Why You Need to Start Memorizing the Bible with Andy Davis

In this episode of Everyday Radical, David Platt and Austin Huang talk with Andy Davis about Scripture memorization and meditation.

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Welcome to Everyday Radical, a podcast where we help the everyday Christian follow Jesus and make him known everywhere. We pray that today's episode encourages you to do just that. So let's dive right in. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God of the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace and peace to you from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. And love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. I could keep going. I'll stop there. I am loving this right now because you don't know uh that um yeah, so uh we're talking awesome with Andy Davis. I should say that from the very beginning, uh, about scripture memorization. But brother, you you don't know that uh I have been uh like okay, Lord, where is next in my journey memorization? And I landed this morning on Ephesians. We just asked quote from any, I mean, brother, you you know 47 books of the Bible. You could have started like anywhere, not that you can immediately we'll talk about that. Talk about the ideas, but the fact that you just started with Ephesians 1 1 is awesome. Like it was just that was for me. And I trust it's for a variety of other people too. And actually, that's if people just really don't know and they want to know where to start and they want to do a book. Um, if they literally have never memorized, I want to start with individual verses, we'll talk about that. But um, but if you say, No, I'm ready for a book, I would go Ephesians because of the depth of doctrine, um, but also the practical Christian living from chapters four through six, Christian marriage, spiritual warfare. There's so many good things. Yes, so good. And I read this last night, so I knew that. So, how to memorize scripture for life by Andy Davis. Let's just from the very beginning say, get this book. I part of me wants to read what I wrote at the beginning because uh if I remember right, I think I said blurbed it. Thank you. Yes, uh well, and I said, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Exclamation point. I wish that every Christian would read this book and do what it says, because I'm confident that doing so would transform our lives, families, churches, and the world around us for our good and God's glory in ways far beyond what we could ask or imagine. I believe that completely. So uh yeah. It's been true of my life for sure what you wrote. And thank you for doing that, by the way. I know it's not a small thing. Oh, it is I'm about to ask you to do another one. Uh if you if you're willing. It's on Job and suffering, if you're willing and look at it. Well, that's one of the uh so I've known uh Andy for I mean, I guess personally I I've known of Andy for many more years before I knew Andy, um, who's pastor of first Baptist Durham, and before I forget, also leads two journeys, uh which is resource ministry, basically the way you would describe it, twojourneys.org. Um, but we met years ago, I think it was with the IMB. That's when I was uh that was when we first met. And so for years I've had I've had the privilege of friendship, and just I would just say sitting across the table from this brother, um, yeah, there have been many times uh in tears, mutual tears sometimes, um, but just the way this brother has loved, encouraged, and spoken God's word into my life. So this isn't just a heady access exercise for Andy Davis. Uh, like just the uh I I think about brother, when I think about Isaiah 66, this is the one whom I esteem, he is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. Man, that's that's your life, brother. Yeah. I we've just talked about it with Ezekiel 16. When I went over that, I was trembling at that. I realized uh I was so convicted by it, and the Lord spoke to me. And you know how it's like you accepted it not as the word of man, but as actually is the word of God. This is God talking to you. And as I do these, this review, it's not mechanical for me. It's like God is talking to my heart and telling me things I need to know. That's so good. Yeah, so good. Andy, how how many verses, books of the Bible have you actually memorized? Okay, so first of all, I have to be clear about what that means. All right. So my pattern is to learn new verses and to recite them perfectly, get to word being word perfect that day, and then do it again the next day by reading ten times, say it ten times, next day, ten times. Then I settle into a pattern of doing the verses for a hundred consecutive days, and then I kiss them goodbye, I let them go, and I forget them. All right. And um that's why when I said at the conference, um, I don't think anybody in this room has forgotten more scripture than me. Uh that's that's it. All right. So I was like, oh, you can do all 47 books. No, I've never claimed that. Uh I'm just saying there was a time in my life that I knew each one of the verses in those 47 books, but I do let them go. And to me, that's just proof of why we need to memorize because we're so prone to forget. Um, but the answer is I'm in my 47th book now. Jeremiah is my 47th book. I I finished chapter 19 yesterday. I'm into chapter 20 now where um Pashure uh puts Jeremiah in stocks for his uh prophetic ministry. And and so I just never thought about that passage before. And now I'll do that for a hundred days. Basically, I get three three plus months of Pashure putting Jeremiah in stocks. And then when that's done, um I'll let it go. So uh just so you understand the the mechanics, um three three new verses every day, uh-huh. Yesterday's three verses ten times, and then they settle into a hundred days. I keep records, and then when I've said them for a hundred days, I stop reciting them. So you could picture, like if you know football, the 10-yard chain, like the uh first down chain, that gets kind of pulled out to to taught around somewhere around 300 verses, all right. Three verses for 100 days, and then it doesn't get any longer, and then I just drop off chapter one, then chapter two, then chapter three, as I'm up in chapter 13, 14, 15, and that's how I move through. So this morning you went through 300 verses. I did, which so that was um middle of chapter seven, Jeremiah seven, uh up through nineteen. Yeah. So that's about three hundred, not exactly three hundred, um, but and I do those for a hundred days. But what it what it the real work is the hundred days, and in the hundred days, the verses are marinating in me, and God is speaking to me and showing me things um that become part of my theology and my preaching, teaching, ministry. And that's been 47 books. Which is part of uh yeah, do memorization, meditation, internalization, what they become a part of me. Isn't that part of or much of the value in God's good design for memorization? Yeah, yeah. You know, do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So it's a transforming process. And as we heard, um John Piper was talking about this uh at a conference that we're we're both at now. Um, and he said the the point is not knowledge or information alone. Um it the point of it is knowledge that then transforms your heart so that you love and hate properly. You love what God loves and hate what God hates, and then you live properly for the glory of God. That's the point. So it's not just living properly, it's feeling and loving properly and then living out of that. And the uh I don't want to skip the step of faith. Uh, in my conception, the knowledge feeds faith, and knowledge and faith together transform the heart so that we love and hate properly, and out of that then make a tree good and its fruit will be good, then we live properly. So good. What what when you think about the difference between memorizing individual verses here and there from different places and memorizing books, uh yeah, there's no cons. So I was about to say pros and cons, but there's not cons of memorizing scripture. But yeah, it's some of the unique value in either or or both those different approaches. Right. So the value of individual verses is that they are uh the most famous verses in the Bible for a reason. John 3 16 is famous for a reason, you know, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. There's a reason that's probably the single most famous verse in the Bible, because it's got everything you need in the gospel right there. And there are other similar impactful single verses. So, no, there is no deficit at all to memorizing individual verses. And frankly, that's where I started. I was converted my junior year at MIT. I was raised Roman Catholic. I was a faithful Roman Catholic churchgoer. I was an altar boy, I enjoyed my Catholic faith, and I learned some things about Jesus and about God and the Bible accurately, but I didn't learn the gospel. I didn't learn the Philippian jailer question, what must I do to be saved? I was I didn't know the answer to that. And I don't think that the Catholic Church has the right answer to that, um, which is tragic. Um, but I got then to MIT, just got into my uh life as a student and into my fraternity life, and there was um a guy there that was with Campus Crusade for Christ, he was a fraternity brother, and started sharing the gospel with me. And at first I was interested in what he had to say, and then I was offended, and then I couldn't stand being around him. And it wasn't his fault. He wasn't doing anything wrong, but I was under conviction. Took a year, gave my life to Christ. Um, I'll never forget it. I was working alone in a laboratory. Uh, and this guy, Steve, before that, earlier that day, had invited me to go on on the fall retreat with Campus Crusade. It's the same guy that annoyed you? Yeah, Steve was his name. It was a year behind me and my fraternity, Sigma Chai at MIT. And um he just invited me uh to go to weekly meetings, and he didn't even invite me every week. It'd be like once a month. He would say, Hey, we're having that meeting if you want to come. It's like you know, I'd there was no way I was gonna go. But then he uped up to the fall retreat. So this is three days and two nights, and I had to pay 45 of my own dollars to go. And I was like, What are the odds? I'm like, Are you out of your mind? But I didn't say any of that. At the moment that Steve invited me, I felt sorry for him uh because of how rude I'd been to him. I had no intention of going to that fall retreat. But I I lied to him and I said I'd think about it, and I had no intention of thinking about it. So I was working alone in a laboratory, and I heard very powerfully and clearly a voice in my head, I guess. You're going to that retreat. It was overpowering. And it was so clear that I said alone out loud, no, I'm not. So I argued. I was having a conversation with some will and some force. I did not lack information. I knew the information of the gospel. I lacked the will to follow Christ. And I knew to decide to go to that retreat was to decide to follow Christ. And so I did not realize until many years later what was going on there, and to link it to scripture. My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. So I went to that retreat to become a Christian. It was in Grotonwood, Massachusetts, October of 1982. And um, it's amazing, you know. You think about it. Um, and I heard in a sermon recently, if you wake up a Christian, it's because God has preserved you. All right. And uh I heard another person, not that same person, say, if you can lose your salvation, you would have done so by now. Yeah. That's so real. It's not because you've been so awesome up to this point, but keep it going. That's not it. So I gave my life to Christ, and then I was immediately mentored um by a man named Tim Schumann with Campus Crusade for Christ, and he got me into the navigator's topical memory system. And that is individual verses, and they choose key verses having to do with your new life in Christ. I'll never forget the first verse I memorized, 2 Corinthians 5.17. If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation, the old is gone, new has come. That was the first. And then they give you Galatians 2.20, which is so beautiful. I've been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Not us, not there anyway. Us is other places. But there it's me. He loved me, he came for me. And by the way, I want to give you a picture of that. Can I give you a picture of that? Love me and gave himself for me. I want you to picture the journey that Jesus made across the Sea of Galilee. He left behind the crowds and he went in the boat exhausted from his relentless healing ministry and teaching ministry. And he goes across in that boat and he's asleep on a cushion, and then this terrible storm comes up in the Sea of Galilee so bad that these professional fishermen thought they were absolutely going to drown, imminent drown, no doubt in their minds. So they wake Jesus up and absurdly ask him, Lord, don't you care that we're perishing? It's like, don't you care that I'm that we're perishing? Yes, I care very much that you're perishing. That's why I'm here on earth. I care very much that you're perishing. And then he stands up and says, Peace be still, and immediately becomes completely calm, like a mill pond. And he just can see like water dripping from his hair, and I assume he had a beard and his clothes, and and they're all soaking wet, and they're they're the boat's like still half filled with water, and they're like, but it's all quiet. And then this terrifying thought hits them. Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him, and they're more afraid of him than they've been of the storm. But he's not done with his journey. They keep going and they land at the the region of the Garrassen. And as soon as Jesus steps out of the boat, this demon-possessed man sees Jesus and comes toward him, which is counterintuitive because there's no doubt at all that demons are afraid of Jesus. But afraid of him, they run to him. Because they know something we don't know. There's nowhere to hide. There is nowhere to go. Where are you gonna go? So they come and they make their plea. If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs. And he drives them out. And I believe that that demoniac was the most wretched man in the history of the world on this earth. It's more wretched to be in hell. Much more wretched. But how can you be in a worse condition than naked, cutting yourself with stones, a homicidal maniac that has broken chains, everyone's terrified of you, and you're living like an animal with five thousand demons inside you? I cannot imagine a worse human situation. Well, Jesus drives the demons out, the man is dressed in his right mind and becomes a genuine follower of Christ, loves him. Jesus told him, Go tell your family how much God has done for you. Then the people come and beg Jesus to leave because they're more afraid of him than they've been of the demoniac. He gets in his boat, crosses back across the sea, and lands. And then Jairus is there waiting for him. All right. So what was that all about? He goes from here across there through a storm, lands, does that with the demoniac, drives out the two thousand the five thousand demons, two thousand pigs, that's all that they beg him, and he comes back. That whole thing was for one man. Galatians 2.20. Love me and gave himself for me. And Gyrus is there waiting, wait, you know, because he's desperate because his daughter's dying. He must have been there all night. And it's just the life of Jesus. But anyway, with memorization, there's a vividness that comes on, and and I just love doing that. Anyway, so I started with topical the memory system and then went from there. Well, but that's that's it. I mean, you so yeah, you start memoring memorizing individual verses, which obviously there's value in Galatians 2 20 being a wonderful example, and everything you just shared is the overflow of soaking in the whole book. Yes, that's what Mark. Mark 4 and 5, and when this happened, and what that would have been like. And it's not just memorizing peace be still, it's what happened before. It's what that water dripping off his head you're picturing as you're soaking that in. And then you're like, wait a minute, he did all that for this one man, this one wretched man, he does that for me. Like so, but that that's there's the value, right? Of I mean, one of the values of um memorizing a chapter or a book if you get into the uh the story and and narrative, or just into the flow of what Paul's saying in Ephesians, um, and how it builds on everything. So when you get to chapter four, it's like, oh, this is totally grounded in all this rich he chose me in Ephesians chapter one. That's so good. And I I think there's a lot of reasons why I do it, but um, there's two, it's alliterative. I usually do you alliterate in sermons? Yeah, some, yeah, but not every time. I think I I used to do it more. Okay, I I do it a little less, but no, if if anybody, yes, our people from our church will be like, yes, you alliterate. Yes. So I just I used to do it a ton more. All right, anyway. So um, but these reasons, they're not it's not exhaustive, but these are two that are are very impactful for me. They both both begin with the letter I. Um, reason I memorize is for insight and intimacy. So insight are aha moments, things I never knew were there in the text. I just never had seen it before. Yeah, never. And I wrote a whole book on heaven based on meditations I did, all uh based on sound scriptural theological reasoning. And some very significant leaders, I won't say their names, but people who have poured into me and but I shared what I was doing, they actually said, I've never thought any of these things before. Wow. And but they're there. So that's cool when you see new things, and it keeps you electric and excited about the word of God because it's like always has more to say uh to show you. So there's that, and parenthetically on that topic, I remember I had to get my car repaired once. Um, and uh and the the it was a transmission thing, and and the transmission place about a mile from our church, and I decided it was a nice day. I decided I was just gonna walk. I I could have gotten a friend to come pick me up from the church. But as I walked along a road I traveled on every time I drove to church, I saw things on that road I'd never seen before because I was going slowly. That's good. And so I got a hundred days and I go over it, and it's like on day 36, something new will hit me that I but it's there, it's not like I'm making it up, but it's there. All right, so and then intimacy when I'm in the boat with Jesus for a hundred days, when I'm looking at him with wonder and amazement, or in Luke's gospel, when that sinful woman comes to Simon the Pharisee's house, clearly uninvited, he doesn't want her there. How did she get in? I don't know. And she is wetting Jesus' feet with her tears and wiping them with her hair, and Jesus defends her and tells that parable of the moneylender with 500 and the 50, and then he just focuses on her, defends her, and then says, Daughter, your faith has saved you, go in peace. I feel like he's talking to me. I got three months to hear that. I got three months of that, or the woman with the bleeding problem, and she's terrified to tell him what she had done. But he just stopped and said, Who touched me? Because he wanted that encounter with her. That so I know he wants a love relationship with me, and I and scripture mediates or delivers intimacy with Jesus. That's so beautiful. I mean, even just you painting that picture a few minutes ago, that even clicks for my brain of he healed that woman on the way to heal Jairus' daughter. That's right. So it's just a continuation of that story. I've never thought to picture Jesus in the boat with water dripping off of him. Like I think is that just when I when I think of meditating on scripture, I think of reading it, but are we missing something when we don't memorize it? Yeah, I I don't I have evolved at this point where I actually do I used to say that scripture commends but doesn't command memorization, but now I don't think that's true. I think it actually does command it. Because I don't know how else you read James 1, 22 through 25 without eliciting a command. All right. Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourself. Do what it says. The man who listens to the word and does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in the mirror and then goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard. Let me say that again. Not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it. That sounds like memorization to me. Yeah. Well, yeah. So that's James 125. Uh, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach one another with all wisdom. Colossians three sixteen, I think. Yeah. And I think about uh uh well, one, this is I think. I think maybe a place I've evolved too. Um meditation. I don't know how to meditate without memorizing. As far as meditating, thinking on it, internalizing it, turning it over and over in your mind, even mumbling it uh in your mouth, that all just feels like meditation, like memorization, like meditate on my word. Um and and the other text that just that came to my mind as you were sharing that is, and this this so struck me when I yeah, when this connection, this insight aha moment happened, but for when Psalm 119, this amazing chapter about all the wonders and effects and fruits of God's word, and the last verse in it, I've gone astray like a lost sheep, seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments. Like his last verse after 176 verses in the longest chapter in the Bible, all on the Bible, he's like, I don't, I don't need to forget your commandments. So I've got to remember them, I gotta memorize them. I have not noticed that one before. Thank you. Um, I would also commend uh John 15, 7 and 8. Uh, if you remain in me and my words remain in you, then ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you. This is my father's glory, you bear much fruit and show yourselves to be my disciples. So if you look at sometimes the word remain is abide or dwell or live. So if I like, what is that translation that like puts them all out there literally on the page, like rolls them all out there, all the synonyms? Is that the living Bible or or today's living version or something like that? I think it's kind of funny, but it's like the the translators didn't want to choose, so they just roll them all out. Give them all, make your make your pick. But let me do that for a moment. If you abide, dwell, live, remain in me spiritually, intimately connected with me, the vine and the branches, and my words dwell, live, remain, abide in you. So stop right there. What does that mean? My words, plural, my nouns, verbs, adjectives, whatever. Sounds like memorization. Yes. So you didn't forget it. Yeah, so that's a meticulous awareness of what he actually said. Then uh the next step is prayer. Ask whatever you wish and it'll be done to you. The combination of the word and prayer is powerful. Pray the word. And I think about that too. Um, the more his words abide in us, I think that's the the the pitfall of the prosperity gospel. It's like, well, ask whatever you wish and it'll be done for you. But no, no, no, you missed the part where it says, if my words abide in you, then ask all that you wish, because then your wishes become an imprint of God's desires and will for your life. I just think that's beautiful. I think can I pick up Austin on what you just said because I was teaching on prayer and I was trying to see times that Jesus specifically tells us things to pray, and there are just not many of them. Uh ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labors and the harvest seal to be one. Yeah. There's a few, but it's more like a blank check. He gives you lots of blank checks, not just one verse. There's actually four or five blank check verses. Uh you know, um, if you believe, you'll receive whatever you ask for in prayer. It's like this whatever, whatever, whatever thing. So you're like, if you're mature in the faith, you know that that's bounded by the will of God. We're not, he's not gonna give you anything that's outside of his will. That's just not gonna happen. And he and there's no way, I mean, first of all, there's no way you're gonna put a new idea in his mind. Hey, Lord, have you looked at it this way? It's like, you know, I haven't. But I want to tell you that is a whole fresh, fresh experience. You know, you know, it's like that's not gonna happen. So the more you think about it, then prayer is just asking God to do what he's already determined to do before the foundation of the world, but he just hasn't done yet. Yes, yeah. But the thing is, it's like, then why is this ask whatever, whatever you wish, blank check language? Why is that? So I thought about it because it's not one or two, there's a lot of these verses. And I think it's like he's coming saying, What do you want? I'm asking you, what do you want? And I think it's an important moment. It's kind of like bringing the animals to Adam to see what he would name them. It's like you're involved in this thing. What do you want? Look, here's a city. What do you want? That's so cool. Here's here's your family. Only one of them's converted. Do you have any desires? Anything that's popping in your mind? I think he wants us engaged, he wants us to dream and think and all that and then act, instead of just like, tell me what to pray and I'll pray it. To some degree, tell me what to pray and I'll pray it is true biblically. But at the same time, the world is so complex and providence is so varied and complex, it can't all be covered in the Bible. So it's like you look at your specific situation, your specific city or country or where you and think, look, and notice, and then bring some requests to me. I think that's what he wants us to do. What an invitation. Amen from God. Amen. That's amazing. Can I tell the story of how I got into whole books? Yeah. All right. So started with topical memory system, and uh, I was converted my junior year at MIT, senior year. I was very active in the Campus Crusade for Christ, now called Crew Ministry. And there were some veteran memorizers around. These were guys that were were mentors, uh, they're students, but they were ahead of me and Ben Christians for a long time. And they've been into the, they were into the TMS. And they had these cards, and the cards were about this big, all right? These little navigators cards, and they would punch, punch a hole in them and then put them on these snap rings, all right. So they had, you know, all these cards. And they look like, you know, janitors at the Pentagon or something like that, with like 500 keys. And and they're just all these cards, and they're like thumbing through them and going through them. And I thought, okay, there's a clear bottleneck there, a limit. All right. And but I didn't know what to do about it. I just realized there's only so many topical verses you can you can learn. I also noticed that a lot of the topical verses were taken out of context, they weren't really specifically honoring the context. Good example of that would be Matthew 18, 20, uh, where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them, you know. Um, and so that's like prayer. You get two or three to agree, and three of us here. So, yeah, but that's not what that's about. That's about church discipline and dealing with a sinning person and having witnesses along with you. I think prayer is involved, but I wouldn't go to that for prayer. But it was an early so and then the Romans Road stuff, all the Romans Road verses begin with connecting words. All right. Uh, for I am not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God for the salvation. For I am not for. It's like, all right, we're right, we're right in the middle of a thought process here. You know, all of them, they're all begin with a connecting word. So I'm like, all right. Um, but these were all early ideas. I hadn't really thought about what to do. All right, a couple years later, it was summer of 86, so it's 40 years, so it's a six, so this is 2026, so June of 1986, 40 years ago. It's amazing. Uh but I was sitting on a bench in Kenya, and uh I had asked uh the Kenyan man that brought me to the bus stop where the bus was coming when the bus came. And he said, in the afternoon. So I'm like, okay, what does that mean? One o'clock. I'm I'm an American. I'm like, what do you mean, afternoons? I was there like like you would have been 11:50. All right, I'm gonna not miss that bus. So it rolls in there when it wants to. So I was there with nothing to do, and I had my pocket Bible, and I started on Ephesians, the very verse I started with you, and uh started with you know, Paul and Apostle of Christ, et cetera. And I just it was a 10-week mission mission trip, and I stuck with it. It was middle of the trip, so for about five weeks and I was learning verses. But you know what happens? You've got you can be very busy on the mission on a mission trip, but you also have some freedoms and some time that you usually don't have back in your American lifestyle. So the big big transition was when I got back to the states to keep going. And so I was probably around chapter three at that point, and I just kept at it and I finished it, and I was really excited about that. So I decided, all right, let's keep going. So I then did Philippians next. So Ephesians is 155 verses, and then Philippians is 104, that's 259 verses, and then I was like, all right, I want to do something really big, and so I started the Gospel of Matthew. Wow, began with the genealogy. Uh uh, by the way, if you want to memorize the genealogy, the best one is is Matthew 1.1, a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. Bang, there's your gene genealogy right there. That's the quick one, but then there's 42 names after that. Um But you memorized them all. I did, I did, and actually it's it's amazing how that one stuck with me. The Luke one is 76 names. That was harder. Um, but at any rate, I just started doing it six verses a day. I remember I was at Gordon Conwell Seminary. I was I would go up to an I was single. Um, I would go up every evening and sit at a desk, and I had pennies, ten pennies, and I would recite them and I would slide the pennies across till I got to ten, and then I would do the next verse and then slide them back when I did that ten, and then I did all six verses together ten times. So I did the old ten thing, that's how I develop that, and I moved my way through the Gospel of Matthew, 1,068 verses. And uh I just was so excited when I got to the Great Commission because I already knew it. Yeah, I was like, yes, you know, it's a downhill journey at this point. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, and it was already there. So that was cool, and that those three books, then now it's like, all right, it's on, and and I just wanted to keep keep going. And so just you know, uh seminary at in Louisville when I was in on the mission field in Japan, I just it was just been a regular part of my life. And um, the idea of letting it go, kissing it goodbye, came later. The hundred days came uh in the book of Habakkuk. I remember that I was doing a little book, three chapters, Habakkuk, and I thought, I can't recite this book. I mean, I'm kidding myself. I don't have this memorized. So I was learning new verses, but they were dropping out of my mind the next week or sooner. So I said, I got kind of righteously angry at myself, and I said, All right, fine, I'm gonna say it for a hundred days. I just said it and out thou out loud, and so I'm gonna do Habakkuk for a hundred days. And I did, and then that really stuck. And I said, All right, let me just do that. And then I realized I couldn't really fight the forgetting. All right. I knew that what was more important were the verse the the books I hadn't done yet. And I also had a limited desktop, you know? And that can get a little bigger, but it's not infinite. And so I probably could keep I don't know, I probably could keep two between 500 and a thousand verses hot and fresh and skillful if I work at it. But that's about it. That's the max of your next time. Because you've got your 300 verses uh that are rolling, right? But then you've got Romans. Romans that's there that you do once a week. Once a week. Yeah. So you've got other others that you do. So maybe it's more than it's somewhat kind of regular. But that's where uh yeah, I'd love to hear, yeah, just your practical encouragement to the person who's like not memorized anything, or maybe it's just memorized verses. I mean, these are muscles to be developed. They are these are this is not so just yeah, right, but there's an intentional plan, obviously, yeah, that you started with just yeah, encouragement for the person who's like, whoa, I've never thought about memorizing a book, I've never thought of memorizing a chapter. I've memorized a few verses, but uh yeah, just encouragement. Yeah, I I want to do that, and so I would say, first of all, it starts with realizing, and I think we've done it at this table, this conversation, the incredible worth and value of the word of God. That has to be where you start because it's hard work. And this I'm not joking, it's hard work. I spend about 50 minutes a day doing Jeremiah right now. It's it's a big chunk of but there's no wondering about it. I'm not like, well, should I do it or should I not? I and it's not an OCD thing for me or whatever. It just and people ask me about that about legalism. And you know, I got asked at the breakout session the question, well, what about le how do you keep it from being legalistic? I said, Well, you gotta make a distinction between legalism and discipline. You know, athletes are not legalistic, they just know they need to work on their free throws and they need to do the wind sprints and all that if they're gonna function on the court. It's not legalism, it's just that's discipline. So I I think we have to look at that and say, look, I'm not I'm not worried about legalism. I'm more more worried about just the incredible laziness I see in my life. I'm not I'm like more tending toward that end of the equation, not toward legalism. But you know, I just just I would say to that person, start with individual verses. You can you can Google online topical memory system and they'll tell you what verses they want you to memorize. I mean, it's no big secret, and they can't do a trademark on what verses they are. They're in the Bible, so they're free for everybody. So you just do, you know, those verses or whatever you want, uh verses that are meaningful to you, things that if you're struggling with lust or you're struggling with anxiety or procrastination, do you know, get into it, period, just individual verses. Yeah. But what I do want is I want to put a seed of an idea in your mind of memorizing whole books that you can do it. And it's in the end better because you get context, you get verses that are not the famous verses, and you get to to immerse yourself in them and learn from them. For I would commend my approaches a hundred days. And somebody pushed back recently on me on on kissing it goodbye. And and I'm like, Well, you don't do it because you want to let go of the verses, it's because you're in a mode of acquiring new verses all the time, and you're going to reach a limit. And so the only way you can get the new stuff is to let the old stuff go. And so I'm I'm I'm okay to let the old stuff go. Um, I would say the genre that I've struggled with the most by far is the prophetic genre Ezekiel, Jeremiah. Those things are really hard to memorize. You know what's interesting though? So I'm just speaking out of the overflow of my friendship with you when Austin, when I've been sitting at the table with Andy and shared things that are heavy on my heart. Uh I mean, I've been thinking about the conversation we were having right before we even got on this podcast. Um you were you're 100 days right now in Jeremiah. You were actually sharing with me out of the overflow of Ezekiel. You shared with me out of the overflow of Luke 15, you shared me out of the flow of overflow. You've I mean, I remember when you spoke Mark IX over my life in a way I really needed to hear, like that has stuck with me big time to this day. Like they you weren't even memorized, so you had kissed them goodbye in a sense, right? But it's not like they were totally gone. Obviously, Mark 4 and 5 is time, which is not too far from your mind. I mean, that's part of the beauty, like, and and I would add, uh, so they're never really not that far gone, and um it's just another part of the value. Like you look at the world through the lens of God's word, you listen to your friend unburdening his heart through the lens of God's word. You're yeah, you're weeping with me and you're speaking God's word over me. Like that that value and the ability to do that in your own life, in your own heart, when the adversary is coming at you with lies and deception, uh, which he constantly is, it's who he is, the deceiver of the whole world. Um, so to fight that with truth, it's gotta be in there. You can't. You're you're you're uh yeah, you're defenseless if you don't have this sword of the spirit and this shield of faith that's all girded with the word of God. Amen. Thank you. And that's so encouraging. You know what's really super cool about all this though? First Corinthians 13 uh where Paul says, When I was a child, I thought like a child, talk like a child, reason like a child. When I bec uh became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see, but a poor reflection, as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. He's talking about now and then, now is this present earthly age, and then is heaven. So what that means is everything in that book and everything we've ever studied is like baby talk. When we get to heaven, we're gonna kick it into a quantum new level of learning God. That's what my heaven book is about. I want to put in a plug for it because it's not been marketed well. It's called The Glory Now Revealed, and Baker published it, and it's basically what we're going to be spending eternity doing in heaven is learning the glory of God. I love it, I would commend it to you, uh, to the all all of you listening because and it is really an example, again, just the fruit of God's grace and word in your life. Because uh, yes, I I count me among those who um would be like, I've not thought about that. I've not thought about that. Um, but it's um again, and there's part of it's that's imagination flying on truth, but there's also part of it that's just like, think about this. God said this, surely it's gonna be yeah. There's just oh man, it's so good. So I would definitely commend. And I think it's just the work of logic and theology. Um, theology is putting if A is true and B is true, then A plus B is true, we'll call it C. C is not in the Bible, but it's true. Yeah, so that's like Trinity. You're not gonna find Trinity, but it's true. You know, incarnation, you're not gonna find that. You'll find the word became flesh. So we theologians are putting together ideas going beyond the immediate text. That's what good theology is, but you just got to test the workmanship and make sure that that that really is a true way of looking at those verses. I just did it with the doctrine of heaven. The problem is uh in our reformed world that is Calvinistic or you know, believing in the sovereignty of God, predestination, that world is very strong on soteriology, the doctrine of salvation, very weak on eschatology, very weak. So Louis Burkhoff, for example, has something like I don't know, 35 pages in his systematic theology on justification, has two pages on heaven. Like, really? And we're supposed to think about heaven. We are send three. We're supposed to set our minds on things above and things to come. So the basic concept with heaven was a dynamic heaven in which we are changing. And that the insight, the the key, like Narnia, like wardrobe through it and into Narnia idea was we'll never be omniscient. It's like, all right, so that means we'll be able to learn things in heaven. What's the topic? How about God? Oh, and how about his glory? Come on, and it's like, then me with my PhD in church history, I'm like, do you think part of it will be learning the past? It's like, yes, it will. God will teach us the past. And and my feeling is here, here's a simple question. Let's talk about immediate past, yesterday. All right. What did God do on planet Earth yesterday? Well, how long do you have? Yes, yes, yes. With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years. Well, how many of those days have there been? Six thousand years of recorded history. Each one of those days, God did unbelievable things you know nothing about. And then it just started to expand after that. I'm like, all right, governments, massive rise and fall of empires, down to tiny details. This man meets this woman and they get together and get married, and all this stuff going on. Sparrows falling to the ground, lots being cast into the lab, all this stuff was going on. And God cooked all of this five-star cuisine, and most of it got raked into the dumpster and never got eaten in your own life. You walk by and never even noticed. And God's like, All right, I'm gonna turn you back. I want to show you that day. I want to show you what I did that day. And I'd like to show you what the demons were trying to do and what the angels did to serve you. How would you like to go back to the diet of arms when Luther's there and he's asked to defend his justification by faith alone doctrine, and he quails and he asks for time, and they're like, you basically should have come prepared, which he should have, but he wasn't quite ready, so he spends a night in prayer. The next day he gives his famous, courageous, unless I'm convinced by scripture and sound reason, I can do no other. My soul is captive to the word of God. Here I stand. All right, he's got unquen unquenchable courage and all that. What happened that night? Well, he said, I would go to varms, though the number of demons, devils, you call them, are as many as tiles on the roofs. Well, I bet they were. What do you think that prayer life was like, that prayer night was like? You how much do you think Satan was assaulting him? Would you not like to watch a movie of that night from the spiritual realms and watch how God protected him? That's just one night. How cool is it? And when that's just the past of one person. One person. One person, whatever. One moment. How many new friends? Like I quoted this when I was a trustee. All right. I how many times do we do Revelation 7 9? Like pretty much daily. All right. Every tribe, language, people, and nation. All right. But what's cool, and that's great, and that's is the the other verse is not more important. It's it is important. They're wearing white robes and standing around the the throne and saying, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne to the lamp. But a couple verses later, one of um the elders asked. Them, these in the white robes, who are they and where do they come from? All right, stop. How long is that story going to take to tell? That's every redeemed person from every era of church history. And I'm gonna just ask two simple questions when I meet them in heaven, all of them, all of my new friends who I've never met. I'm gonna ask them two questions. How did God save you? And how did God use you? And then they'll be able to tell with no pride. And I'll be interested because I'll be done with my pride. I'll be expanded to take their stories into myself, and I will delight in the glory of God. God's not gonna waste that. He wants us to know what he did. How cool is that? Man, that's just that's what this whole that whole heaven book is just like filled with that. That was like crumbs. Uh yes. Well, and that's just like even beyond like yes, using the word of God, but also just our stories with God. Like that is that encourages me as someone who is like, I grew up in the church and uh, but I didn't really care about my faith until I got to college. And I remember just feeling this moment of just like, okay, I'm a Christian now. Like, what else is there to do? But the fact that I and this is something I've learned, but the way you speak about it, it's just like every individual image bearer who comes to faith in Christ has this magnificent journey with the Lord. Even if they're a janitor for the next 50 years of their life, there are stories that they get to be a part of that we don't get to be a part of, and we all get to hear about them in heaven one day. Yeah. I think that's beautiful. I love what you just said. And to me, one of the sweetest meditations, and I preached a whole sermon on this, is the perfection of the two great commandments in heaven. So the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. How delightful is it to each of you to know that in heaven you will. You will be done sinning. You'll be done with idolatry, you will actually love God. Well, but that's only part of it, part two. How delightful will it be for you to actually love your neighbor with the same passion and intensity and focus with which you love yourself? And that you'll love your neighbor's rewards as though they were your own. And you'll like, tell me the story of how you got that crown or that jewel. I am all in, and you will be done with selfishness, and you'll be like, and so you ever have a situation where someone goes on a short-term mission trip and they come back and they want to show you their photos, and you're like, uh, choose your five best. All right. You know, well, in heaven, you'll be done with that. First of all, limitless time, but that's not even the issue. The issue is your soul will be expanded to take them into yourself and love them as you love yourself. And that that language, by the way, comes from Jonathan Edwards, uh, heaven is a world of love. You will be expanded uh to take others into yourself, and and there'll be no jealousy, there'll be no uh no arrogance or pride. We will be celebrating each other's white robes and crowns and honors and stories as much as because it was God in them that did us. Yes, yes, it's awesome. Yes, man. So good. That's told you, man. Uh man, oh, there's so much more. I don't know. Like, I think we're running out of time. Well, uh, let me let me say that like one thought that came to my mind earlier, super practical. When you mentioned 50 minutes or so on your hundred versus uh, I I'm sure some people have thought at numerous points in this conversation, I just I don't even know how to make time for uh just like I mean I would love to hear yeah uh yeah, I don't know if I I don't know how to make time. I I don't I don't know if I'm good at memorizing some of those kinds of things. Sure. I mean my just simple exhortation would be to well just look at the screen time on your phone and compare that. Sure. Absolutely that we have time, but yeah, I just what sure pastoral personal encouragement, what would you give? Yeah, it's a good word, and I want to do that. So we want to go to the entry level of somebody who has never memorized scripture. And you know, we said it earlier, but I'll just give you some practical steps. First, present yourself to God as a living sacrifice, just do that, aside from memorization, just in general. Say, I am yours to command. I want to live my life for your glory. But the second part, right from that same passage, is to not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and that comes by the word of God. It's like I want that. And then we've talked about memorization. I want to do that, Lord, but I I'm intimidated. I feel busy, etc. I don't know that I'm very good. Start with one verse, just do it. The mechanism is simple. We've said it three or four times in this um video read it ten times and then say it ten times. All right. So that means look away, cover it with a piece of paper, you know, if you have to look again, etc. But just do that, and then tomorrow recite it ten times and then do that for a hundred days on just one verse. Just one verse. Just do that. Somewhere around day 10 or 15, you don't need anything, you'll be able to, oh yeah, I gotta do John 3.16, and you'll recite it there. That took you 14 seconds. And you're like, all right, do I have some bandwidth to do another one? Okay, you got another 86 days on John 3.16, but you pretty much got it. It's not literally adding anything to your time at all. You decide you'll do it when you go in the shower. When you're shampooing, I'll do John 3.16. Or when you pull out of your driveway in your car, there, that's done. You start to realize you have more bandwidth than you think. So, like, I'm ready to add another verse. So you do that, and then after a while, you like you start realizing, all right, what's the limit to my bandwidth? It's it's bigger than you think. It just then comes down to how much you want it, and so it's just gonna keep going and going. The thing that's been most delightful about this conversation has not been the mechanics of memorization, it's been the content of the word of God. Yes, for sure. Yes, which is yeah, which is what I'm so thankful for. Amen. Uh, and friendship with you, brother. Amen. And uh uh not to mention your leadership in the church and and you're equipping people. And I again, how to memorize scripture for life, a little book that I uh as I wrote in the front of it, uh I cannot commend highly enough. And I just wish every Christian would have this little tool. Yeah, I mean, you got it, and I'm ready to fly, and you're a hook. Well, someone once said people read short books, so that's a short book. That's good. That is good words. Thank you for letting me. It's a privilege to sit here with you and just love you, brother, so much, both of you. Well, can you can you pray over uh every person, including us who's listening to this conversation? Yeah, let's do that. Father, I want to thank you for this time with David and with Austin and this time to speak on this topic. And I pray that you would take the words that we've said, and uh how much of those words, how many of them are true and beneficial, uh, let them take root in the hearts of our hearers. And I pray that it would lead to a transformed pattern of life that then we'll see the word of God bear limitless and eternal fruit in people's lives. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Everyday Radical. We pray that it encouraged you in many ways. We do this every single week, so be sure to subscribe or follow to not miss the next episode. We'll see you then.