October 2 “REMEMBER!”

Pay attention and listen to the sayings of the wise. Apply your heart to what is being taught, for it is pleasing when you keep them in your heart and have all of them ready on your lips. So that your trust may be in the Lord. ~Proverbs 22:17:19

How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to Your Word. I seek You with all my heart. Do not let me stray from Your Commands. I have hidden Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against You. Praise be to You, O Lord. Teach me Your decrees. With my lips I recall all the laws that come from Your mouth. I rejoice in following Your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. I delight in Your decrees. I will not neglect Your Word. ~Psalm 119:9-16

Question: How much Bible knowledge is stored in your heart that you could depend upon if all the Bibles were confiscated and none could be found any more? How would you do? We are so surrounded by God’s Word. It’s on our phones and computers. We probably all have multiple versions all over our houses. I know that we do in my house. We have kids Bibles, Bible story books, translations, and interpretations such as, “The Message.” And even though our home is, “the pastor’s home,” I don’t think that your access to God’s word looks too different.

How wonderfully blessed to be living in the age after the printing press was invented. Solomon, however, for all his wisdom, lived before the printing press, way before the printing press. So, because he was king, he may have had a copy of the Tora (the first five books). But probably, the only copies that were really available, existed in the temple, under the guard of the priests.

To be true, we’re not even sure how well they did at keeping track of copies of God’s Word, since there is an account in 2 Kings of them actually finding a copy in the temple at one point implying that it was actually lost and the priests weren’t even aware of that glaring oversight. (2 Kings 22), but I digress. The fact is, like most of our brothers and sisters around the world, and most of the early church, if you wanted to be able to recall what God had to say on any given matter, the only way to have God’s Word was to memorize it as it was taught to you.

“Pay attention and listen to the sayings of the wise. Apply your heart to what is being taught.” I see a master teacher, seated before his students who are standing, waiting to repeat what the master teacher says. Line by line, he instructs them. Line by line they repeat until it is imbedded in their memories. Only after they can recite it are they able to think about it and understand its meaning. The memorization must come first so that it is always with them to contemplate.

“For it is pleasing when you keep them in your heart and have all of them ready on your lips, so that your trust may be in the Lord.” First memorize, then contemplate, then understand. That is how the result of memorization is a fuller trust in the Lord. You have digested what you have eaten and it has produced the nourishment needed for health.

“I seek You with all my heart. Do not let me stray from Your Commands. I have hidden Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against You.” When God’s Word is memorized, it can be recalled. When it is recalled, the understanding is recalled with it and then we remember the “why” we need to resist a temptation and are held more securely from straying from the commands we know that we know.

A day may come when the ubiquitous Word that we are so familiar with in our culture may be no more, but what you have hidden in your heart can never be taken away. It could be a very interesting exercise to write out your “version” of the Bible. How long would it take you to write in your own words everything you can remember about the Bible from Genesis to Revelation? That one, the one that’s really in your heart, is the one you are living by.

Prayer: Father Your word is precious and gives me life, just like oxygen, or food. They are so much all around me that I can easily take them for granted. But only what goes in me actually sustains my life. So, let me take them, and especially take Your word, very seriously and with much gratitude! In Jesus’ name, amen.

Song: Thy Word