A Simple Scripture Memory System

Transcript

Here’s a great Scripture Memory system that’s inexpensive and easy to use. Best of all, every month, you will review all the verses you’ve memorized, plus learn new ones. And it takes just five or tenminutes a day. Here’s how it works.

Get an index-card box, tabbed dividers that fit inside it (you’ll need 41 of those), and some index cards. It doesn’t matter if the dividers have letters on them; you can flip them over and use the other side for labeling.

Label the dividers like this:
One divider should be labeled “Daily”
One labeled “Odd”
One, “Even”
Seven dividers should have the days of the week on them: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and so on.
And the other 31 dividers should be numbered 1 through 31.

Then place them in the box in that same order: Daily, Odd and Even, Days of the Week, Dates of the Month.

Next, copy onto the index cards the Bible verses or passages your family wants to memorize. Put one of those verse cards behind the Daily divider; this will be the passage you’ll work on memorizing first. You can just stack the rest of the verse cards in front of the Daily divider to be learned later. If your family already has some verses memorized, feel free to put those on index cards and distribute them evenly behind the other dividers in the box. If not, don’t worry; the other dividers will fill in as you progress.

Each day the person with the box pulls the card from the Daily divider; this is the Bible passage or verse that you’re working on memorizing. The person with the card reads the Scripture reference aloud. The rest of the family repeats the reference. Then the person with the card reads the verse or passage aloud as everyone listens carefully. Finally, everyone repeats the reference again. Now as the verse or passage is read each day, it will soon become familiar. Family members should start to join in on the parts they remember until, eventually, everyone is reciting the entire verse or passage together with confidence.

That’s the Daily memorizing new verses part. Here’s the rest, the reviewing verses part.

Think of the dividers as four buckets. There is the Daily Bucket, the Odd or Even Bucket, the Day of the Week Bucket, and the Date of the Month Bucket. Every day you pull cards from those four buckets. If today is Tuesday, the 3rd, you will work on memorizing the verse or passage behind Daily, then you will review the verses behind Odd (because the third, 3, is an odd number), behind Tuesday (that’s what Day of the Week it is), and then behind the 3 (because that’s the Date of the Month).

You’ll review verses in the same way you worked at memorizing them: the person with the card reads the reference, everyone says the reference, they all recite the verse or passage together, and then say the reference again at the end. The next day, Wednesday the 4th, do the verses behind Daily, Even, Wednesday, and 4. The next day, you’ll do Daily, Odd, Thursday, and 5. Do you see how it works?

Now, as you master the verses behind the Daily divider, you will advance that card and move the replaced verses farther back in the box. So when you have memorized a Daily verse card, jot the date on it and move it behind either the Odd or Even divider, replacing the oldest verse card in that bucket. Move that verse card to a Day of the Week slot, again replacing the oldest verse card there. And move that verse card back behind a numbered divider. You can then put a new verse or passage to memorize behind the Daily divider and you’re ready to go again.

When you have advanced enough verse cards that you have one placed behind each numbered divider, start at 1 again and add another card to each. Soon you’ll have several cards behind each Date of the Month divider. But it will still take only five or ten minutes a day. Use the system every day of the month and you will review all the verses you know every month of the year! Of course, not all months have thirty-one days, that’s true; the verses behind 31 will be reviewed seven months out of the year. We recommend putting verses that you know quite well behind that number since it gets reviewed less frequently.

But that’s it! This simple system helps you review a new verse or passage every day, then graduate to every other day, then once a week, and finally, once a month.

Don’t worry about how many days it takes for everyone to memorize the Daily verse card. Hiding God’s Word in your heart is not a race; it’s a lifelong habit.