When I first came to Christ as a teenager, I came across a biography of the 19th-century hymn-writer Frances Havergal.
While she is best known for writing the classic hymn Take My Life and Let it Be, she is also remembered for memorizing vast sections of the Bible. By her early adulthood, she had memorized all the Gospels, all the Epistles, all the Psalms, and all of Isaiah and Revelation.
This was a staggering achievement. I am not aware of any living person today who has hidden so much of God’s Word in their hearts.
But, at the time, being young and optimistic, I simply thought, “If she could do it, why can’t I?”
That is how my journey of Bible memorization began. I didn’t memorize nearly as much as Ms. Havergal, but I tried my best.
During my personal times of Bible reading, I would write down my favourite verses and passages onto cue cards and store them up in an old tin can that I labelled “The Armoury.” I figured that if the Word of God is the Sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17), then every verse I memorized was another spiritual weapon at my disposal.
Over time, I accumulated over two hundred verses, many of which I still remember to this day.
Brothers, Bible memorization is challenging. Like anything else we set our minds on, it takes time, discipline, and focus. But it is incredibly rewarding.
Here are three reasons why building up your own spiritual “Armoury” through Bible memorization is worth it:
1. It Slows Down Your Bible Reading
In his book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, acclaimed author Nicholas Carr writes:
“What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. Whether I’m online or not, my mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”
One of my concerns these days is that people are not only reading their Bibles less but also losing their capacity to read their Bibles well.
We treat the Word like a snack on the go instead of a gourmet dinner that is meant to be savoured. That’s not how we would sit down and enjoy a steak dinner, so why should we read the Bible that way?
Bible memorization helps us slow down and savour Scripture. It gives us the opportunity to turn the words over in our minds. To see the intricate connections between verses. To meditate on the beauty of God’s revelation.
Memorizing Scripture helps us move beyond skimming the Bible to savouring it, which is far more enjoyable and impactful.
2. It Equips You for Spiritual Warfare
Satan is many things. He is an accuser. He is a murderer. He is a tempter. But most importantly, he is a deceiver (see Matthew 4:1-11; Revelation 12:10; etc.).
Jesus said that the devil is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). In fact, that was how he convinced our first parents to sin. He convinced them that eating the forbidden fruit would not result in death (Genesis 3:4). That was a lie straight from the pit of hell.
If only they had remembered God’s Word! If only they had memorized it, believed it, and hidden it in their hearts. But they didn’t, and the consequence was the Fall.
Satan tried it again with the Second Adam, Jesus Christ. As Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, the devil tried to make Jesus believe the lie that eating was more important than obedience, that testing God was more important than trusting God, and that a kingdom could be inherited without the Cross.
But Jesus didn’t give in, because He knew God’s Word. He had memorized it, understood it, and wielded it in His moment of greatest need. The result was that the devil fled from Him.
Brothers, there will be times when we face the devil’s lies as well. And in those moments, we can’t afford to fumble through our Bibles, hoping to find the right verse. We must have God’s truth ready at hand to turn back the devil’s lies. We need an armoury that is ready for us to draw upon.
3. It Prepares You to Serve Others
God made us to depend on one another. We are “the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12) and “living stones” of the same spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5). We’re here to serve one another. That certainly happens through practical help, but it also happens through counsel and prayer.
Have you ever experienced the comfort of having a dear brother or sister share Scripture with you in a time of need? That didn’t happen by accident. It was the result of reading, meditating on, and memorizing Scripture.
The more Scripture you’ve memorized, the better prepared you’ll be to counsel and pray for others with God’s Word. This can seem counter-cultural to the vision of men being independent and self-sufficient, but this is what true masculinity looks like. It looks like serving one another through the Word of God and prayer.
So, where do you start?
You could write down verses like I did.
You could download the “Fighter Verses” app, which specializes in Bible memorization.
You could just linger over certain passages in your Bible.
Whatever it may be, the important thing is to start. Practice every day. Build up your armoury. And see how God works.
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