How to Memorize Bible Verses
There are 31,102 verses in the entire Bible. If you memorized one verse/day, it would take 85 years to memorize the entire Bible. The likelihood of that actually happening is slim to none, but it’s cool to think about.
Although there is a lot to memorize, Jesus encourages us to, “live on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). That is difficult to do if we have a hard time memorizing verses.
When I say memorizing verses, I mean the entire verse, not the, “it says something about living on every word that God says”. A version which we are all guilty of doing at some point.
Let’s take a look at this classic technique most people refer to as, “The Memory Palace”. A memory palace, defined in an article on Litemind, is, “a metaphor for any well-known place that you’re able to easily visualize”.
Picture yourself at the front door. Open the door, walk inside and identify ten objects that you can see from the entryway. Some options could be the stairs, a painting, a statue, the doorknob, your kitchen, a mirror, etc.
Next, take a verse and assign a verse to each object.
My “palace” was my favorite house I lived in when I grew up. I started just outside the gate and the verse I assigned to the gate was Psalm 119:11,
“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”
Whenever I saw the gate, I thought “hidden” because the gate hid the house.
I then pictured myself walking through the gate and on my front porch, I could see my dad, my mom, and my sister. To my dad, I assigned Matthew 7:11,
“If you then, though you are evil to know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him.”
Whenever I see my dad on the porch, I think, “Ah, fathers give good gifts.” I went on to assign 8 more verses; one each to my mom, my sister, and other objects I saw outside the house. Using this strategy, I was able to memorize 10 verses, word for word in the NIV.
Here is my full mind-palace
- Psalm 119:11 — the gate when I drive up to my house
- Matthew 4:4 — The fridge in my garage
- Matthew 7:11 — My dad on the front porch
- 2 Corinthians 5:17 — The bucket of paint next to my porch (it was always there)
- 2 Corinthians 5:21 — The statue next to the porch
- Matthew 16:25 — The lawnmower that is in the garage
- Matthew 16:24 — The leafblower (It was heavy when I was 12)
- Ephesians 2:8 —Grace, the neighbor, on the porch
- Philippians 1:6 — My baseball gear
- Romans 12:18 — My sister who I constantly fought with
Instead of having to memorize 10 verses, I can familiarize myself with the verses, attach each to an object that is engrained into my memory because I saw it every day and just remember the objects. For example, the brain remembers the cue of the leafblower with the assigned verse rather than having to remember 10 verses in order.