How to Memorize Scripture: My Proven Method for Memorizing 45 Books

Two trees once lived on my property. Both are no longer there.

The first was a loblolly pine over twenty feet tall. On the night of December 5, 2002, there was a terrible ice storm in North Carolina where I live. A deluge of freezing rain covered everything with a thick coat of ice. Loblolly pine trees have branches way up high and a very shallow root system. As soon as the ice made it top heavy, down it came.

A few years later, I received the gift of an apple tree, a little sapling. I studied how to plant it, dug the hole, planted the tree, watered it, and waited, dreaming of fruit for years to come. But within a few short weeks, the green leaves on the sapling had withered and soon the tree was dead. The place I had chosen was not ideal for apple trees. The root system never developed, and the tree never bore fruit.

Both trees died because of their inadequate root systems.

By contrast, Psalm 1:1–3 speaks of the blessed person who meditates on God’s Word day and night: such a one “is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.” What a beautiful picture of stability and fruitfulness! Through its proximity to an endless supply of life-giving water, the tree does what it was designed by God to do: stand upright and bear fruit. The stunning promise of that Psalm glows in my heart day after day: “Whatever he does prospers!” And the key to this spiritual prosperity is continuous meditation on the Word of God.

One primary way we can do this is by memorizing Scripture.

Why should one memorize Scripture?

I want to exhort you, dear friend, to give yourself to a lifetime of Scripture memorization. Do not memorize only a few favorite verses. Certainly, you can start there! But I want you to think about making this a habit you continue to do until God calls you to heaven.

Scripture is soul-bread, and bread is life. Deuteronomy 32:47 says of the Scriptures, “They are not just idle words for you—they are your life.” When tempted by the devil in the desert, Jesus says, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4). For Jesus, Scripture is for the soul what food is for the body. Paul says that the faith that saves our souls comes from hearing the message about Christ (Rom 10:17). Faith in Christ must be fed daily by the Word of God, so Paul said, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Col 3:16). How can the Word “dwell in us richly”? Memorization is a powerful answer!

We also memorize because of the importance of our thought life. If we want to live a life pleasing to God, we must live according to his Word. But before every good deed is a good thought, and all good deeds and good thoughts are first defined and commanded by the Word of God. If we are to be transformed from a life of sin to a life of godliness, we will be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and that happens only by a constant saturation in the Word of God (Rom 12:1–2).

Satan knows how important our thought lives are. He is constantly assaulting our minds with tempting thoughts that must be taken captive and made obedient to Christ (2 Cor 10:5). Scripture memorization enables us to abide constantly on what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy (Phil 4:8) instead of the corrupting “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and boastful pride of life” (1 John 2:16).

Negatively, we memorize Scripture because of how prone we are to forget it. Tragically, throughout the history of our sinful human race, we have shown how consistently we forget God and his Word. James talks about the individual who looks at his face in a mirror and then goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. By contrast, God wants us to look intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, not forgetting what we have heard but doing it—in that way we will be blessed in everything we do (Jas 1:25).

In John 15, Jesus likens the Christian life to a branch abiding (dwelling, remaining, living) in a vine. Like our earlier image of root systems, this connection with the vine constantly gives the branch everything it needs to bear fruit. So Jesus said, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (John 15:7–8). Christ’s words abide/dwell/remain in us when we have them memorized and continually review them. Then we pray, bear fruit, glorify God, and prove our status as true disciples.

How can one memorize Scripture?

For over forty years, I have devoted myself to memorizing whole books of the Bible. I started in the summer of 1986 with Ephesians while sitting on a bench in Kenya waiting for a bus to Nairobi. Since that time, I have memorized a total of forty-five books of the Bible.

There are countless ways to go about memorizing Scripture, and many practical “tips” and “hacks” and mnemonic techniques people have developed. But when all is said and done, I see no substitute for repetition over time. Until we do that, the word stays at a temporary place in our brains, easily fading as soon as we give our attention to something else.

My approach has developed into these steps:

1. Choose a passage to memorize.
2. Read the verse out loud ten times.
3. Look away from the Bible and recite the verse ten times.
4. The next day, recite the verse ten times again.
5. Recite the verse for one hundred consecutive days.
6. At the end of the hundred days, kiss the verse goodbye so you can memorize more verses.
7. Repeat this pattern for every verse you memorize.

Some may question step 6, hoping to retain all of the memorized verses forever. The problem is that there is a limit to what any of us can retain, and I want to challenge you to memorize new Scripture as a habit for the rest of your life. Should you do so, at some point you will reach a maximum saturation level. The sheer quantity of verses will threaten to overwhelm you, and you will be tempted to give up entirely. I would prefer that you commit to a pattern of learning new Scriptures till the end of your days. Then you will see Christ face to face and will be taught by God directly! (John 6:45).

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What Scripture should one memorize?

People who are not presently memorizing Scripture need to start somewhere. The best place to start is with key texts that will be immediately helpful to you—famous verses that everyone should know. Search the cyber world with the query, “Top ten verses to memorize” and you will quickly get a starter kit. Maybe you’ll start with John 3:16 or some verses on the famous Romans Road (Rom 1:16; 3:23; 5:8; 6:23; 8:1). The Navigators’ “Topical Memory System” is where I started, and they have their own recommended starting places.

However, I want to advocate that once you get used to the discipline of Scripture memorization as a lifestyle, you move on to memorizing whole books of the Bible. Why? Because “All Scripture is God-breathed and useful” (2 Tim 3:16) and “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4). Memorizing a whole book will help ensure you understand every verse in its context and also enable you to follow the logical flow of the reasoning in every chapter. Finally, it will open your eyes to hidden gems, verses that are not as famous, but which will hit you in powerful ways and shape your soul for the glory of God.

To do this, you may also want to increase your pace. To get through longer books, I memorize three verses per day, altering the pattern I described above in this way:

1. Read today’s first verse ten times out loud.
2. Recite it ten times from memory.
3. Read today’s second verse ten times out loud.
4. Recite it ten times from memory.
5. Read today’s third verse ten times out loud.
6. Recite it ten times from memory.
7. Recite all three verses ten times from memory.

The next day:

1. Recite yesterday’s three verses ten times from memory. (Glance at the Bible to refresh your memory, as needed.)
2. Then, do steps 1–7 for the next three verses.
3. Recite all the verses you learn for one hundred days.
4. Kiss each of them goodbye in turn, once you’ve completed their hundred days.

In this way, you can learn whole books like Ephesians, Ruth, or even longer books like the Gospel of John.

What are the benefits to memorizing Scripture?

There are so many benefits to a lifetime of memorization. Here are two that have glowed in my heart for a few years:

1. Insight

New ideas, thoughts, concepts, and understandings that come during my hundred days are more precious than gold or diamonds to me. The Holy Spirit will bless your mind with stunning new thoughts by illuminating these verses, showing you things that have always been there but that you may have never seen before. Those insights will electrify you and show you how “living and active” God’s Word really is (Heb 4:12).

2. Intimacy

God wants us to draw near to him in a loving relationship. By means of the Word of God, I learn more and more about his infinite love for me in Christ and his unfathomable grace. The Word of God speaks to me directly by the Spirit and tells me of his presence, his greatness, his wisdom, and his tender affection for me in Christ. Nothing that this world has to offer can compare with that.

Conclusion

This journey of Scripture memorization will be one of the most challenging and laborious works you may ever begin. It will try you, test you, and sometimes exhaust you. The weakness of our minds and proneness to forget may discourage you.

But I promise you this: If you invest in this habit, you will never regret it. It will enable you to develop a deep root system that will make you stable in storms, vibrant in drought, and fruitful in Christ for all eternity. On Judgment Day, when our Lord evaluates everything you have done in the body, good and bad (2 Cor 5:10), you will have cause to regret many poor choices and wasted time in your earthly pilgrimage. But you will never regret a minute you spent hiding God’s Word in your heart!

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