Since the beginning of the year, a friend from church and I have been challenging one another to memorize Scripture. We aren’t simply memorizing individual verses or passages though, instead we are challenging each other to memorize the entire book of Philippians. Our goal is to memorize Philippians by Resurrection Sunday (April 24, 2011). We got the idea through Justin Taylor’s blog about a program called Partnering to Remember. They provide you with a printout of Philippians in the ESV, which you paste in a small moleskine booklet and memorize the book in 16 weeks.We have all memorized verses or longer passages of Scripture, but have you ever attempted to memorize a whole book? This is a first for me. So far, we are 17 verses in and it is going great and not as hard as I thought it would be.
I want to encourage you all to memorize Scripture. But also I encourage you to memorize entire books. Last night I read a chapter from the book Dear Timothy: Letters on Pastoral Ministry on memorizing Scripture. In the chapter, Pastor Andy Davis gives helpful reasons why we as pastors must memorize Scripture and then he lays out 5 reasons why we ought to memorize extended passages and even entire books of the Bible. Below is a summary of his 5 reasons taken from pages 92-95.
- It honors the testimony that Scripture gives itself, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful…” (2 Tim. 3:16) and “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).
- It enables you more readily to grasp the central thought.
- You will be less likely to take verses out of context.
- Your joy will increase, as will your awe at the miraculous infinity of truth in the Scripture, as you continue to discover new truths.
- It lends itself to the best style of preaching- expository preaching. You can expound verse after verse that you have already meditated on deeply.
- Evangelism
- Counseling
- Your prayer life
- Stewardship of time
I pray that your mind would be saturated with Christ and His truth as you seek to guard your soul and shepherd God’s people.
Pastor Andrew
This raises the standard for pastors. I am very much in favor of it. I probably won't do Philippians but will encourage a few other men in the fellowship group that I pastor to work with me on Colossians.
ReplyDeleteGod Speed Andrew.
Paul- That is so rad! Be sure to read Andy Davis' chapter. Colossians will rock too.
ReplyDeleteAre you going to get the little books that they recommend for the Partnering to Remember? It is very helpful to have a little booklet with the text printed out on one page and a blank page on the other side to make notes. It is handy to travel with too.
Aaron Ashoff also said he and his wife are doing the Partnering to Remember program through Philippians.
"Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly..."