Ten Benefits to Memorizing Scripture

Every so often I get back on a kick and want to memorize the whole New Testament. I think, “Hey, if I still have several years ahead of me [itself uncertain], it is entirely possible. And how beneficial it would be!”

The only problem is, I had these sentiments 7 years ago, 4 years ago, 2 years ago, etc. What if I had actually followed through starting 7 years ago? And will I actually follow through now?

On the one hand I shouldn’t be too hard on myself since my study in the Bible and related disciplines required for detailed study of the Bible (linguistics, biblical languages, hermeneutics, exegesis, theology, etc.) that has gone on since then has prepared me to be a better interpreter of the Bible today. But, what if the whole NT was already sitting there in my head, ready to be chewed on at any moment?

Charles Swindoll has said it well: “I know of no other single practice in the Christian life more rewarding, practically speaking, than memorizing Scripture…” (Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994], p. 61).

But even if the whole NT seems daunting at the moment, memorizing portions cannot be a waste of time.

A few years ago I wrote up these ten benefits I was finding to memorizing scripture:

1) I’m forced to dig deeper into the wording. Memorizing a sentence requires reading it over many times and saying it over many times.

2) I’m understanding the flow of the author’s arguments much more clearly.

3) Memorizing whole chapters or books is helping me gain context for that whole chapter or book, necessary for understanding the small bits too.

4) I am getting better at cross-referencing Scripture. When I read in 1 Peter 3:1-7 about proper understanding of husbands and wives, immediately my memorization in Ephesians 5:22-33, where it discusses the same subject matter, comes to mind with which to help me interpret.

5) My language learning skills have grown immensely. I’m finding it near impossible to go into a Greek quiz or test and expect to get anything less than 100% because of straight-up memorization.

6) I’m growing more in love with God’s Word as I store it up in my heart.

7) I’m becoming better at combating heresy and I’m becoming more effective as an evangelist.

8) It is growing my thought life and ability to handle more and more difficult texts.

9) It is multiplying my devotional time by allowing me to go through Scripture in my head at any time and meditate on it.

10) And to borrow a reason from John Piper: Conformity to Christ.

There are other benefits but this will suffice for now. These goals are attainable. It just takes time to develop the good habit of sitting down and going for it every day.

John 1:9-13 – Rejecting and Receiving

Verses 6-8 talked about John the Baptist’s witness to the light and now in verse 9 the light is made the subject again. Here the text also qualifies the light as the true light. Jesus is said to be true in the sense of ‘ultimate.’ Whatever one thought of ‘light’ in the first place, this here is the true light (cf. Carson, Gospel of John, 122; Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, 166). And this true light, which gives light to all people, was coming into the world.

In fact, verse 10 tell us that the light was in the world (this earthly realm) now bringing focus to the Word and the Light as actually in space/time history. When verses 1-5 talk about the Word it is in his relationship to God and his relationship to creation. But only here does it begin to outline that the true light actually was in the world, a historical fact that could be looked back on from the time of John’s writing. The first 5 verses could be uttered at any time post-creation.

The second clause of verse 10 reiterates what we already know: the world was made through him, but the next clause tells us that the world did not know him, that is, it did not recognize him. Verse 11 goes on to specify this world even further as his own. He came to his own and his own did not receive him. Shockingly, even though the world was made through the Word, the world collectively has not acknowledged the Word’s entrance into space/time history.

But, this isn’t the whole story. The Word would not be rejected in total. There is a group that the author can refer to as receiving the Word. And to those who did receive him, to those believing in his name, he gave the right to become children of God! Though we start out separated from God, receiving God’s divine self-disclosure (Jesus) results in being adopted into God’s own family as children. This adoption is not the result of bloodlines, it is not the result of the will of the flesh, nor the result of the will of a husband, but rather it is being born of God. And this born of God language will return in chapter 3 in an exciting exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus.

But there it is, the result of receiving Jesus is to be born of God, adopted into his very family, something greater than we can ever achieve or have simply through natural relationships. Being born into a certain family, whether Jewish or Christian or any other will not ensure you are born of God, only receiving Jesus will ensure it, something that transcends natural bonds.

Verbal Aspect Resources

I’m glad to see people were interested in the keeping up your Greek post that included discussion of Greek verbal aspect. The question of resources arose, for which I’m thankful.

For a long time it has seemed that most of the work produced has been very technical and introductory grammars have been slow to incorporate current models of verbal aspect. This may be starting to change.

So, what resources are most helpful to introduce someone with a Greek background to the subject? I hadn’t looked at Andy Naselli’s article for a while, but upon review I would consider it the best brief introduction to the subject. He also gives his recommendation for resources in this article and orders them according to how he sees it would most benefit an uninitiated reader in the subject.

Naselli, Andrew David. “A Brief Introduction to Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek.” DBSJ 12 (2007): 17-28.

Next, you can check out Constantine Campbell’s blog series related to his introductory book on verbal aspect. I’m linking to Andy Naselli’s post since the five blog posts are neatly indexed there.

Con Campbell blogs on Verbal Aspect

Last for online resources for now is Rodney J. Decker’s condensation and summary of Stanley Porter’s monograph.

Rod Decker, “The Poor Man’s Porter”

You can also see how Stanley Porter (et.al.) incorporate verbal aspect in their recent introductory Greek grammar textbook, Fundamentals of New Testament Greek. Even if you have already studied Greek at the introductory level this is an excellent resource to have.

If you look through these and trace out the bibliographic material you should be well equipped to enter the discussion.

John 1:6-8 – Why John the Baptist Came

The study for John 1:1-5 on the “Word” can be found here.

In verse 6, a new participant is introduced, a man sent from God whose name was John. This John is not the author of the book, the apostle, but rather John the Baptist. But the first glimpse into his ministry in this Gospel is not a narrative of what he was doing (as will come after John’s Prologue and we see in Matthew chapter 3 and Mark chapter 1), nor is it to do with his forecasted birth (as in Luke’s Gospel), but simply with his purpose in coming.

Why was John sent from God? He came as a witness to bear witness to the light, so that all might believe through him. Notice the purpose clauses: he came as a witness in order to bear witness to the light and the reason given for this bearing witness is in order that all might believe through him.

But, lest someone mistake John for the light or give him more credit than is due, verse 8 reminds us that he was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. John the author again uses a repetition in the negative as he did for creation and the Word in verse 3.

John’s entire ministry can be summed up here: to bear witness to the light and thereby see people believe in the light. And in this text, the light is not simply an abstract notion (though it ties into the abstract notion used throughout the Gospel) but is the Word introduced in the first few verses that we were told is the light of all people: the second person of the trinity, God’s divine self-expression, the revelation of God, Jesus himself. John was sent by God to testify about Jesus so that people would believe in him.

How he does this will be the subject of 1:15 and 1:19ff. in a few studies time.

The Use of Greek, Hebrew (and Aramaic) in Preaching

As I mentioned, the issue I brought up yesterday about pastors maintaining a certain acquaintance with scholarship in the biblical languages was predicated on the languages being important in the first place.

Andy Naselli has a post that highlights this issue, linking to Scott J. Hafemann’s thoughts (SBJT 3:2 (1999)), and quoting him at length on the best reason he has for pastors using the languages in preaching: tracing the flow of the argument of the text. The whole article (which includes other scholars) is worth reading but especially Hafemann’s thoughts on this issue.

The primary practical reason he gives to learn the languages is this:

[T]he confidence and humility it will bring to our ministries, while at the same time saving us countless hours of exertion and frustration. One hour with the text is worth ten in secondary literature. And at the more important theological level, learning the languages affirms the nature of biblical revelation, restores the proper authority of the pastor as teacher, and communicates to our people that the locus of meaning and authority of the Scriptures does not reside in us, but in the text, which we labor so hard to understand. We learn the languages because we are convinced of the inerrancy, sufficiency, and potency of the Word of God.

He said one other thing in there that lines up with one strand of my research that I will quote and leave for discussion another time: “…since every translation is the embodiment of thousands and thousands of interpretive decisions; a translation is a commentary on the Bible without footnotes.” I can see you salivating for more!