Onfire247, I think you really are on to something. God is building a foundation in you through the word. And our temptation is to try and determine a difference through our effort. I have committed a lot of time to Mark, but I haven’t stopped sinning. I don’t see any tangible way that I have improved as a person. More importantly, I know that God doesn’t see this and say, “Finally, you’re getting somewhere. Now, I can work with you?” The only think I can say 100% is that the time in the word is good. He called us to obedience, and this is one way I can be obedient. I can’t be perfect, and as a sinner, I can make even studying the scripture an act of self-righteous pride. But because the Word is true, powerful, transformative, etc., I can’t keep studying and remain unchanged. That is unchanged… lowercase u. We have already been completely Changed by the Gospel. That sign and wonder was performed at salvation.
Haha, that is great, Onfire247! You have no idea how many times I am glad and encouraged to see you still going full tilt! I know we only know each other through the site, but I do believe the unity of purpose behind the goal of memorizing and meditating on the word ties us together! I think about how one important part of the early church was unifying around the teaching of the apostles. One testimonial aspect of my odd desire to memorize Mark is how it has influenced my study of other books. I am leading a Sunday School class on Acts, and my work on Mark is so relevant. Okay, that is obvious, but here are just a few concrete examples. One, Stephen’s accusers mount a similar false case against him as the did against Christ… especially Mark’s account. Two, the Pharisees anger toward Stephen’s ministry reflects their insatiable demand for signs and wonders to confirm their origin… also similar to Mark 8. Finally, Stephen’s final words refer to Christ as the Son of Man…. I read a commentary that said, Stephen is the only other person (other than Christ… often in Mark) to use that name for Christ in the NT. I haven’t confirmed this last point, but Mark’s use has caused me to explore its origins in Daniel. Good stuff. I hope it is helpful to people in Sunday School, but I know that has helped my puny brain remain more engaged than before.
I was thinking about you today, TMG. I just wanted to say that I'm proud of you. I'm so thankful that you're holding strong to your commitment to memorize Mark. I'm excited to hear about the breakthroughs that are coming into your life because you have placed God's Word above your own earthly desires. Hang in there!
Haha, that is great, Onfire247! You have no idea how many times I am glad and encouraged to see you still going full tilt! I know we only know each other through the site, but I do believe the unity of purpose behind the goal of memorizing and meditating on the word ties us together! I think about how one important part of the early church was unifying around the teaching of the apostles. One testimonial aspect of my odd desire to memorize Mark is how it has influenced my study of other books. I am leading a Sunday School class on Acts, and my work on Mark is so relevant. Okay, that is obvious, but here are just a few concrete examples. One, Stephen’s accusers mount a similar false case against him as the did against Christ… especially Mark’s account. Two, the Pharisees anger toward Stephen’s ministry reflects their insatiable demand for signs and wonders to confirm their origin… also similar to Mark 8. Finally, Stephen’s final words refer to Christ as the Son of Man…. I read a commentary that said, Stephen is the only other person (other than Christ… often in Mark) to use that name for Christ in the NT. I haven’t confirmed this last point, but Mark’s use has caused me to explore its origins in Daniel. Good stuff. I hope it is helpful to people in Sunday School, but I know that has helped my puny brain remain more engaged than before.
Thank you for sharing all that about Acts, Mark, and Daniel, TMG (it was a good read), and thank you OF for encouraging TMG. We are designed to need and be interdependent upon one another.
One of my challenges with my memorization work here is that so far there seems to be few external or internal benefits that I can measure. Thanks to Covid, I have had few external interactions with people since I started this process a year ago. Additionally, there seem to be few measurable internal changes as well other than the occasional changes I'm noticing in my thought processes. A year later, I remain essentially the same person I was when I started, which is frustrating. I must confess that because of these facts I frequently feel like giving up on the whole matter.
I don't quit, however, because I feel that God is building something within me that must exist before the external fruit appears. In fact, as I was typing this, I was thinking about how the largest and most beautiful of skyscrapers begin with a foundation that is deep and wide enough to support its height. I feel that way. God is building a foundation in me for something in the future. I have no idea what that is, (and frankly it scares the bejeebers out of me) but I trust God and his processes. After all, Jesus spent 33 years on this earth, but only 10% of it was spent in active ministry. So, for as long as this process takes, I'm all in.
Onfire247, I think you really are on to something. God is building a foundation in you through the word. And our temptation is to try and determine a difference through our effort. I have committed a lot of time to Mark, but I haven’t stopped sinning. I don’t see any tangible way that I have improved as a person. More importantly, I know that God doesn’t see this and say, “Finally, you’re getting somewhere. Now, I can work with you?” The only think I can say 100% is that the time in the word is good. He called us to obedience, and this is one way I can be obedient. I can’t be perfect, and as a sinner, I can make even studying the scripture an act of self-righteous pride. But because the Word is true, powerful, transformative, etc., I can’t keep studying and remain unchanged. That is unchanged… lowercase u. We have already been completely Changed by the Gospel. That sign and wonder was performed at salvation.
I'll just say, I agree with what's written above, and a change in my life is that I'm calmer, more patient than before -- my wife will attest to that. A far cry from what I ought to be, I'd quickly add. I also just feel that my knowledge of the Word is somehow deeper -- it's not easy to quantify that. It's just something I feel or know more deeply. Romans 10:17 applies here, methinks.
Peace. When I'm faithful to do my morning routine in coming here, if I take each verse slowly and consider it before God as I go, I find that afterwards, as I go about my activities for the rest of the morning, I truly have a deep and profound peace that passes understanding. This is not a human thing -- John 14:27, 16:33, 20:19, 20:21, 20:26. It's not a human thing, it in no way comes about via human effort. See the verses I referenced.
As the day goes on, if I am not diligent to continue to seek God throughout the day, the cares of the world then come back upon me. We must steadfastly continue to go to Him as His servants, as His sons and daughters, humbling ourselves.
Here's a few other verses to consider: Luke 18:1, Luke 21:36, Ephesians 6:18.
That's my testimony of how using this site has affected me.
How interesting folks, I can share your frustration sometimes onfire247, in fact the more verses I learn, the less well I know each of them! I feel like my fingers have learnt them to type, but not to say.. which is a shame. Personally benefits include... (after 18 months)some structure to my quiet bible times ( often I will follow up on verses I have learnt in a bid to understand the context more) Better bible knowledge for discussion with others in church, I find it easier to discuss Christ and the cross, Christ is quicker to my thoughts and lips in everyday conversations. Peace as joosep says. On a good day when I am muttering verses to myself it feels like the scripture is part of me, flowing through me. My children watch and sometimes help me remember verses. Many more I'm sure......
If I may, I'd like to add one more quick thought: lately I've been using more often this site's "Practice" feature. As you are reviewing, once you've been tested on each verse, you can then choose if you wish to practice it. You can do this as many times as you want before going on to the next verse. I've been doing this more often lately for my problem verses, and I have noticed later that it does indeed have an effect.
I'm talking about doing this *during* the course of a review of a passage, not as something separage from reviews.
Excellent recommendations! The things that really trip me up in Mark are the familiar, yet slightly different phrases. For example, Jesus vs he, strictly or sternly charged, the varied descriptions of decisions to cross over to to the other side of the sea. 5:1 and 5:21 seem so easy on one hand, but when your trying to recall out of the blue (like MrsSpooner mentioned) or in the middle of a long recitation, it is so easy to get tripped up. One person recommended reciting the trouble verses over and over to have an audible, almost poetic or rhythmic retention. Maybe one day. Right now, I am focusing on getting all the content in there (heart and head) so I can get better with it. I will certainly look into Anki.
Also, thanks for clarifying your encouragement. I really do appreciate it. I know we don't know each other really well or meet face to face, however, the experiences shared here, along with the kind and encouraging words, really help. Symota, Onfire247, and many, many more regularly encourage the work with words and their work too!
Thanks, Symota! I may be on chapter 9, but I am really only solid through chapter 5. And I think the hardest part is working on reciting what you know. It takes a lot of time to recite the work (far from perfectly too) in one sitting. Lately, I just do chapters at a time. In truth, I am severely questioning my mental capacity at this point. Very humbling, although worth the effort.
Thanks, guys! Still pushing through Mark. I still haven't learned any verses 100% according to the site, so I still keep Mark 1 in the rotation. Right now, I am in the middle of chapter 9 with the goal being to learn all of Mark. I still go through various waves of encouragement and discouragement, but I am trying to at least meet my goal, trusting that whether or not I feel like I have accomplished something, the Lord will certainly use this work in my life for His kingdom. I may not be in the feed, but I look at everyone working, and it is a huge encouragement.
Thanks, guys! Still pushing through Mark. I still haven't learned any verses 100% according to the site, so I still keep Mark 1 in the rotation. Right now, I am in the middle of chapter 9 with the goal being to learn all of Mark. I still go through various waves of encouragement and discouragement, but I am trying to at least meet my goal, trusting that whether or not I feel like I have accomplished something, the Lord will certainly use this work in my life for His kingdom. I may not be in the feed, but I look at everyone working, and it is a huge encouragement.
Thanks, Symota! I may be on chapter 9, but I am really only solid through chapter 5. And I think the hardest part is working on reciting what you know. It takes a lot of time to recite the work (far from perfectly too) in one sitting. Lately, I just do chapters at a time. In truth, I am severely questioning my mental capacity at this point. Very humbling, although worth the effort.
I think there is great value to what you are doing, TheMoviegoer. I encourage you to stick to your plan and keep going forward, in spite of the disappointment you may feel.
I want to qualify a bit what I just wrote. Here on the internet, we don't have the benefit of knowing each other face to face. And so I don't want to be too quick with my words. Perhaps I'll qualify what I said, that looking at things from a distance, it seems like a wonderful and noble work you've undertaken. But on the other hand, you know your own life and circumstances far better than I do, and you will decided how it is best to move forward.
I want to comment, also, that if it's helpful, I've lately begun using Anki https://apps.ankiweb.net to strengthen my weak verses. I've been using Anki for a very long time, actually, for language study. (One caveat, however, is that Anki does have a learning curve -- you have to spend sometime learning how to USE Anki before it really begins to benefit you).
What I have been doing with Anki is this: I create a "cloze" card for each passage I'm learning. As I review a passage, I take note of any words which ended up in "red". (Based on this website's parameters). Then, I create a cloze test for each of those words. There's also a specific Anki addon which is very helpful in doing this. It may seem to be very time consuming, but once you know how to use Anki, it doesn't take that long, and I'm already noticing how it is paying off.
Since this thread is not actually the right place to discuss this, I'll post this also on the Website Help group.
Yes. Definitely time consuming at first, but goes much more smoothly once you get the hang of it.
I also started using Anki in this way so that I could review my weak verses in context. When I test myself on them out of context, as individual verses, I invariably do very poorly and it doesn't seem to help much.
Memory tools are great, and I've used Anki successfully for a while now (see my post in website help). Oddly enough, no matter how I varied my verse card setups, Anki never seemed to work for me for Bible memory. Actually my inability to successfully make Anki work for this led me to this website in the first place. This is not to indicate that Anki is not valuable for memorizing scriptures. The success of memory tools vary from person to person, and you should use what works for you.
Most of my memorization comes in chapter chunks. I have completely bypassed this website's spaced repetition setup and have created my own interval system based on how I feel about the verse sections. I find that gives me the freedom to focus on the chunks I struggle with while allowing me to skip the parts I don't. My retention has gone up significantly since I started it. It is similar to what joosep does but with less manual labor. I may post about it in the future if there is interest.
I've also switched to typing the one letter format, which has increased my typing speed considerably. It was hard to make that switch, and it took me probably six weeks to feel comfortable with it. Typing is so inefficient, however. I can't tell you how many times I've said the right word vocally as I'm going through a verse only to have my finger decide to type something else instead. I've tried to setup some sort of voice system to use the website, but so far success has eluded me. I've also tried all the various memory apps available on the Android store, and they either lack the feature or poorly implement it. I wish I had programming skills. I know exactly what I want in a Bible memory tool, but I lack the skills to implement it. I have seriously considered learning programming to do just that, but it is hard to talk my 47-year-old self into doing it. That being said, of all the tools I've tried, this website is by far the best which is why I keep coming back. Kudos to Luke!
For me, setting up a PAO memory system where the chapter is the Person, the verse is the Action, and the Bible book is the object has worked fabulously for me on the out of context verses. I've posted some about the PAO system in my other group. I'm still working through it, however, and I will post more detailed examples once I've used it for a bit longer.
Excellent recommendations! The things that really trip me up in Mark are the familiar, yet slightly different phrases. For example, Jesus vs he, strictly or sternly charged, the varied descriptions of decisions to cross over to to the other side of the sea. 5:1 and 5:21 seem so easy on one hand, but when your trying to recall out of the blue (like MrsSpooner mentioned) or in the middle of a long recitation, it is so easy to get tripped up. One person recommended reciting the trouble verses over and over to have an audible, almost poetic or rhythmic retention. Maybe one day. Right now, I am focusing on getting all the content in there (heart and head) so I can get better with it. I will certainly look into Anki.
Also, thanks for clarifying your encouragement. I really do appreciate it. I know we don't know each other really well or meet face to face, however, the experiences shared here, along with the kind and encouraging words, really help. Symota, Onfire247, and many, many more regularly encourage the work with words and their work too!
John is really bad about that too. So many variations on the same phrases that trip me up (Jesus said to them, he said to them, then he said to them, Jesus therefore said to them, he said to them therefore.) And don't get me started on the variations between Jews and Pharisees within the same verse sections that have no rhyme or reason to them that I can see. It is maddening sometimes! The dialogue itself I rarely mess up on, but the in-between stuff is frustrating for sure.
Despite my memory struggles, I find that I've been able to quote John extensively in my discussions. I don't know if I'll ever use these memorized chapters for anything, and I'm not even sure that is my goal anymore. For me, memorizing the Word is an act of worship toward the God who allowed himself to be crucified on my behalf. If he chooses to use it, great! If not, then I'll take this treasure to the grave with me. Either way, I'm not quitting. And I'll do everything in my power to keep others from quitting as well.
Whenever I feel like quitting, I tell myself three things:
1. "Quitting is only hard the first time. It gets easier and easier every time after that."
2. "Whenever you start something new, there will be two voices in your head. One will say you can't do something, and one will say you can. The one you listen to is the one that wins."
3. "The person I am five years from now will really wish I had memorized the Bible today."
As a side note, I meant no disrespect to your system, joosep. You are an established member of this community while I am a newbie. Your system obviously works, and your numbers attest to that. I was simply saying I'm too lazy to do the excel verse average tracking.
Thanks for all that valuable input, onfire247. And no problem, it's simply the system that works for me, and not necessarily intended for anyone else :)
I just found a new way to learn whole books of the Bible easily. 1. Find a well-read version of the Bible, such as the KJV dramatized: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXiRaCqjKQ0 2. Listen to it once every day. When you are familiar with it, slow the speed down to about 75% and try to read out loud with it (eyes closed). 3. After a month or so, you should know it!
The key is to stay mentally engaged with the reading, so you are following the meaning, and when at stage 2, to be predicting what is coming next.
If you find some verses difficult, break them up into phrases and use repetition to burn them into memory!
That's great, Saintman. If you are looking for the 2007 ESV dramatized that is used on this website, check out the Faith Comes By Hearing audiobook set. You can find it on youtube as well, but I downloaded it directly from them. If you use the following link, it is the first ESV dramatized on the list. You can verify this by using John 1, as there are alot of variations between the 2007 version and the modern version of the ESV. https://www.faithcomesbyhearing.com/audio-bible-resources/mp3-downloads
Wv, you have given everyone 50 million more reasons to keep memorizing. And it isn't really about the points. It is about what the points represent. Good, solid, consistent, time being spent learning God's word. How can that be anything but a tremendously encouraging testimony! Keep it up. Hope I'm still around to seen you hit 100 million!
I am struggling to imagine the work of adding a new verse everyday for six months, much less 18. You are amazing. Keep it going as long as you can. You’re quite an inspiration!