I have a confession to make. I've never been a big fan of Scripture memorization. I've done my fair share of it - though, truth be told, I've likely forgotten about as much as I've 'memorized' - but something always seemed wrong about it to me. I've heard the case for it, Scripture says to "hide the Word in your heart" and such, but to me, memorizing one verse out of Deuteronomy did not equate to hiding the Word in your heart.
When I got to Seminary, I found a concept for my anxst. It's called "prooftexting." Simply defined, this is the process of yanking one verse out of Scripture to back up some argument. More often than not, however, the verse is pulled out of context and used to defend something that has nothing to do with the actual verse. Prooftexting is fairly rampant among Christians these days, lay people and clergy alike. You hear people using "the Bible says" as a trump card for anything they like. I heard it all the time in my classroom at Lexington Christian Academy - often it was the boys quoting a verse out of 1 Timothy or Ephesians to tell a girl to be quiet. I've heard preachers quote verses to argue a point that is actually the exact opposite of what the verse is saying in its context. I'm almost convinced that if we tried hard enough, we could use the Bible to prove that Rumsfeld was in fact the second shooter on the grassy knoll. Such practices cheapen the richness of the Word, make it a punchline for jokes, and usually enforce some of the Christian stereotypes that I have spent the past few years trying to dispell.
For several years, I felt that the practice of memorizing Scripture actually encouraged this sort of flippant use of Scripture. After all, no one ever memorizes an entire book, and frequently, those who memorize small verses actually have no clue of where that verse falls in the larger story. I grew so skeptical of it that, last year at LCA, I downgraded Scripture memorization from crucial part of the grade to extra credit (that is until I was politely informed of the policies).
At the same time that my disgust was high, I continued to have great admiration for people who prayed or spoke in Scripture; people who would not use Scripture as a licence to hurt or a trump card, but who knew Scripture so well that their speech was literally peppered with it. JD Walt, my pastor at Asbury, was one of these people. In our visits, he would frequently recite a Psalm in answer to a question or dilemna I was having. And I was always comforted by the words. This was one person who truly had hidden the Word in his heart and it showed in his life.
I have been ruminating on this question for some time now and have decided that Scripture memorization can be a wonderful discipline and an excellent way to grow in holiness, so long as the dangers of "prooftexting" are avoided. I have decided that the way to avoid prooftexting, in my own developing discipline of memorization, is to focus on the Psalms. The Psalms are short, relatively easy to memorize in whole, and they were written for any situation. The fact is that you don't have to worry about placing Psalms in context because they all revolve around praise - and praise can and should be done in any situation.
I've started with Psalm 51 because it is one that I already know fairly well. Julie is starting with me and it has led to some poignant moments of reciting Scripture out loud together. I'm excited to see where this journey of "hiding the Word in our hearts" will take us. More details to come. I'd also be interested in hearing any of my reader's thoughts or stories on this discipline.
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10 comments:
Memorizing scripture or the periodic table has never been a strength or passion of mine. I must admit, when someone conjures up a verse or two for any difficulty or trial; I am impressed with their knowledge, yet feel inferior as a Christian. Crap, I spend more time checking e-mail or reading WWII history than memorizing scripture. Get it in gear, Tom!
You make a great point about scripture memorization. Maybe they don't know the whole story or maybe they want you to be impressed with their biblical knowledge. Who knows? I do think it's a good thing to have a few verses at hand to fight in the midst of temptation.
Maybe I'll start with Psalm 51 . . .
What is the deal with Rumsfeld?
Tom-
Unfortunately, I think some people do feel proud or puffed up because of their biblical knowledge, which is sad as this attitude is completely missing the point of gaining knowledge about Christ - in order to be like him. Kind of reminds me of the guy who says: "I'm the most humble guy here." Something is amiss with such a statement.
I must say that some of my best memories of spiritual conversations were the frequent ones which you and I had late at night in FarmHouse, when neither of us knew anything. A frequent thing we heard from each other was: "Isn't there some verse in the Bible about that?" "Yeah, I think there is." But I think those talks were very formative for both of us.
Bahl,
Jackson
I really appreciate this post. It was challenging to read at first, but I think that I've come full circle and see where you're coming from.
My "spiritual training" was very focused on scripture memorizing. And honestly, I LOVE IT. It's super great the way the Word is brought to mind more often, or during a conversation or circumstance, it's like truth just pops out of my mouth b/c it's hidden in my heart and mind, and it's fresh. It has been a very valuable "tool" in my life.
But i can also see your point about it being used to argue or state a point to someone or to put someone in their place, or to even cop out and say "well, i know it's in the bible - it says so - it's truth." I think i've done that myself, as an easy way out of a debate or a defensive situation. however, I agree w/ what you said - it's inappropriate if we do not have the knowledge of the context.
I've been challenged by people around me who are able to memorize an entire book of scripture. I've met a man who has the entire BIBLE memorized - I admire that elderly man. The woman mentoring me memorized Philippians in college. I made it through 3 chapters of Ephesians. But now...it's all but forgotten. I dont practice it enough. Why do we do it? There can be so many motives of the heart. Is it to be able to defend the gospel? I think that's important sometimes. Is it to hide the word in our hearts? Definately a valuable thing when it richly and personally ministers to your mind and your thoughts. Is it so we can earn credit for class? Is it so we can pull it out of our pockets and prove ourselves right? What is the motive?
I'm just in a pensive state over this now. Thanks for posting this...interesting topic.
PS - off subject...last night i was thumbing through old photos w/ my sisters after dinner at my house, and we stumbled upon a little blue post-it note....
Hey Jackson,
I've actually thought about posting on my blog about some issues I've been wrestling with about scripture as well. Mostly about scripture and community and if our over-emaphesis on a "personal quite time" has actually hindered the Bible's effectiveness for not being a book read, understood, and prayed in community. In regards to scripture memorization, I think the key is one's narrative framework. As we understand scripture's story and intent we can put scriptures that we memorize into an overall framework. So for people like are friend JD scripture comes not only from within the hear but part of the larger story as well. For a fun look at prooftexting go to YouTube and look up Jack Van Impe, it is quite fun.
OK, different perspective here.....
Memorizing scripture has absolutely revitalized my prayer life and my quiet time with God. For various reasons, I seldom "spout scripture" to anyone - to me that is not the purpose of memorizing it.
My original motives for beginning a scripture memory program were actually not very pure or God-centered:
1) It was a challenge from Pastor Tim Trudeau to the whole church - I decided, for the pure sport of it, to see if I was up to the challenge, knowing also that if I was, it certainly couldn't HURT me any.
2) There was a little pride involved, on my part, in being among those of our church who kept plugging away at this, week after week, month after month.
3) Since I'm not getting any younger and I don't like crossword puzzles, I figured this would be a good way to exercise my brain in the hopes that it won't give out on me before my body does. And I take a good measure of comfort in thinking that if my brain and body ever DO give out before my heart does, perhaps God will graciously let me hang on to all these Bible passages, and let THEM rumble around in my otherwise empty head, for peace and comfort, and for verbal exchanges with my family when they come to visit me.
So, those were my less-than-admirable motives...pretty self-centered. My experiences after 5 years of scripture memorizing have shown me WAY better reasons to continue. I have not been faithful, month after month with this, but when I AM I wonder why I ever fell off the habit. I do it when outside on my morning walk/time with God, and what a difference it makes in my communion with him. It's kind of like sometimes He and I talk a little scripture together now.
I had come to this place where I felt like the biggest problem with praying daily was that I just prayed the same things over and over every day, and what was the point? and was that really necessary? what else should I be praying about?
But then with scripture memory, I found I'd be chugging along, repeating a phrase, verse or passage over and over, and suddenly I'd find myself praying things I'd never prayed before. It happens all the time now and when it does, I have the feeling like never before that the Spirit is guiding my words, GIVING me words and injecting a whole new prayer vocabulary, a new measure of adoration and new kinds of supplication that are more God-centered, and less gimme,helpme,please-centered.
And it always starts with a Bible passage that I'm repeating.
I'm still not very good at being able to call up a certain verse to fit the occasion, or the need, or the question - maybe that's a blessing, so that I don't fall into the behavior of "spouting".
For me it's just a personal discipline, like reading the Bible is. And my moments of sudden clarity, when some scripture that I have heard for years, suddenly takes on new meaning for me, or I suddenly have a new understanding of a bible verse or passage that I never had before - those moments are almost always as I'm walking along kind of praying and reciting at the same time. God's words that I have memorized have grown to have much more meaning for me than God's words that I read and then move on.
Also, reciting to myself keeps me focused, so that instead of admiring the beautiful houses, or thinking about my sore feet, or worrying about paying the bills, I've got God's words going through my head. Would that I could keep that up all THROUGH the day, and not JUST when I'm exercising.
Even with all these benefits, I have not been faithful, and have sometimes even gone for months without reviewing or adding verses..... usually this is connected with my off and on exercise program. When I get back on track, I always wonder WHY I stopped! (exercising AND scripture memorizing)
I've rambled on enough, and I want to add that up to now, the only person I've really shared these things with is my husband. I would like to share my experiences to encourage others to memorize scripture, but I just haven't quite found the venue where I could do that without sounding like I was "spouting" or prideful about it. I just wanted to add my experiences to this dialogue to inject another perspective into this discussion.
And JUST in case anyone's curious, the memory program that I use is (Fighter Verses - published and distributed by Desiring God Ministries, Minneapolis, MN)
After 5 years, one would think that I would have it conquered and be ready to move on to the next edition, but, like I say.....I'm weak and get easily off the track. In Christ, MomK
I am with Jackson's mom (mmk)...memorizing Scripture has revitalized my life and prayer life, too. I don't use Scripture memory to "attack" others in any way. I don't think this is a good reason for memorizing Scripture.
I do find it very helpful to memorize passages of Scripture to encourage others or yourself. I often pray Psalms I've memorized for other people, parts and/or the whole.
All that said, I would caution against "proof-texting" as Jackson described it. This is dangerous and devisive. A good "policy" to me would be to be familiar with the whole (passage/book/Bible). If you choose to memorize one or two verses to remind you of the whole, I see no harm in that. I see a lot of good in it actually.
That is all I have to say for now... :)
so this man and wife were arguing
about who should make the coffee in
the morning and she says it should
be him because he gets up earlier.
And he says it should be her
because being a woman it's her job
and he doesn't mind waiting awhile
for his coffee anyway. And she
says it should be him because it
says so in the Bible. He says
Show Me, so she turns to this
place where there's a section that
says so on every single page.
And it does.......
HEBREWS
Prooftexting, right?
MomK
MMK-
Yes this is prooftexting and it is on the far end of the ridiculuous scale of prooftexting and everyone can see that this is clearly a misappropriation of Scripture. The unfortunate thing is that people actually do this exact type of thing without knowing it. A less identifiable type of prooftexting would have been if the man quoted Ephesians 5:22 to support his argument that the wife should make the coffee. Probably sounds less silly, but it is the same principle as your story.
Thanks to all for the great comments and for struggling through this issue with me. Julie, MMK, and Kelli B., you each provide great examples of the positives of Scripture memory and believe me I am with you. In fact I've already experienced the same kind of new insight on old words that MMK spoke of with Psalm 51.
I agree with Mark J's caution, however, that we must understand where these words fit into the story because Scripture is not a flat story - rather it progresses. And sone of the verses you memorize from the Old Testament could have been relativized or even questioned by the incarnation.
For example, I'm sure that any of us could find a verse out of the Old Testament that basically says that God will bless you with riches and prosperity if you are faithful. But if you know the story of Scripture, you realize that when Jesus came to earth, he questioned this type of theology. Rather, he was fond of saying: "Blessed are the poor and suffering for they are favored by God." Two verses that come from the Bible saying seemingly contradictory things. The only way to make sense of them is to know how each fits into the larger story. This knowledge will enable the kind of thing MMK's talking about to happen much more frequently.
With all my memorization, let me also get context.
Make sense anyone?
makes sense. lots of sense.
new motive: memorizing while maintaning context.
thanks jackson!
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