Bible Memorization Project - The Sequel - Verse Five

Hello my darling fellow memorizer’s of Scripture!

I find myself wondering how each of you are doing with our Bible memorization project. By now the excitement of starting something fresh has waned and I bet staying on track has become a greater challenge. I imagine some of you might be wondering “Why am I even memorizing scripture? Does it really make a difference? Is this even important to God or just our Bible Study leader?” No doubt the enemy is only adding fuel to those flickering doubts and perhaps you find yourself wanting to abandon the project altogether. If that is you, then let me take a moment to bring some Holy Spirit inspired encouragement.

This past week I have been studying the Proverbs 31 woman in preparation for next weeks teaching. It has been a fascinating time in the word and God has prepared tremendous insight and encouragement for us next week. You won’t want to miss that. At any rate, what I learned is that this passage is arranged alphabetically in a pattern referred to as an “acrostic”. This pattern means that the first word of each line begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet in sequence. The Expositors Bible Commentary (Proverbs-Isaiah) remarks that “this type of arrangement made memorization easier” (p246). Other notable examples would include Psalm 25,34,37,119 and 145.

In studying the use of acrostics, I also learned that they were used in the practical sense as if covering the subject matter from a-z. But here is what brought me such great encouragement. If the Psalmist wrote in the acrostic format then one of his intentions was that it would be memorized. Since the scriptures were written by men as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit, then it would seem that memorization would be God’s intention as well.

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God; that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of him.”

1 John 5:14-15

Since we have established that it would seem that it is God’s will that we memorize scripture as the use of the acrostic implies and the above scripture tells us that if we pray anything according to His will we get what we ask then the solution to our waning strength to continue in memorization, would naturally seem to be to PRAY!!!! Pray that He would sustain this project in you. Pray that He would put a fire in you to continue. Pray that He would revive you memory cells and help you to retain His words. Pray that He would make you passionate about all things concerning His Word. I am certain that these are prayers He will answer. Amen?

Ok Everyone, here is the part of the blog where you have the opportunity to leave verse 5. Let me see those scriptures. I will start with mine.

“Doesn’t force itself on others. Isn’t always ‘me first’. Doesn’t fly off the handle. Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others.”

1 Corinthians 13:5 MESSAGE

Love, love, love doing this with you!!!