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Good Advice from Mentors on Scripture Memory
From James, a battalion captain, using Adventure Trails: Classic (2018 ed.)
As for myself, I find myself in an interesting arena now especially with all this social distancing. With all this newfound time to myself I have been able to get out and about some local trails and just side streets to take some long walks, spending time while walking meditating on Scripture or in prayer. It’s been a great way to clear my head and have time with just me and God. The verses I am working on are some of those needed for the Explorer achievement, as I am trying to encourage one of our guys to memorize by doing it with him. So that has been excellent.
Reply from Regional Director Arden Musselman
Good for you walking outside! That is a great way to clear the mind as well as the air you breathe, right? Good to know you are using that time for praying and going over the scripture verses… The thing that stuck out to me most from your paragraph was that you want to know the verses on which you are connecting with your student for mentoring. That is so good, and I’d want all of our leaders to know that mindset!
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3 Replies
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I write out the verse I am memorizing on an index card, and on the flip side I put the reference. I carry that card with me wherever I go, and if I am in a line up, I can just pull it out and go over it, starting with the reference, and flipping only if I need a hint on the verse. I did the same thing to learn Greek and Hebrew in Bible college. There, we punched holes in one corner and used a split ring to attach the (many) cards to a belt loop. It works well.
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One of the techniques that has helped us memorize longer passages (in particular, the Camporal scripture memory passages, which can be an entire chapter, or 15-25 verses from a longer chapter) has been to start at the end and work forward.
That is, memorize the last sentence. Then add the sentence before that. Then add the sentence before that, and so on.
One advantage of this approach is that as you recite the passage, you move into sections that are more and more familiar, because you’ve been working on the end the longest.
Another is the psychological commitment to memorize the whole thing. Our Camporal scripture memory rules gave partial credit for reciting the early verses and then stopping, but not for skipping the early verses and reciting only the later verses. (I don’t think this is still true though.) The result was that it was a lot easier to finish memorizing back-to-front, because you wouldn’t get credit if you didn’t memorize the beginning of the passage. Where if you memorized front-to-back, you could stop partway through and get partial credit.
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