TheMoviegoer §↻

Yes! It is a delight to see and hear from you, PeterP! And I agree with joosep... all by the grace of God. And that grace includes those who have built this site and the people on it who share such encouraging words.

What a joy, Joosep! It is truly good to hear the honest, heartfelt desire to grow closer to God through His word, while at the same time recognizing that it make take time to find the best process to do it. It is funny how much I recognize many of the difficulties you have faced with using the site. I may have told you this, but I started memorizing Mark because I was reading a commentary that would present a passage and then spend several pages unpacking it while referencing earlier parts of the chapter. Well, I would get frustrated because I would have to relook up the earlier passage and reread it to understand what the commentary was referring to. I said to myself, "it would be easier if I just had the gospel memorized. Sure enough, I googled it, and found a guy on the web who while preparing to write a commentary on I Corinthians, took time to memorize the book first. I was so inspired, I found this site and jumped in with both feet. Years on, I feel like you. I believe I have been richly rewarded with insight, recall, and a sense of knowing the word more. But at the same time, I don't want to get fanatical or obsessed improperly. I can see why you changed motives, methods, etc. over the years. But to me, the most important thing is that you are still committed to the word. It is our most powerful and best means to know our lord and savior. For that, I am super grateful. Keep up the good work, brother! I hope when I am 68, I am still going strong in the word as well!

This is very commendable, joosep! I do believe there is great value in your approach. There is another user on the site that has at least started each verse of the Bible (A1, I believe). I am probably the opposite as I really try to thoroughly commit and refresh the passages I work on. However, moving through as you described and achieving a high percentage of recitation is awesome. My question for you is open... What is the greatest benefit of your method? Or How have you most enjoyed or been challenged by your process? I believe I am still learning some ways to benefit from my own approach (cooky as it is at times). However, I am always curious about how this site and memorization as a whole informs people who undertake it. You mention some things, like getting the feel for author's intent (and God's of course), but internalizing and the relational are more subjective and harder to understand. To me, I love that when reading through the OT, I see things differently for having memorized Mark's Gospel and Peter's letters. Some direct reference and some not so direct. I just hope I can keep going. I find this much better than my previous devotional approaches.

Thanks, Joosep! I am just finishing up II Peter. So, now I have Mark, I Peter, and II Peter memorized. But I really appreciate what you are saying about internalized passages. There are two things that are difficult for me, which are hard on this site too through no fault of the site.

1. Memorization doesn't really take hold when you don't understand the passage. I memorize first, and then eventually get a better understanding of the passage, so I am doing things in reverse.

2. The way verses break sentences make things really difficult to memorize well. For example, in II Peter 2 it says (and i don't usually memorize the verse numbers), "But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matter of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction," Now this ends the verse mid sentence and feels like a sentence. But the next verse starts... "suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure..." That phrase "suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing" is the end of the sentence, but because of the verse breaks, you have to really work at getting the thoughts completely right.

Anyway, sorry to launch into a bunch of weird struggles, but it does matter when you are trying to understand the passages well.

Now I will watch the video you sent.

Always good to hear from you joosep! You are such an encouragement.