The surest way to give yourself a biblical mind is to memorize Scripture. The more you memorize Scripture when you consider ideas that you come across throughout your life, verses will come to mind that will indicate something is either biblical or not. Not to mention the right verse will likely come to mind when you are making a decision, attempting to resist temptation, or needing encouragement in the faith. Remember that when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, his response was to quote Scripture from memory (Matthew 4:1-11). In fact there were numerous times that Jesus would quote Scripture for various reasons (Matthew 5:27, 27, 31, 33, 38, 9:13, 10:35-36, 11:10, 29, 12:7, 13:14-15, 43, 15:7-9, 19:4-5, 18-19, 21:13, 16, 42, 22:37-39, 43-44, 26:31, 64, 27:46). Moses urged the memorization of Scripture when he said, “You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead” (Deuteronomy 11:18). Peter also expressed a desire that believers would memorize Scripture (2 Peter 1:15).
Now when you begin to attempt memorizing Scripture, keep a few things in mind. Start out small by memorizing a verse a month. You’ll want to set goals that you know you will most likely accomplish. If your first goals are to high, you may fail to keep them and give up all together. You don’t have to memorize the whole Bible in a year. However, having three verses memorized is better than having none, so at least start out somewhere. Again, perhaps memorizing a verse a month would be a good place to start. Remember, once there has been repentance, life is about today and the future. If you missed a month, don’t give up, just move on to memorizing a verse this month. Be careful carrying over verses as well. If you missed April’s verse, you do not have to memorize two verses for May, just go right back to memorizing one verse a month. Again, even if you missed most months, it is better to end the year having memorized 3 than having memorized 0. Always, compare yourself to your past. Do I have more total memorized verses now than I did last year? If the answer is yes, then it doesn’t matter if that means you have 12 now and you only had 9 then. As long as you continue to increase, that is the goal.
Also, it is good to try to incorporate a large circle of topics. While memorizing an entire book, will be very beneficial to studying that book, the scripture you have memorized will have a small range of topics. If you memorize by topics you will increase the likely-hood that you will know a verse by memory for every issue you encounter in life. For example, I rotate between encouraging verses, verses on how a Christian is to live, how the Church should function, and doctrine. In each of those categories I rotate as well. May God enable you to memorize Scripture and may his Word bring so much positive change to your life!
