How I’m memorizing the entire book of Romans (Part 1)
“This letter is truly the most important piece of the New Testament. It is purest Gospel. It is well worth a Christian’s while not only to memorize it word for word but also to occupy himself with it daily. As though it were the daily bread of the soul. It is impossible to read or to meditate on this letter too much or too well. The more one deals with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes.”
-Martin Luther
God kept asking me this question: “Gabe if Bible’s were outlawed tomorrow, how would you preach my word to the people that need to hear it?” This hit me hard. I mean I could explain what Jesus did on the cross, I could even tell a couple of stories like David and Goliath, Jonah and the fish, Joseph getting sold by his brothers, etc.
But that would be about it, if all bibles were outlawed tomorrow, I wouldn’t have anything else to share.
When God asked me this, I made a decision I was going to memorize a book of the bible, so that if someday bibles are outlawed. I wouldn’t just paraphrase stories in the bible, but I would be able to verbally read the book word for word.
How the heck do I memorize an ENTIRE book? Well I bought this book called “ An Approach to Extended Memorization of Scripture” which is only a dollar on kindle and I super recommend it. The author has memorized 42 books of the bible, so he knows what he’s talking about.
The book teaches you not only the strategies of how to memorize a book of the Bible, but how to calculate how long it will take you, and why you should. I will be going through each of these in this series, but I do also recommend you read this book.
How do you pick the book you want to memorize? What I personally did was ask myself this question “What part of the bible do I want to understand incredibly well?”. I personally wanted to learn more about the gospel and why and how I am saved. I wanted to understand these topics deeply so that I could talk about them with others.
Many times, throughout my life I have wanted to share the gospel with someone, but it just didn’t roll off my tongue right. And so, by memorizing what Martin Luther says “is truly the most important piece of the New Testament. It is purest Gospel.” I hope to be able to preach the gospel well, and naturally.
Maybe you want to understand and be able to speak about the story of Jesus really well, so you decide to memorize Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Or maybe you want to learn how to live as the people of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit in a world which is overwhelming non-Christian, then the best book for you to memorize would probably First Corinthians.
In the next few posts, I’ll be explaining how to calculate how long it’s going to take you to memorize a specific book of the bible (or verse, or chapter) and the strategies that go into memorizing a book (or verse or chapter).
Until next time.
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