APPROACHES TO MEMORIZING SCRIPTURES (Psalm 119:11)
Yeow Chin Kiong
There are a few levels of scripture memorization with varying degrees of difficulty among them. Firstly, there is the gold standard of memorizing verbatim (i.e. every word in precise order) a Bible passage in a particular language translation and version AND its "book, chapter and verse" reference. The material memorized for later recall can be a single verse (such as the often-quoted John 3:16 in the [English] New King James Version) or as many verses which make up a passage of thought (such as all six verses of the equally often-quoted Psalm 23). Such verbatim memorization should be based on one Bible version for precision or exactitude.
Secondly, there is memorization of scripture reference by "book, chapter and verse(s)" like "Mark 16:15-16"(which explains the meaning of "gospel" to include what is be done with it and that it comprises belief and baptism for salvation This retaining in memory of scripture references is an aid for locating the actual verse(s)-quotation. A simpler approah using this level of memory-work is to memorize "book and chapter" only but this does not facilitate quick and precise locating of the verse(s). In truth, scripture reference memorization beyond that of Bible verses most often used merely duplicates the function of published Bible concordances or their electronic version, or the use of Artificial Inteligence, the purpose of all of which is to help locate verse(s) in actual quotation.
Thirdly, bearing in mind that the whole 66-book "library" we recognize as the "Bible" actually consists of 2 major parts,- the 39-book Old Testament and the 27-book New Testament,- another approach is to memorize verses of one Testament in connection, or in tandem, with related verses of the other Testament. For example, many New Testament verses quote entire passages of the Old Testament to make the point that what they (the New Testament verses) are talking about had been prophesied or foretold, or foreshadowed, by Old Testament prophets centuries before. One example is the apostle Peter's declaration that the special day of the first Pentecost after Jesus' resurrection had been Divinely-prophesied by the Old Testament prophet Joel. This he does in Acts 2:16-21 by quoting Joel 2:28-32. The two scripture references ought to be memorized together to enable us to emphasize the apologetic or evidentiary value of Old Testament scriptures with reference to the establishment of Christ's church.
This third approach is a sub-set of the activity of memorizing groups of scripture references which bear some relation to one another. For example, on Jesus' second coming, we should be able to recall Matthew 24:37-44; John 14:1-3; Acts 1:9-11, Hebrews 9:27-28 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. These are the clearest scriptures about the topic. Of course, this third level of scripture memorization is unnecessary if you have by your side at all times a topical bible where scripture references are grouped together according to topic.