A basic family tradition is memorizing Scripture. Your family can do this together—easily. Choose a Bible passage such as the Twenty-Third Psalm, and choose a time. Family devotions are an ideal setting for this tradition. Otherwise, choose breakfast or another meal that you share together. Even car time will work for some families with a regular driving schedule.
The Best Memory Method
To begin, you all simply recite the psalm together. Those who read may use their Bibles. Children who do not read follow as best they can, listening or saying some parts as they trail along behind. That is all for day one. The following days are similar. The goal is that in three months or so, all who are old enough will know the psalm by heart. Even the very youngest children gain in many ways, whether or not they actually memorize.
This method of memorizing is called the “whole method.” When you learn a passage this way, you end up able to recite smoothly through it all, just as you recite smoothly through the alphabet without stopping to think which letter comes next. You also learn faster with less work by using this whole method. Research documents the results of the whole method: memorizing is more efficient, takes less total time, and produces better memory results.
Most people commonly use the “part method” for memorizing extended passages. This means learning one verse, then adding the next, and so forth. This takes longer, and the result is usually a less smooth recitation, as they sometimes pause to think which verse comes next.
As you recite the psalm each day, the children who read will gradually quit following in their Bibles, or you may need to suggest that they look up from their Bible pages when they can. Occasionally you might check that a child correctly pronounces a word like righteousness. Answer questions the children have about meaning, but it is not necessary to study the psalm while memorizing it. Some books for Sunday school teachers say, “Be sure the children understand the verse before they memorize it.” This is useless advice. When do any of us fully understand a Scripture? Children can just as well memorize first and learn the meaning more fully as they grow older.
Continue reciting daily until you have not just learned a passage, but overlearned it. Then review on a diminishing schedule. For instance, for one or two months recite the passage once a week (instead of the new passage you are starting to learn). Then review once a month. Eventually, once a year will be sufficient. There is no specific rule about this schedule. The length of a passage, the amount of overlearning, and other variables all affect this, so adjust as you see a need for more review or less. The principle of a diminishing need for review will continue to apply.
If your family learns three or four passages a year—or even just two—these add up to considerable Scripture for your children to carry in their hearts wherever life may take them—to legislative halls or to enemy prison camps, to their future families or to fellow workers. After some passages of six or fewer verses, your family may feel brave enough to tackle a longer passage, perhaps a full chapter.
The Best Bible Version for Memorizing
From what version should you memorize? This question is unique to our day. A few decades ago almost everyone in the English-speaking world used the King James Version (KJV), so the question was not relevant. When new versions became popular, they largely brought a halt to congregations memorizing or reciting Scripture together. But your family can decide on a version and proceed to hide the Word in your hearts. *
Some recent research has shown that children memorize the KJV more easily than modern versions. This news surprises most people. A major reason for this ease of memory has to do with cadence or rhythm. The English language has developed a rhythm of stresses that good writers are aware of, if only subconsciously. They move words around to sound better, even if they are writing prose and not poetry. The second Wycliffe version worked on cadence and William Tyndale followed that plan, insisting that his Bible be suitable for reading aloud. Others followed Tyndale in this. It is said that the KJV translators spent two years working on cadence. Compare:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want (KJV).
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall lack nothing (NIV).
Power in English language comes from the pressure of rhythm, which also aids memory. Short words are a factor in this. In the KJV, one-syllable words outnumber longer words by two and one-half to one, that is, 250 percent. Latin multisyllable words with their inflections of prefixes and suffixes could not have such impressive cadence as English. Tyndale said that the English language agrees with the Hebrew one thousand times more than Latin does. He also concluded that English captures the quality of New Testament Greek better than Latin does, even the polished Latin of St. Jerome.
In the Bible lines quoted above, not want is changed to lack nothing. This apparently is an effort to modernize the language, but it misses the fact that we currently use want as an intransitive verb, a verb that does not need an object. One dictionary gives this example: “She would never allow her parents to want.” Maybe the translators knew this but thought that most of us do not, or that we would not look it up in a dictionary, or that we could not learn the meaning from the psalm itself. Whatever the translators thought in this case, such a technique shows up in the introduction to one translation, which states that most people do not understand word x so they used word y. As for cadence, the KJV sentence ends with the stressed syllable want. Poets call that a masculine ending because it has more force than an unstressed feminine ending like nothing. So what looks at first glance like a simple word change is not so simple after all. It gains nothing in meaning, and it loses power in its cadence.
Likewise, we gain no meaning by changing still waters to quiet waters, as some newer versions do in this psalm. Still and quiet are synonymous in English reference books. Each word defines the other. A number of words like calm and tranquil are listed as synonyms for both. Besides gaining no meaning by changing the word, we lose in the sound and rhythm of those lines. Linguists might explain that the progression from a shorter vowel in still to a longer vowel in waters contributes to the calm effect, but the harsh q intrudes on the calmness. This same vowel progression, along with consonant alliteration, is in the still, small voice Elijah hears in the KJV. Recent versions change that to a gentle whisper or sound of a gentle blowing (1 Kings 19:12). Readers and memorizers do not need to understand the phonetic technicalities; they can appreciate the differences regardless. Whatever else we gain by new Bible versions, we can see with linguist historians that power has been progressively weakened in translations after the KJV.
Another option for helping children memorize is to update just the pronouns and verbs. This is not changing to different words, but only updating the older English words. Examples of pronoun updates are thy to your, thou to you. Verb updates include maketh to makes, art to are. The New King James Version does this, making it more modern, but less musical. Lovers of the King James Bible wonder if the trade-off is worth it.
Whatever version you decide to use, your family will be richer for following a tradition of memorizing. Imagine what this can add to future family reunions. Young grandchildren can join or listen with awe as you all recite Bible passages together.
*This article focuses specifically on language attributes that affect memory. For a discussion of other issues concerning English Bible translations, see Henry M. Morris, “A Creationist’s Defense of the King James Bible” at http://www.icr.org/bible/kjv.htm.
Dr. Ruth Beechick has a shelf full of books on memory research, which she does not refer to anymore. If she wants to know anything she just asks her sons; they have outpaced everything in the books. They are grateful for their early family start in memorizing. Beechick’s books for homeschoolers include information on memory and many other aspects of learning.
Bible Passages for Memorizing
Make your own selections or choose some from this list. You can shorten most of these or, in some cases, extend to make a longer portion. (My son Allen, who learned all these as a child and many whole books as a teen, says Psalm 34 is his favorite. At age 8 he recited Isaiah 53 with its big words, and said, “I like the words of the Bible; they sound so good.”)
Psalms 1, 8, 19, 23, 24, 34, 100
Exodus 20:1-17, Ten Commandments
Joshua 1:7-9, meditate on the book
Proverbs 8:22-31, wisdom speaks (Christ himself)
Proverbs 15:1-6, soft answer
Isaiah 53:1-6 (or the whole chapter), Man of sorrows
Matthew 5:3-12, Beatitudes
Matthew 5:19-24, treasures in Heaven
Luke 2:1-7 (or to 16 or 20), Christmas story
John 1:1-14, the Word became flesh
John 3:14-18, God so loved the world
John 14:1-4 (or to 14), mansions in the Father’s house
Romans 1:14-15 (or to 20 or farther), not ashamed of the Gospel
I Corinthians 13, love
Ephesians 2:8-10, saved by grace
Philippians 4:4-8, rejoice
James 1:22-25, doers of the Word