Memorization of Scripture, part 2

God has been gracious in allowing me to memorize some Scripture over the past few weeks. Presently, I began working on memorizing the book of 1 Timothy. As a young pastor, I don't know of a better book to commit to memory than this. As you might guess, I plan on memorizing 2 Timothy and Titus as well. That will equip and arm me with the Pastoral Epistles as I seek to be a faithful shepherd/pastor/elder.

Do you know how many verses are in the New Testament? Take a guess... The correct number is 7957 (yes, I counted them myself). This fact is interesting to me because I thought it would be more than that. 4786 of these verses (60% of the NT) are in the four Gospels and Acts.

I had a crazy thought, so I will throw it out here for your amusement or conviction (depending on how you take it). I began thinking, "If I were to memorize one verse of Scripture a day, how long would it take me to memorize the entire New Testament?" I did the math and it comes out to 21.8 years. I know that is a long time, but what a challenge!

I was very convicted after thinking about this, because I have been very negligent in memorizing Scripture over the past 16 years of my life as a believer. If I would have started memorizing a verse a day when I was saved, I would only have 5.8 more years before the entire NT was finished!

I have read that Daniel Webster could quote the entire Bible. I have read of others who have memorized the Psalter or other portions of the Bible.

I don't know how you will respond to my rambling, but I would challenge you to take this to heart. How long does it take to memorize one verse of Scripture? For me, about 2-3 minutes. Perhaps it takes you 5 minutes. Don't allow Satan to cast doubt into your mind. Refuse to listen to him, since he is "the accuser of the brethren" (Revelation 12:10).

One verse per day, every day, for the rest of your life...

Selah