you want to teach your children to memorize Scripture, here are a couple of suggestions:
1. Start with easier verses, but verses that teach something. “Jesus wept” is a great verse, but children need some reassurance from what they learn, and we need something we can build on. Here is a list that I like of 10 easy verses for children to memorize.
2. Make it fun. At different times, we play CDs of verses that are set to song in our car, and our kids know those verses. We highly recommend the “Hannah’s Hundred” CDs from our friends, the Colley family.
3. Make it a regular and family thing. Maybe you just want your children to memorize one verse per week, or a psalm per month. Why not have everyone in the family memorize it! It will challenge the kids to know that they are trying to memorize the same thing as dad and mom. (They may just learn it faster than you do, because they feel that challenge.)
Whatever you do, get the Word of God into the heart of your children, and make sure it is in your heart, too. You’ll be glad you did, especially the next time temptation rears its ugly head.
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John
These are good thoughts, Adam. I bet the music thing works really good.
A few comments on memorization. In my experience, it really is much easier to memorize when you are younger. If you are under 40 (say), you better get with it. You might start by memorizing the Sermon on the Mount. I think we need to emphasize that more in the church of Christ. Pick some long passages or short books to get context. Jumping around is ok, for some unknown reason congregations seem to like that (what they’re used to, I guess). But, if you’re not careful, you’ll lose the context (and the statement occurred in a context). I think the skills of creativity, analysis and synthesis get better with age, but memorization lags (for me at least).
You don’t have to get a verse precisely verbatim. Many, if not most, of the OT quotes in the NT are paraphrases or allusions. You might memorize the thought and key phrase of a verse and move to the next one. You can probably cover more verses this way.
You should start a contest, Adam. Post part of a phrase or verse and see who can finish it. No googling, anyone can do that. You have to answer from memory. See who can complete the phrase and maybe remember where it is. One of my FB friends, who is a retired teacher/coach, puts up a lot of stuff like that (his is secular stuff) on FB and he gets a lot of response to it. You could use your twitter if that’s easier and posts to FB. He uses FB.
Adam Faughn
Good thoughts, John. We may just have a quiz on here sometime!
Cindy Tatum
A few years ago I did a survey for a class I was teaching on how to help our children be faithful. I only talked to people (in 11 states and 5 countries) whose children were all faithful, out of the house and over 23 years old. There were two main common denominators. The most mentioned was that nothing came before church and the Lord’s work and the children were always aware of it and apart of it. The other was home Bible study, which included regular devotionals, Bedtime Bible stories and quizzes, problem solving using scripture, and scripture and Bible facts memorization.
Thank you for this post. As an older woman I see so much quiet together time being sucked out of our homes with the emphasis society puts on activities for children such as sports, music, dance, Boy Scouts and the like. When we add the technology and entertainment factor, there are legimate concerns for priorities. As my mother has always told others, “I’m raising my children for eternity”.
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