journaling
Memorizing Ephesians
08/07/2008 07:09 Past Posts &
ThoughtsPersonal
I’m going to be
preaching through the book of Ephesians, beginning
this September. I have no idea, at the present time,
how long I’ll be in this wonderful book of Scripture;
I just know that I can’t rush it. There’s simply too
much there, too many treasures, so many facets to
explore. The danger in this kind of approach is going
so slowly that I lose people. To avoid that, there
will be some side trails I go down, branching off
from the text itself, to help us enjoy the grace
lavished upon us through this piece of God’s Word.
In preparing for this series, I came across this post by Tim about memorizing Ephesians. He also posted some photos of what his “system” looks like. Very timely; God’s providence is always good, isn’t it? So, I thought I’d copy his idea, set up my own Memory Journal (though not moleskin; sorry, I was trying to be a bit more frugal there).
I copied his
schedule, printed it out and pasted it into the front
page of the journal. Now I can keep on track.
This is how I chose to do the original work of each passage: rather than print and paste into the journal, I always have better recall when I write it out by hand. Not as sharp or neat, but much better for my memory.
I think it must
be the motor skills involved, the sounding each word
out loud as I’m writing and the time it takes to
write it out longhand that engrains it into me.
Going to the back of the journal (marked with a stickie note), I practice each passage, gradually adding to what I’ve learned previously. Again, the long, tedious path of writing by hand really helps me. I work backwards through the journal this way, and will probably meet up with the original entries by the time I’m through
(I’ve counted out
pages and know about how far this will take me).
After writing out, from memory, each passage, I open
my Bible and compare & check, making notations if
I’ve missed something.
So far, I’m nearing the end of chapter one. By the time I start the preaching series, I should be well into chapter three. On the first Sunday of October, our “normal” Sunday for gathering around the Lord’s Table, I’ll try my “hand” publicly. Instead of preaching a message from Ephesians, I recite chapters 1-3. I tried something like this years ago and I’m not altogether certain that the congregation realized I was reciting Scripture from memory rather than preaching a message. I wonder, how powerful is that: instead of cluttering things up with my often feeble attempts, simply allowing God’s Word to go forth, proclaimed from the heart, and doing it’s divinely appointed work?
To the praise of His glorious grace.
In preparing for this series, I came across this post by Tim about memorizing Ephesians. He also posted some photos of what his “system” looks like. Very timely; God’s providence is always good, isn’t it? So, I thought I’d copy his idea, set up my own Memory Journal (though not moleskin; sorry, I was trying to be a bit more frugal there).
This is how I chose to do the original work of each passage: rather than print and paste into the journal, I always have better recall when I write it out by hand. Not as sharp or neat, but much better for my memory.
Going to the back of the journal (marked with a stickie note), I practice each passage, gradually adding to what I’ve learned previously. Again, the long, tedious path of writing by hand really helps me. I work backwards through the journal this way, and will probably meet up with the original entries by the time I’m through
So far, I’m nearing the end of chapter one. By the time I start the preaching series, I should be well into chapter three. On the first Sunday of October, our “normal” Sunday for gathering around the Lord’s Table, I’ll try my “hand” publicly. Instead of preaching a message from Ephesians, I recite chapters 1-3. I tried something like this years ago and I’m not altogether certain that the congregation realized I was reciting Scripture from memory rather than preaching a message. I wonder, how powerful is that: instead of cluttering things up with my often feeble attempts, simply allowing God’s Word to go forth, proclaimed from the heart, and doing it’s divinely appointed work?
To the praise of His glorious grace.
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