“And upon that law does he meditate day and night” (Psalm 1:2).
“Thy word have I hid in my heart….” (Psalm 119:11)
To meditate on the word of the Lord in the middle of the night requires one to know it. So, someone–the writer of the first Psalm–has been memorizing Scripture.
Since people in biblical days had no books as we do, when they heard the Word read, they seized upon it eagerly and worked to remember as much as they could. No doubt that, more than anything else, accounts for the way Scripture is quoted throughout the Bible: never verbatim. They were going by memory.
You and I have Bibles all over the house and rarely give a thought to memorizing it.
Perhaps we’re like Einstein. According to the story, which may be apocryphal, when asked for his phone number, the great man went to the phone directory and looked it up. His visitor was incredulous. “You don’t even know your own phone number?” Einstein said, “I refuse to clutter my mind with information that is easily accessible elsewhere.”
I suppose that’s why we don’t memorize the Word. All we have to do is open our phones or laptops or pull down the volume from a shelf, and it’s all there. But if this is our plan, it overlooks a major factor: Christians need the Word inside us, not just alongside us.
I started memorizing Scripture as a child. And kept it up as a pastor.
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