American Christians Should Embrace Memorization

Why would we have our children memorize things? Perhaps you are on the fence or have not thought about memorization in a while. Either way, I want to encourage you to consider using memorization when you teach kids. Kids are supposed to have freedom, right? The critic says, “Memorization just stifles their curiosity!” The kids, however, do not seem to have these worries. Some of my sixth-grade students this past year memorized 100 verses connected to their lessons, and they enjoyed it. My five-year-old and three-year-old sons smile from ear to ear after reciting Gen 1:1. When we talk about God as we walk a trail through a park, my wife will ask, “Who made this magnificent tree?” They hold the truth dear and enjoy shouting, “God made it!” Something about holding truths that can be recalled and recited is freeing for children. Like road lines, traffic lights, and clear signage, memorization helps guide children. The structure allows for more freedom.

Parents trying to raise their kids in a world of travel sports and YouTube Shorts can at times feel untethered. Memorization can, at its best, root us in something greater than ourselves—the beauty of the Psalms, the truth of the epistles, or even the goodness of the gospel testified in the Apostles’ Creed. Memorizing can help us meditate on the beauty, truth, and goodness of God himself. I want to offer some compelling reasons for practicing memorization in the formation of children: it is both commanded and exemplified throughout the Bible and church history.

The Bible Supports Memorization

The Psalmist gives himself as an example in Ps 119:11, saying, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”[1] We have Jesus’s example in the wilderness when Satan tempted him: “It is written… It is written… It is written…” (Matthew 4). Paul recites the Scriptures like Christ (and even recites a secular poet in Acts 17). In Deuternomy6:4–7 it says, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children….” The word “teach” means “to speak, or to recite again and again.”[2] Examples and commands in the Bible support the educational method of memorization.

Church History Supports Memorization

Christians throughout church history also commended memorization, offering us examples and exhortations that we can follow. Here are five brief examples that barely scratch the surface of memorization’s long and storied past. First, Cyril of Jerusalem instructed new Christians, writing, “For the present, just listen and memorize the creed as I recite it, and you will receive in due course the proof from Scripture of each of its propositions. …. And just as the mustard seed in a small grain contains in embryo many future branches, so also the creed embraces in a few words all the religious knowledge in both the Old and the New Testament. Take heed, therefore, brethren, and hold fast to the teachings which are now delivered to you, and ‘write them on the tablet of your heart.’”[3]

Second, Jerome, in his Letter 70, instructs Laeta on how to educate her daughter, Paula. In his instructions, he states that “a soul [must] be educated which is to be a temple of God.”[4] How, though? “And let it be [Paula’s] task daily to bring to you the flowers which she has culled from scripture,” he says, and “[l]et her learn by heart so many verses in the Greek, but let her be instructed in the Latin also.”[5] At night, he says that she should “recite prayers and psalms.”[6] Many Christians in the Middle Ages memorized all 150 Psalms as a form of basic literacy.[7] Jerome seems to imply this very thing about Paula’s grandmother in his next letter.[8]

Luther and Calvin supported memorization as an educational tool. Calvin writes, “When a child has been well enough instructed to pass the Catechism, he is to recite solemnly the sum of what it contains….”[9] Luther encourages pastors to “teach them first of all these articles, namely, the Ten Commandments, the Belief, the Lord’s Prayer, etc., according to the text, word for word, so that they may repeat them and learn them by heart.”[10]

Lastly, Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers a compelling example for us to ponder. Though not a child by age or faith at this point in his life, while awaiting his execution, he writes to his parents in a letter, “Until I fall asleep, I recite the verse I memorized during the day. Then at six in the morning, I enjoy reading psalms and hymns, thinking of you, and knowing that you are thinking of me too.”[11]

These examples and exhortations push us to evaluate our view of memorization as an educational method for kids. The Bible commends memorization. Church history commends memorization. But do you commend memorization? While we can adopt many methods as we seek to form the children in our lives, memorizing is one faithful method we can use as we teach and disciple children to the glory of God.

Ultimately, it is God who gives the gift of remembering. But you can play a part in that gift today. Consider singing a psalm with your child every night before going to bed for one month (try Psalm 46 by the Corner Room if you are not musically inclined like me). Or work on one line of the Creed each evening at the dinner table. Say, “I believe in God, the Father almighty” as a family ten times. See if your son or daughter wants to say it on his or her own. The next day at dinner, ask if they can remember it. Recite it. Then, add, “Creator of heaven and earth,” saying it all together ten times.

“I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.”

Is any truth more beautiful and good to remember?

[1] Andy Davis’s excellent pamphlet, An Approach to Extended Memorization of Scripture (Greenville, SC: Ambassador International, 2014) drew my attention to these examples, but there are many more.

[2] Ludwig Koehler et al., The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994–2000), 1607.

[3] Cyril of Jerusalem, “Lenten Lectures (Catechēses) I–XII,” in The Works of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, ed. Roy Joseph Deferrari, trans. Leo P. McCauley and Anthony A. Stephenson, vol. 61, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1969), 5.12, 146–47.

[4] Jerome, “Letter CVII: To Laeta,” in “The Letters of St. Jerome,” in St. Jerome: Letters and Select Works, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. W. H. Fremantle, G. Lewis, and W. G. Martley, vol. 6 of A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1893), 107.4, 190.

[5] Jerome, “Letter CVII: To Laeta,” 107.9, 193.

[6] Jerome, “Letter CVII: To Laeta,” 107.9, 193.

[7] See Daniel B. Wallace, “Medieval Manuscripts and Modern Evangelicals: Lessons from the Past, Guidance for the Future,” JETS 60, no. 1 (2017): 26.

[8] See Jerome, “Letter CVIII: To Eustochium,” 108.1–35, 195–212.

[9] John Calvin, “Draft Ecclesiastical Ordinances,” in Calvin: Theological Treatises, ed. and trans. J. K. S. Reid (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press, 1954), 69.

[10] Martin Luther, “Preface to the Enchiridion: A Short Catechism for the Use of Ordinary Pastors and Preachers,” in Luther’s Primary Works: Together with His Shorter and Larger Catechisms, ed. and trans. Henry Wace and C. A. Buchheim (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1896), 2.

[11] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Christian Gremmels et al., trans. Isabel Best et al., vol. 8, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), 63.