Memorization for Broader Understanding

In my first post on this topic I stated that the act of memorizing Scripture gives the rational mind something to focus on (the difficulty of memorizing) so that it doesn’t out-shout the text with its own biases and logic. I failed to mention that Dave Finnegan, juggling teacher extraordinaire, uses a similar trick. When I was struggling to learn five-ball juggling he told me to sing the “Magdalena Spagdalena” backwards… in German. I told him I didn’t know the song nor German, and he said, “You don’t need to know either. You just have to occupy your conscious mind with something so it doesn’t start thinking about juggling.” He said our rational mind is too slow for what the body has to do, so if that part of the brain can “take a hike” the body more quickly learns the reflexes it needs to juggle. I think memorizing similarly preoccupies the rational mind, but this time rather than benefiting the reflexes, it benefits a deeper, more intuitive and complex part of the mind itself. 

Here’s the new thought. Memorization not only helps us connect the various parts within a challenging passage, it also helps us connect the passage with other issues in the Bible, or even the events of daily life. I can’t memorize a long piece in less than several weeks. I work on it while I’m walking. Two benefits: no interruptions, and increased blood-flow to my decrepit brain. So, as the days pass, I keep walking and reciting. Life continues to happen, and bits and pieces of my broader life get mixed into the thoughts of the passage. That makes a rich source for new insights, both in my personal life, and also in my understanding of God and His Word. Here’s a current example.

We hired a contractor to do some work, and he quickly let us know he is an active Christian. Nice surprise. He mentioned that he would quit believing in hell if the Bible made that allowance, but since it is so clearly taught in the Bible, he has to continue believing in eternal torment event though the thought is totally repugnant and seems to go against the character of God. I told him I was sure the Bible did not teach eternal torment. I know that Revelation 20:10 talks of Satan, the Beast, and the False Prophet being thrown into the lake of fire and says, “They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” But there are many more verses throughout the Bible that say the wicked will perish, will fade away, and the dead know nothing.

I plunged into a personal study on the topic and read much. I have found that when it comes to beliefs on hell there is definitely “more heat than light.” One flaming fragment of the debate is “Can you take the Bible literally?” No one wants to weaken belief in the Bible as the Word of God, nor do the serious scholars want to leave the Bible open to each person’s private interpretation. Some scholars are comfortable with flames licking up flesh that will char but never turn to ash. They accuse the others with refusing to take God at His word. Other scholars cannot reconcile eternal torture with a God who gave His own life for us, even “while we were yet sinners.” They take God’s word seriously, but they don’t want to let a few texts paint a picture of a monstrous God. What to do?

So here I am on my merry memorization walk, reciting the words of Romans 8; not a word of hell in sight. But in the back of my mind, hang many things: my to do list for the day, the plants around me, how many miles left to walk, and this burning argument over whether the Bible is to be taken literally. It seems disloyal and dangerous to say we can “explain away” certain texts by saying they are not to be taken literally. I run through the words of Romans 8:18-23. I’ll retain the verse numbering so you can get the full effect.

“18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Of course, I am breaking it up into bite-sized pieces and “imaging” the phrases to help them stick. Paul had just said that we are co-heirs with Christ if we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory. So, in this passage he quickly dismisses the sufferings and begins to focus on the glory, and apparently a major part of that glory will be the miracle of bodies that won’t die; bodies that will be righteous and will live, just as our spirits live now because God is leading us.

If I were reading for “understanding” that’s all I would get, and in fact, that does seem to be the main point. However, as I keep repeating the phrases, I see all of creation—the animals, the trees, the rocks, the lakes, even the breeze—waiting. Waiting how? They are all standing there with bated breath! They are hoping against hope that soon the children of God will be finally saved so that they, too, can be saved into a non-death state.

I’m fine with that—with the thought that when God saves us people, He will make a new heaven and a new earth—but notice, this is not about the current natural world being replaced. It’s about all of our current creation hoping for its own salvation. What do you notice? Not just salvation, but hoping! All the animals, plants, rocks, and elements of the creation are thinking! They all have expectation. Hmm… maybe the pantheists are on to something. Maybe there is a soul in even the rocks and water. Maybe there are nymphs, naiads, and dryads—the spirits of trees, meadows, and rivers. Maybe the pagans, the Wiccans, and the Native Americans were very perceptive to notice the consciousness of even the dirt we walk on.

Or maybe Paul is personifying nature; referring to it with the feelings we have about it. I’m trying to memorize, but suddenly, my conscious mind erupts with, “What would a literalist have to say about this!? If they insist that all Scripture is to be taken literally—even rare verses that seem to contradict the ideas found elsewhere in the Bible—wouldn’t they have to be pantheists, or animists, or at least pagans? Even if they said, ‘Well, all creation just means the physical part of our createdness, that is, our bodies,’ they’d be straying from a straightforward reading of this text. And they’d still have to explain how our bodies, separate from our minds, have the ability to expect things, even with eagerness.

What do you think? Is Paul saying the whole creation is groaning? Can we hear that? Literally? Or do you think Paul is saying that we groan for the restoration of creation the way the Holy Spirit (appearing in the following verses) groans for us as He petitions God for our restoration? What fits best with the rest of Scripture? And if Paul is writing figuratively, is there any room for figurative language about hell? Or is hell so needed by a paganized Christianity that all of the verses about eternal torment must be taken literally, but this one about rocks that hope and groan, doesn’t have to be?

Amazing what richness there is to Bible writing when we slow down, reread and reread, and allow a non-judgmental mind simply soak in what the Bible is and isn’t saying.

Now here’s another unexpected bonus. In trying to make sense of the ideas, my mind stumbled on verse 20 which suggests that the one who caused sin to enter this world did it in hope! In hope of what?! What possible good could come from introducing sin? Does this mean that Adam actually believed that the knowledge of good and evil would be a good thing for the natural world? Oops. Read on to verse 21 and see that the first translators to add verse numbering made a mistake. Pure and simple. Not all verse numbering works. There are places where a new chapter begins in the middle of a thought. Even the punctuation has been added for modern readers. Are all those things also inspired? Apparently not, because in this case, the phrase “in hope” doesn’t refer to what comes just before it in the same verse. It doesn’t refer to “the one” nor even to what is farther before it “subjected to frustration.” Instead, it points way back to “waits in eager expectation.” The creation is waiting in hope.

I make a big deal out of this not to weaken the place of the Bible in my life, but to strengthen it. Sometimes people see discrepancies between a presumed teaching of the Bible and simple human decency; for instance, that a loving God would keep sinners alive forever so He could torture them forever. Even Corrie Ten Boom is moral enough not to wish eternal torment on her Nazi persecutors, and in doing that she is following Jesus’ own advice. Why wouldn’t Jesus live by His own advice? Once this kind of discrepancy is discovered, they rightly ask, “Isn’t God as moral as people?” And some Christians who are well-intentioned but misinformed thunder back with “Who are YOU to judge a holy God?!!” It was an honest question, but the literalist can’t see through the flames, so they make it a test of loyalty, and they insist that we swallow erroneous views of God. Why? Because they have read the Bible for proofs of things rather than allowing it to wash over them and cleanse them with a living, breathing presence.

By being very attentive to how the Bible actually works—how the writers wrote, how the Spirit seems to have allowed them to express themselves, even how the Spirit today impresses us as we read—I am freed from these false conflicts. I don’t get stuck trying to defend the indefensible. Instead, I am free to see the beauty of the whole book and let colorful speech be colorful, not necessarily measurable.

That lets the Bible sing and dance and preach and thunder as a reflection of a merciful God who has pursued His children for thousands of years and has used every emotion to capture our attention and to gain our cooperation. I can’t let a literalist take one of those images and artificially use it to tear the other images apart. 

Memorization for Christian Enlightenment

My goal was to “hide His word in my heart” but I think I’m “being transformed by a [rewiring] of my mind.” Have you experienced the same thing? It came as a surprise to me when I realized what was happening. I want to describe the process for you. Unfortunately, it takes many words to unfold something so circuitous as the workings of the mind, but I think you’ll find it worthwhile.

Let me start by summarizing, then I’ll give you a concrete example. First, I believe that memorizing Scripture mimics the best of what people try to achieve in meditation. It occupies the conscious mind so that more delicate impressions or intuitive responses can be noted, and biases can be overcome. It prepares some deep recess of your mind for what some would call enlightenment. Second, memorizing allows the mind to grasp things with a complexity of relationship that more closely resembles the complex neural networks of the mind. Point-by-point outlines of theological argument are necessary for scrutinizing small segments of our belief, but they do not capture the richness of a growing relationship with God. Real life is cyclical, redundant, and complex. And third, the very repetition of memorizing a challenging passage provides “attention density” the condition that brain researchers say is necessary for grasping new concepts and installing new habits.

As you strive to memorize words in their proper order, your desire for a quick outline is suspended, and your conscious mind can gently hold several half-formed thoughts at the same time—not forcing them to support your earlier biases—since it is focused on the task of memorizing rather than proving a point. Those half-formed thoughts (images, really), then, begin to knit together in a way more natural to the text. Here’s a real-life example of how it works.

I am memorizing Romans 8 which looked like a bad choice after I got into it. The chapter has several passages I love, so I thought memorizing the whole thing, keeping the whole context intact, would be a great idea. But then I hit some of Paul’s not-so-easy writing: “And if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.”

“C’mon, Paul! Couldn’t you throw any more words and twists and turns into one sentence? This sentence should have been simple. Didn’t you mean to say, ‘If God’s Spirit lives in you, He will surely raise you from the dead, just as He did Jesus’?” This is where I would have left it if I were “studying” this passage. If I were struggling to understand it, I would have paraphrased it so that it made sense, and I would have moved on, collecting more building blocks for some theological idea.

However, memorizing works very differently. It partly anesthetizes your prefrontal cortex by giving you something else to focus on. Your conscious mind is always wanting to grasp and to understand. Sometimes it jumps too quickly to conclusions. Then it scurries on leaving many good things undetected. But in memorizing, the conscious mind focuses on the strategies of memorization, not on the quest for new theology. So for a time, new understandings can gently make their way into your mind like timid deer sniffing the wind as they enter a clearing.

One of the strategies of memorizing is backing up, rereading many times, and trying to see the passage more graphically. So I tried to see the phrases of Romans 8:11 in picture form. I imagined God holding out a scepter or something and Jesus rising from the dead. That’s the first phrase. But it needs to be modified. Take the Spirit of God and lodge it in a silhouette of myself. Now the image features a vaporous Spirit still raising Jesus, but this time it’s in me. Next I see the electric resurrection rays wafting out to all parts of my body, giving life. And yup, He’s still living in me.

This helped me remember the text in order, but more subtle things happened, as well. There are finer understandings hidden in the different phrases. “The Spirit of the one who raised Jesus…” compared to “the one who raised Christ…” As I am focusing on memorizing, my restless conscious mind is biting off little differences like this to chew on. After a little digestion I gain this: “The Spirit of God, and God are interchangeable. Paul does it in the same sentence. In fact, Paul doesn’t seem to care if it’s the spirit or God or Christ or Jesus. He uses them all interchangeably in some passages (like Romans 8:9).

So I don’t have to imagine some wispy Spirit; it is God Himself enlivening me, but He does this through His Spirit which means through the strong identification He has with me and I with Him. It’s the spiritual connection we share. (Too long a story to explain here.) So as I identify deeply with Him (“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…”) the resulting and natural benefit in me is a renewal of life-giving attitudes and ways of being.

I toy with that thought in the back of my mind, not committing to it, because my focus is on memorizing, not on refining my theology. Yet there it is hanging delicately in the back of my mind as a translucent image. Here’s the very God soaking through my life with resurrection power demonstrated in history in the life of Jesus. And He is able to do that because I deeply adore Him and yearn to know Him better. That image just hangs delicately in the background like a sheet of tissue paper hanging on a clothesline in a gentle breeze.

As I read and repeat other passages in Romans 8 (like verse 10), they, unbidden, have an effect on this delicate image. They either disintegrate it, or they reinforce it. I read “But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin…” Is that a helpful image? It pops into my mind that Christ moves in and “Zap!” He kills your body. Okay, is this what people mean about “dying to self”? It’s another delicate image. How many of these can I hang on the line at one time without confirming or rejecting them? Apparently quite a few. Remember in memorizing we are not straining to collect and compare ideas, we are only struggling to commit words to memory.

Well, this image doesn’t even survive to the end of the sentence, because the sentence continues, “yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.” Ah ha! Here’s an important bonus lesson (and memorizing leads to many bonuses.) Paul sometimes leaves out clarifying transitions, or his translators do. The thought is “But if Christ lives in you, [though] your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.” So the delicate image dissolves and a new tentative one forms: Christ enters and your spirit becomes more alive as it practices righteousness, even though life (eternal) has not yet come to your body which is still suffering the deadening consequences of your (or your ancestors’) past sins. This seems to reinforce the first delicate image, but doesn’t this “alive because of righteousness” somehow bring in personal works as part of your salvation? The text doesn’t say “because of His righteousness,” or “because of your righteousness” so whose righteousness is it? Whose work is this?

With your judging mind still patient because of its focus on memorizing, you don’t wrestle with that question, you just keep committing the words to memory. And soon you come upon Romans 8:13, “For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if you live according to the Spirit, you will live.” Wait! That is not what it says. That’s a false parallel your mind created to make memorizing easier. As you struggle to be true to each word, you see that it really says, “… but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” Now the meaning of “righteousness” becomes clearer. Who gets the credit is not even the point. The fact is that you have to put misdeeds to death. 

Ouch! I am pretty defensive of those things I do that others would criticize. They’re “me being me.” Well, don’t worry about others here; God is the standard. And I don’t put to death any things judged by others (or even by myself) to be misdeeds, rather I cease doing those things pointed out by the Spirit. I have noticed in my life that when the Spirit makes something clear to me, the knowledge seems to come with power to act on it. Paul continues the verse by strengthening the delicate image that is still hanging. He immediately follows in Romans 8:14 with, “… because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”

Time for a commercial break: Do you see what’s happening? In memorizing you are freed from the word order of the passage. Since you keep repeating various segments and since multiple images are hanging lightly in the back of your mind, it’s as though all thoughts and all sequences are okay at one time. It’s like letting all the puzzle pieces float on the same surface, free to move into place as the “big picture” becomes clearer. And when a pattern does emerge, then the various images (possible pieces of the puzzle) suddenly fly together and you are blown away with the new logic of the piece. It seems to be an organic, or non-linear logic that “just fits.” All the various parts assemble into a “knowing” that may be hard to outline or explain to a friend. Yet you feel it in your bones. It makes deep, consistent sense, and in time you can outline it. This “feeling the truth of it deep in your bones” is likely what some people call “enlightenment.” It is deep and rich. You can revisit it over and over. You can examine it with the power tools of logic, and it hangs together. It is durable.

Conclusion: None of the insights I am gaining in Romans 8 may seem that important to you. Your area of needed growth may lie in a different direction. The Spirit of God knows your spiritual fingerprint and will highlight the Scriptures most restorative for you. But I hope you get the point: Memorizing helps your rational mind “chill out” long enough for the more picture-oriented, intuitive part of your mind to grasp a truer whole. Your biases are suspended as the Holy Spirit impresses you with a truer grasp of what He meant when He inspired the Bible writer. Your logical mind can go back later and begin the pick-and-shovel work of the new whole image, piece by piece. You can spend time working the rich impression into logic-bound language, but you’ll never totally convey the complexity and depth of the picture you now see. I believe this is how the Spirit leads our thinking. The process of memorizing helps the rational mind and the “affective self” cooperate rather than compete. It allows His Spirit and your spirit to breathe in harmony.

Defective and Useful

Have you ever taken a painful look at your worst behaviors and then questioned the value of your best efforts? “How useful to a perfect God is a defective person?” Well, here’s a counter question: “Is your usefulness dependent on your strengths or on His knowledge?” It’s worth pondering.

When I finished praying about this yesterday here’s what I concluded: God knows my defects perfectly, and that means I am still useful. If He knows exactly how I am broken, where the cuts, tears, and weak spots are, then He sees where the sound parts are as well. I remembered a garden hoe I had. Its handle was cracked. If I ever forgot the crack and trusted it as I would a perfect hoe, then my hand would get pinched or slivered. If I chopped with the hoe I ran the risk of breaking the handle altogether. But if I remembered the crack and picked it up carefully I could get plenty of work done. I could use the edge of the hoe with considerable force since the handle was plenty strong along that axis.

I don’t even know how I am cracked or how extensive my defects are. I have some notion of some of my weaknesses, but God knows them all. What a happy thought! He understands me so well, that He can avoid my splinters and cracks and can still get some good work out of me. I am still useful because of His perfect knowledge of my defects.