In the longest chapter of one of the longest books of the Bible, the psalmist wrote, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you” (Ps 119:11, NIV).
All 176 verses of this psalm are dedicated to the written revelation of God, because of its supreme value. In particular, this psalmist at the time valued it for how it might help keep him from sin. He hid—or depending on the translation you’re reading, stored up or treasured—God’s word so it would be with him when he needed it. Presumably, when the temptation to sin arose.
This hiding is different from merely reading or studying. Reading and studying are valuable tools used to interact with God’s word, but they’re not the same thing as hiding it in your heart. To hide God’s word in your heart is to make it a part of you—to take it in, and to not let it go. When you read the newspaper (if you still do), you don’t take it into your heart. You read it, digest it (if it’s interesting), and put it down. We can do the same thing with Scripture. Or, we can take in what we read and not give it back. In other words, we can hide it within ourselves.
Why Would You Do This?
The psalmist in Psalm 119 tells us exactly his motivation: so that I might not sin against you. It’s hard to come up with a better reason to memorize Scripture than that. And yet, staying clear from sin might not be the reason why you’d give time to hiding God’s word in your heart. Sin, in this season of your life, might not be what needs to be addressed as it was for the psalmist in that season.
Instead, you might want to hide Scripture in your heart because you’d like to be able to mediate on it throughout the day without having to open a Bible to do it. You have a section memorized so you can think about it whenever you’d like. Or, you might want to be more prepared as you talk about the gospel to others. You don’t want to have to flip open a Bible to explain something. You’d rather just be able to recite a passage of Scripture when it’s useful. Or, maybe you’re discipling someone and it would be nice to apply passages of the Bible to their life without having to check on that passage from a Bible. You have a section ready to give them not because you did a Google search, but because you have it hidden within yourself.
How Do You Do Something Like That?
When I first hopped on this train of Scripture memorization I thought it would be a good idea to memorize the Gospel of Matthew. I know what you’re thinking… but I was really motivated by a story I heard of someone who memorized Matthew and then used that memorization throughout his life in evangelism and disciple-making. I got excited about it and wanted to give it a shot.
The problem was I had no idea how to make it happen. I thought if I could just soak in the gospel enough times, it would eventually get stuck in my brain and then I’d have it. So I started listening to it—again, and again, and again, and again. I don’t know how many times I listened to the Gospel of Matthew back then, but it was enough to where I sometimes hear the person’s voice who read the gospel when I read it now.
Even with all that listening, I wasn’t memorizing anything. Sure, there were some parts that were more familiar each time I listened to it, but nothing substantial was sticking. Nothing was being hidden in my heart. I couldn’t recite the entire gospel—I couldn’t even recite the first chapter.
So, what’d I do? I quit.
It was all obvious to me. That guy I heard about could memorize Matthew, but I couldn’t. So I stopped. And that’s the biggest mistake I made, and the biggest mistake most folks make when it comes to Scripture memorization. Granted, the process for how I was trying to memorize was messed up, but quitting wasn’t going to fix it.
A few years (I think) went by and I gave it another shot. This time, not the entire Gospel of Matthew. And I wasn’t going to just listen to what I was trying to memorize. I was going to pick something much more manageable, and get a plan together. I started with Psalm 23 (a psalm you may already have memorized!) and my plan was to use index cards. I wrote out the verses on a 4” x 6” index card and began a new memorization journey. And still, I struggled.
Why couldn’t I memorize these six verses? There are only six! Should I quit again? Probably not, but something had to be done—something else needed to be changed.
I left the six and just started to focus on one at a time. The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. There, I’ve got one! He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters. Boom—another one! He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Three in a row! I was off and running now.
I might be telling you something you already know, but it wasn’t clear to me until then. Just like when we’re told to take small bites when we were little, so we didn’t choke, it’s best to take small bites of Scripture as we’re trying to hide it in our hearts, so we don’t choke and cough it up.
The rest of the verses came smoothly, and then I had Psalm 23 memorized. What next? Something longer. I heard one of my favorite preachers recite Romans 8 to his congregation and thought, that’s it. I loved Romans 8 and wanted to have it with me. Romans 8 though is much longer than Psalm 23. It was a jump from six to 39-verses. This time, though, I had a system. Index cards, and a verse-by-verse memorization plan. It would be manageable. And it was!
Verse after verse I was able take in and hide as long as I went slowly. Whenever I tried to memorize more than I was ready for, they wouldn’t stay—I’d cough them up. So, I would slow down and eventually, after a month and a half, I had all of Romans 8 memorized. I couldn’t believe it. I had an entire chapter of the Bible in my heart whenever I needed it. I would recite it throughout the day, and I quickly found situation after situation where some part of Romans 8 was applicable. It wasn’t just hidden; it was being used.
I wonder if I could memorize more than one chapter? I can’t remember when I thought of that—probably heard someone else recite an entire book or something like that—but I knew I wanted to tackle something bigger. I was going to go back to Matthew. This time though, not the entire book. And this time, with my little system.
I decided to memorize the Sermon on the Mount—Matthew 5-7. This was a chunk. Three chapters. 111 verses. Still, though, I had my index cards and I would just plug away a verse at a time. Actually, I bumped it to two verses a day and that seemed to work well. Then over several months, something amazing happened. I had the Sermon on the Mount memorized, and I actually recited during a church service as part of a sermon I preached. It was incredible.
It was incredible not because I just did something someone else should be amazed at—I watched someone recite all of 1 Corinthians (that was incredible!)—it was incredible because of what it felt like to have Scripture hidden in my heart; to be able to pull it out and apply it whenever I wanted to, or needed to.
So, What?
Why’d I just tell that (at times, rambling) story? Because, I want you to know that if I can memorize something like Romans 8 or the Sermon on the Mount, you can too. I don’t have an exceptionally good memory. I can recite The Office quotes with the best of them, but that’s because I’ve seen all nine-seasons of The Office an unhealthy number of times. What I have done, though, is read and listened to a lot of people who have done their own memorization work, collecting the helpful tips they’ve offered. I’ve also honed my own little memorization system.
If you wanted to get started (or started again) hiding Scripture in your heart, I would love to help you develop your own system. Reach out to me on Facebook or by email (kevindavis1986@gmail.com) and let’s come up with a time where a small group of us can meet every week or so to get going on this.
I’m not going to lie to you, it’s difficult to memorize three-chapters of the Bible. But, honestly, the most difficult thing about it, is just that it takes time. You can memorize three chapters. You can even memorize an entire book—1 John is not that long. It will just take time to make it happen. If you want to put in that time, and you’d like to have some support from others with a similar goal as you do it, I’d love to come alongside to help.