I was shocked to find out a few weeks ago that the Iliad and the Odyssey (the first known Greek poems and about 250 pages each in English) were not written down until about 400 years after Homer created them. They were memorised!!! Humans have an incredible capacity for memory. Whether or not you feel to memorise stuff, the brain can extend to have a quasi-infinite capacity for memory.
In the army, soldiers are trained to dismantle and repair their rifles in the dark because they just might need to use them with the lights off in a war. In the same way, we should strive to know our Bible inside out, because one day, we might have to use it in the dark… The day that our Bibles get confiscated (and this happens in many countries), will we know them enough to wield them without physically opening them? The day that we have a crisis and need immediate Biblical guidance, will we know God's word?
About three years ago a sermon I listened to changed the way I approach memorising the Bible. Until then, I had thought that Bible memory was about picking a random verse out of context and then remembering it. John Piper's sermon "If my words abide in you" changed me and set me on a journey to commit chunks of the Bible to memory. Listen and be provoked to do the same. Here it is:
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