Memorize Whole Books of the Bible—with Your Kids!

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Andy Davis
Go ahead, and if we could start, we don’t have a lot of time, so if you would take your seats. So thrilled to have the opportunity to be with you today and talk about two of my favorite subjects in the world, memorizing scripture and raising kids. So I’m excited about that. And if you would come and take your seats, we’ll go ahead and get started. My name is Andy Davis. I’m senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina. And this breakout session is sponsored by my online Bible teaching ministry, Two Journeys. At the end of our time together, we’re going to give all of you a free copy of my book with Crossway on scripture memorization, and so I’m not going to go into a lot of details about what I do to memorize scripture, I’ll say a few things, but that will be in the book that I want to offer to you. Before we start, I want to ask the Lord’s blessing on our time. Father, we thank you for this incredible time to gather together here in Indianapolis, and to study your word, and to have really rich fellowship. I thank you for all of the women that are here and are focused on the word of God and on growing in grace and the knowledge of Christ, so be with us now as we focus on scripture memorization and especially pouring that into kids. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. Just by way of kind of apology, my partner, Anne Harford, who’s a member of our church and a really godly woman, her plane flight was delayed to the point where she couldn’t come, so you know I’m very sorry, I know, please don’t be overwhelmingly disappointing, because I don’t feel terrible, all right, but it would, we were both really excited to be able to do it together, and she told me that the earliest that she would get here is like 330 and this thing started at 415 I thought there’s no way, I mean, an Uber, all of that, but what she did do is she made a video, and we’re going to share that with you, and it’s 19 minutes long. So I’m going to talk briefly, and then we’re going to run Anne’s video, and then we’ll do some Q and A at the end. That’s our 45 minutes, and I hope to get you out by five, so you can have dinner together, just by way of introduction of myself. My wife, Christie, and I have been married for 38 years. We have five kids and five grandkids. We homeschooled all five of our kids. My wife primarily did that. I’ve said many times, my wife did 60 kid years of homeschooling, not consecutively, all right, just all together. And scripture memorization was a big part of our homeschool. It’s a big part of our life. I have so many powerful memories of being with my kids and just weaving scripture memorization into their lives. When I was getting my PhD in Louisville, in Southern, at Southern Seminary, I remember walking from Village Manor, where we lived, to the seminaries, about maybe a mile walk, and pushing our little baby daughter, Carolyn, in the stroller, and reciting the book of Hebrews, and she was pre-lingual at that point, didn’t understand anything, but some memories were being burned into her mind and heart, and now she’s 29 Praise God, she’s going to get married in a few months. So I’m excited about that. By the way, our second daughter wedding this summer, and I found that’s expensive, so we’re excited, but we’re paying a lot of money. But Carolyn just finished memorizing the book of Romans, so at 29 this has been a lifetime part of of her, her life. Now, my greatest desire, and Anne’s too, if she were here, would be to give all of you women hope and vision, not to put you under the pile, not to give you something that’s going to be yet another thing that’s going to make you feel guilty, not at all. I want instead to point you to the richness and the beauty and the delight of the Word of God, Christ lifts burdens. He says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Andy Davis
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. It’s really sin that brings burdens into our lives, and not scripture. I also like that Melissa Krueger started beautifully with Psalm One. If anyone were to ask me, “Why do you memorize scripture? I would go to Psalm One as my prime motivation. Blessed is a man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields fruit in season, and whose leaf never withers. Whatever he does prospers. Now we all heard the plenary address, and she did a great job unfolding that, but that’s my go-to, and I agree with her, that’s not teaching the kind of tawdry worldly prosperity gospel kind of thing, but a rich prosperity that the Bible promises of intimacy with Christ, ultimately in a root system. And don’t you want to give that to your kids? Wouldn’t you love to see that happen in their lives, and to end, to have this statement over them that they will be blessed? And everything they do, but it’s all connected with the word of God, and I think that you cannot meditate, you cannot memorize scripture without meditating on it, and I think back in those days the law written on a scroll would not have been available to the common person, only to special people, it’d be a copy of it in the synagogue, a king would have a copy, things like that, but the common person would have had to have memorized it if they were going to meditate on it day and night. So, I would commend Psalm One as just motivation. Now, for myself, I began my journey in memorization of extended portions of scripture, books of the Bible, literally 40 years ago this month. So, I was on a mission trip in 1986 in Kenya, and I had already done individual verses I memorized by the Navigators Topical Memory System, which is a great way to begin, and I know that this breakout is talking about memorizing whole books of the Bible, but you really need to kind of walk before you can run, and so I always have people start with individual key verses, and that’s a good place to start with your kids, but I was doing that at MIT. I was learning individual verses, and then I graduated, and I was doing more individual verses, but there I was. I was sitting on a bench, waiting for a bus in Kenya, and I remember asking a Kenyan brother in Christ, when does the bus come, and he said to me, in the afternoon, and that didn’t make any sense to me. I was like, I’m such an American, it’s like I need a, like, a 1202 or an 1151 or something like that. So I was just sitting there with nothing to do, and I had my little pocket Bible, and I began Ephesians, and that started that journey. And so Ephesians was my first book. I’m now in chapter 36 of Jeremiah, which is my 46th book, and my pattern is to read verses 10 times in that day, say them for 10 times, read it the next three verses, I do three verses a day, and then say them again the next day 10 times, and then say them for 100 consecutive days, and then I let them go, and I forget them, I don’t want to forget them, but I do, but in this way I’ve been marinating or saturating my mind in the word of God for 40 years, and it’s been the foundation of everything I teach and preach, the books I write, all of that. So I commend it to you. In terms of parenting, I just want to say this. I know that not everyone in this room is a mother. Many of you are not. Many of you, perhaps, are younger women that hope to you, mothers, someday some of you, perhaps like Christy and I, are empty nesters. Your kids are grown, we have grandkids.

Andy Davis
So I believe that extended memorization of scripture is for anyone and everyone. It’s not just for mothers, but the focus of our time today is specifically pouring it into your kids. And I want to say my PhD is in church history. I love church history. As I’ve looked across the 20 centuries that the Lord’s building, been building His church, I’m convinced, and I look at this scripturally as well. The most significant role there is in redemptive history is that of a Christian mother. It is the most significant role. It’s more significant than that of a Christian father, more significant than a pastor, an evangelist, campus worker, all of those have roles to play. Father is second, but the reason I say mothers primarily is because of the access that mothers have to infants and the ability that they have to shape and mold their worldview and their language, so that we use the term mother tongue, and so without knowing language, the children cannot learn the word of God. And we know that faith comes from hearing the word, and so mothers, Christian mothers, get to pour the gospel into their children from infancy. You know, Paul talks about that in Second Timothy one verse five. He says, How from infancy, talking to Timothy, he says, Second Timothy one five, he says, “I’ve been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I’m persuaded now lives new also. So, here are these two godly women, Lois and Eunice. Eunice was Timothy’s mother, and Lois his grandmother, and they were able to shape him in a Jewish faith. His father seemed to have been of no account religiously. We don’t know anything about him. He just seemed to be a pagan man, but his Jewish mother and grandmother shaped him. And then later in Second Timothy, in chapter three, in verse 15, he says, “How from infancy you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. That’s a vital verse, isn’t it? On the role of a Christian mother from infancy to be able to pour scriptures into your children, and those scriptures deliver salvation, they deliver Christ. And then that same text goes on, Second Timothy 316 and 17 says all scriptures God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. So, in memorizing that and meditating on it, I’ve realized that the two great functions and purposes of parenting, of being a Christian mother and father, are in that text the first and greatest purpose of Christian. Parenting is to bring your children to faith in Christ, that they would have eternal life, because what would it profit someone to gain the whole world and lose their soul? And the most important thing you can do is, from infancy, prepare them to become wise for salvation through faith in Christ, and that they would not be foolish. The book of Proverbs says foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, and the worst foolishness there is is atheism. The fool says in his heart there is no God. And so be able to pour the gospel into your children by the word of God from infancy is vital. So that’s the first and greatest job of a Christian mother, and that is to help your children by the power of the Holy Spirit and by the word of God to be wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. The second function of Christian parenting is to get them ready for a life of service to God, that they would do whatever good works God has prepared for them to do, and scripture is able to do that. The scriptures are able not just to make us wise for salvation, but also to thoroughly equip us for every good work, and to be thoroughly equipped for every good work means that your children are ready for life. They’re mature, they are trained and shaped and prepared to go out into the adult world and to serve God in whatever way God has for them to do.

Andy Davis
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance, so we should walk in them, so your children have good works to walk in. They’re not yours to lay out before them. It’s God’s job to lay out good works before your children, but your job as a Christian mother is to get them ready to walk in those, those good works. And scripture is able to do that. And how well, it’s because all scripture is God-breathed. It comes from the mind and heart of God. By the way, the Bible uses anthropomorphisms, which in which God acts like He has a body, like the hand of the Lord, the eyes of the Lord, the mouth of the Lord, things like that. God doesn’t have lungs, God doesn’t have a mouth, God doesn’t have eyes, but He uses this kind of language, so that we can understand how scripture comes from the core of God, from the heart of God. It’s God breathed, God breathed out. So all scripture had its origination in the mind and heart of God, and He breathes it out into the hearts of the prophets and the apostles who wrote down the scripture for us. All scripture, therefore, is perfect. It’s God breathed, and it’s useful, useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. Any of you who are mothers, and you’ve been working with your kids for a while, you know how useful those four verbs are. All right, teaching, rebuking, correcting, training, and righteousness. If that’s not parenting, I don’t know what is. Now, for me, as a Christian father married to a homeschool schooling mother, I would come home every day to a case load, like a circuit writing judge. All right, and all right. What did so and so do? What did so and so do? And then we would just work through these things, but you know, you’re just training your kids. But scripture was was just woven into all of that, and the scripture is useful for teaching them, and no, it’s not useful for teaching biology or physics or chemistry, those things are important, but scripture is useful for teaching all of the things that scripture is designed to do, to bring them to a living and saving faith in Christ. And so, teaching and then rebuking, that is to correct your children, it’s like a verbal spanking, and it’s a sharp word of correction or rebuke that your children need rebuking and correcting kind of go hand in hand, and then training in righteousness, and so all of that is woven together in the scriptures. Now, I have other passages to teach, but the time is flying by, and I only have three minutes left. I do want to, I want to share with you Deuteronomy six four through nine, and that text is vital, I think, for Christian parenting, for being a Christian mother. There it says, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. These commands that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children, talk about them when you sit at home, and when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up, tie them as symbols on your hands, and bind them on your foreheads, write them on the door frames of your houses, and on your gates. So, for me, as a scripture memorizer, I just.. I almost can’t read that passage without thinking about the value of memorization. Okay, so first of all, this is the most, one of the most important passages of scripture for Hebrew families, Jewish families raising their children. Hear, O Israel. So that’s the first thing Jesus said, again and again, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. You want your children to have ears to hear God, that He’s speaking to you. These are not just idle words for you, they are your life. Deuteronomy says these, these words are food. All you know, Jesus refuted sin in the desert by saying, man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. And so I want to feed my children the word.

Andy Davis
Of God, but they have to hear it, and so I want to say, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. There’s so much I could say about the oneness of God. I am a Trinitarian, I’m a Baptist. I believe that God is one, and God is in three persons, but the unity of God is an infinitely deep subject. But then it says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets, Jesus said, hang on these two commandments, but the most important is that they would love God. It’s more important than anything else, and that you would just yearn for them to love God. And then it says this: these commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts, he’s talking to the parents first, and so I would say with memorization first, set an example for your children. All right, they should kind of catch you immersing yourself in the word of God. This should be something on your mind and heart, and you’re like, “Well, I’ve never done it before. Start with key verses, start with John 316 or start with some other things, work up to books of the Bible, but just your kids should show, should see how much the word of God means to you. And so the Lord says in this passage, these commands that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. First, you should love them, you should cherish them, they should be your food, they should be your honey, they should be your instruction. The word of God is a fire. The word of God is a hammer. The word of God is a rock. It’s living and active. It’s a sharp double-edged sword. It’s all of these things, and your children should see the love you have for the word of God. And when you’re memorizing, and when you’re doing it day after day, they can see that. So they need to be upon your hearts. And then it says, “Impress them on your children. The word “impress” is like wet, like a whetstone, like a sharpening of a sword, and you can imagine, like you know, a honing of the edge of a sword, like, like that, again and again. There’s repetition, and so you’re just going over these things again and again. To me, the secret of memorization is repetition. You’re just going to say it over and over and over, and you’re going to be saying that with your kids. So I could walk through the rest of that, talk about them when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, when you get up, just weave it together in life. I was pushing my little daughter in a stroller, doing the book of Hebrews. I’m going to be writing this summer a 40 day devotional based on the book of Hebrews. I love the book of Hebrews. I don’t think there’s any book that so portrays the majesty of Christ like the book of Hebrews does. It’s just a great book, but whenever I think about the book of Hebrews, I think about my little toddler daughter in the stroller pushing her down that road, and I’m thinking of dedicating it to her, but she has four siblings, and I don’t know how I’ll ever live that down, because I have not dedicated any book to any one child before, so probably don’t have the courage to do it, but if I did, it would be dedicated to Carolyn. So, just some practical things, and then we’ll get to Anne’s video, and then we’ll have a few minutes for questions, and then I’ll stay as long as you want. I don’t care about whenever I go to dinner, but I’ll stay afterwards and talk to people up front informally. But I would say, first of all, just grace and not guilt. This should not make you feel guilty. Just say this is the word of God. It’s given to give you life. It’s sweeter than honey from honey from a comb. That’s what it is. It’s not this is not a burden. It is hard work. I don’t deny that.

Andy Davis
I spend about an hour a day on Jeremiah. It’s a long, long work for me, but this is my calling. I’m a pastor, a preacher, a writer. It’s what I do. You don’t have to do all that. Secondly, I would say kids are not your trophy, all right? They’re not trophy kids. Like, don’t do this so that you can put your kids on display. You’re doing it for them, for their salvation, and for their future fruitfulness in Christ. I would also say, you know, put it this way. Start with little pieces with your kids. Our kids did Awana, which is a Bible memorization program. You can start with that. Start with key verses. I also like taking little sections of the Gospel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. You have these bite-sized little stories, like The Stilling of the Storm is in Mark 435 through 41 that’s, you know, seven verses, the story of the paralyzed man that was let down through the roof by his four friends. That’s an incredibly important story, that’s 11 verses. You could teach that to your kids, these little bite-sized pieces of the Gospels. I would commend that. And then work up to bigger things. By the time your kids get older, you can incentivize them. We offered to pay half their car insurance if they memorized a book of the Bible, so they memorized books of the Bible. So you’re like, wait a minute, now you’re paying your kids to memorize. It’s like, kinda. So we would do, in earlier, younger ages, there were sweets and treats and trips to ice creams, you know, and all that tied to memorizing 10 verses things like that, so I would say incentivize them. I am out of time, so we’ll go now to Anne’s video, and then we’ll have some Q and A afterwards. So go ahead.

Anne Harford
Good evening, ladies. I wish I could be there in person to see your beautiful faces, but God and Delta Airlines had other plans, but at the same time I thought this was kind of special, because I get to invite you into my kitchen, which is actually where I do majority of the scripture memory with my children. Tonight, you’re here to learn about memorizing whole books of the Bible with your kids. Let me tell you, it’s simple: all you have to do is read, recite, repeat. That’s simple, isn’t it? But simple is not the same as easy. We’re told, keep your house clean, do your laundry, eat healthy, make sourdough, potty train your toddler. Those are all simple tasks, but I think if we’ve attempted any of them, we can all agree that at times they seem far from simple. They seem impossible. Well, tonight I’m going to share with you some of my experiences with scripture memory, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I hope that in so doing you will be inspired to undertake this wonderful discipline yourselves. It’s not every day that I get to share with nearly 500 women something that I feel that I fail at more often than I succeed at. It’s really humbling. In fact, I don’t want you to look at me as a success story. I’m not a machine that can just churn through verse after verse after verse, I am a homeschool mom of five kids. I’m saved by grace through faith, and I battle with the same challenges and struggles that you do. But before I go on, I want to go back to that word I mentioned, fail and failure. Even saying it gives you this weird sinking feeling inside, but what is failure when it comes to scripture memory? I reflected on that for a while, and I thought failure is not the same as falling down. Imagine with me that your toddler is taking those first awkward steps across the floor, you watch them take a couple steps, and then they tumble inevitably. Who of you would say failure? You failed. You should be walking. No, you’d run over. You would encourage them. You’d pat them on the back. You’d pick them back up. Well, that’s the image that I have of my journey with scripture memory, falling and rising again, falling and rising again. Proverbs 2416 says the righteous man falls down seven times and rises again. The only way to truly fail at scripture memory is to just disregard it and not do it at all. Tonight is an invitation to taste and see the goodness of the Lord in His word, and know that He is so good and that his grace is sufficient to pick you up over and over and over again every time you fall. I began my journey of scripture memory back in college, and I remember being challenged by a Bible study leader to own a book of the Bible, is what she said. So I memorized Philippians with a group of ladies during graduate school. I began attending First Baptist Church Durham, where Pastor Andy is the lead pastor. This is where I met my wonderful husband, Joel, and both Joel and I were deeply impacted by Andy and his ministry. We began memorizing books of the Bible together, and I remember we started with the book of Romans, and we memorized that the first year of our marriage. I never grew so much in my entire Christian journey as I did in that one sweet year of memorizing romance with Him. Well, fast forward 13 years, and I now spend my days home schooling our five children that are ages three to 10. Quite frankly, I don’t know what has happened to my brain, and maybe you moms can relate, the days are so full, and I often can’t even think of what we’re making for dinner. I have found motherhood to be uniquely challenging in my effort to focus on scripture memory. For a while, I felt really discouraged. My husband would continue to recite books that we had memorized together, and I just couldn’t. Andy Davis, in his book on scripture memory, says that he’ll often kiss a book goodbye when he’s done reciting it for a season.

Anne Harford
Well, for me, I felt like the books were kissing me goodbye while I was desperately trying to hold on to them. I remember trying to recite scripture in the middle of the night, as I’d be nursing my child, and inevitably I’d find myself asleep in the rocking chair again. So, for you moms, especially you moms of young children, please don’t be discouraged. Remember that metaphor of the toddler making their way across the floor. Don’t give up just because you fall, even if that fall has you on the floor for a while. There were seasons in my raising of children that lasted many months where I didn’t recite or memorize a single verse. Throughout the ups and downs of having my kids, something systemic did begin to shift in how I viewed my role as a mom. To especially my role in my children’s spiritual development, there was this epiphany that hit me. What if I want to grow in an area of my spiritual life – evangelism, prayer, scripture, memory – that doesn’t have to be a separate parallel track to training up my children. Why not integrate the two? Yes, individual time with the Lord in prayer and Bible reading is essential, but as a mom, sometimes having that separate alone time is non-existent. I thought, why not incorporate my children into my struggles, so they can see how I overcome various challenges and seek by the Lord, seek the Lord’s grace to continue to grow in holiness. Authenticity and humility are far more powerful than a facade of perfection in front of your children. It seems sort of silly, but I just started saying out loud the things that I wanted to work on, and I told my kids I want to grow in scriptural memory, and we began to embark on this journey together. So, I thought, okay, how can I incorporate my children? What book should I do? And it hit me all along I had already been doing memorization with my kids, and I want to tell you a secret. You probably are too. Who can’t finish this line for me. One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. Right? I will not eat them, Sam. I am.. I will not eat green eggs and ham. All of these books, they were memorizing simply because we were reading them over and over again. What these all had in common is that their narratives, their stories our brains are hardwired to be captivated by and remember stories. I thought, well, why not replace these meaningless Dr. Seuss stories with the greatest story of all time? Why not memorize a gospel? And thus I landed on the Gospel of John, and I’m here to tell you that after five years, give or take, I can’t even remember how long it’s been, I am nearly two thirds of the way done with memorizing the Gospel of John. I’m in the middle of John, chapter 13. So let me give you a snapshot of what scripture memory looks like in my day-to-day life. When and where? Well, the wear is right here in my kitchen. I typically do it during breakfast time or lunch, when I have kind of a captive audience, and they’re sitting relatively still. I might still be doing dishes or making food, but I’ll say, “Okay, today Mommy wants to work on John chapter one, and I’ll, or sometimes I’ll let them pick the chapter, and I’ll work to recite in front of them. Sometimes I’ll pause and let them finish the sentences for me. And oftentimes I use this as a way to open up great discussion. We talk about what does it mean when they, when Jesus does this, or what does it mean when Jesus says this. For my other, for my older children, sometimes I’ll have them read along with me, and they’ll catch me if I make a mistake. It’s slow going trying to retain all of this information and add new material, so often have my kids join in on that process. These have been some incredibly rich spiritual discussions with my children. Reciting in the car is also another great way to redeem the time, because you have again a very captive audience. So, how, how do I memorize scripture with my children? Well, think back to those children’s stories – they have rhyme, they have meter, and they have rhythm.

Anne Harford
Sometimes they’re even in a psalm. I often think I wish the Apostle John would have written his gospel like Dr. Seuss. It would have been a lot easier to memorize, but you’re not limited to one way of memory. I’ll often add my own meter and my own beat to what we are doing. Our scripture memory can get very animated at times. I’ll sometimes be marching around the house or stomping out a beat, or I’ll look for alliteration. We do all kinds of silly things. There’s no wrong way to memorize scripture, and also because it’s a narrative, I often act it out and get really animated. So I’ll change my voice if I’m speaking as a Pharisee, or I’ll change my voice for one of the disciples, or for Jesus. I have this really sweet video of my son when he was three years old. He’s reciting John chapter two, where Jesus cleanses the temple, and he says he throws his hands up and says, ‘Jesus overturned their tables, and in so doing, he unfortunately flipped his bowl of cereal, and the milk went all over the table. It was the cutest thing, but just shows how you can really get your children excited about memorizing scripture. I have so many silly stories like that from John 10, when Jesus says that note that anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the door is a thief and a robber. My three-year-old daughter is convinced that it’s a thief wearing a romper, ha. Yeah, and the other day I was giving my girls a bath, and I was washing their feet, and my daughter, my five year old daughter, says, “Mom, not only my feet, but also my hands and my head, which is from John 13, where Jesus is washing the disciples’ feet. These moments are silly, but they’re so precious, and they show how scripture is being woven into my children’s lives, so my method, my method for scripture memory with children is a little different than when I was memorizing it before having children, and that’s the beauty of it. There’s no one set way to memorize. When I’m working on scripture memory with a narrative, I found that it’s easier to take a chunk or a section of about five to 10 verses and get the idea of the story, and then begin working towards greater and greater perfection. I don’t memorize the verse numbers, I found that it sort of breaks up the flow, but I try to get a section to perfection before I move on to the next, and this allows me to help feel the flow of the narrative, and where it’s going. Another trick that has really helped me as I work on reviewing and retaining the 12 chapters I’ve done so far is what I like to call the lazy ladies memorization, and that’s when I will put on my audio Bible and simply recite along with the audio Bible. It’s hard sometimes to keep my brain focused, and so doing that allows me to at least be reciting along someone along with someone, and keep me retaining that scripture, even though my brain doesn’t feel like it could do it on its own. Now, do I make my children memorize and recite with me. I actually have never forced my children to memorize this book with me. I have not wanted to require a discipline, but I rather wanted to encourage them and model for them a discipline that I hoped they would adopt for themselves. However, in the process of hearing it over and over and over again, they have retained nearly all of John. I often pause, as I said, after a verse, and allow them to finish it, and they can finish nearly every single verse that I begin in the Gospel of John, up to the 13th chapter. Sometimes it’s great they’ll correct me if I skip something, and they can recite all on their own large sections of the scripture. Their brains are like sponges. Take advantage of that. Fill that sponge with the word of God. I have never made them memorize, but as a result of hearing it, they have memorized it, which I think is the beauty of of doing this with your children, what an impact you can have on them.

Anne Harford
I want to share with you some of the fruit that I have seen so far in my kids. My three sons are now 10, nine, and seven years old. They have all on their own set out to memorize various books of the Bible. They are currently working on memorizing Hebrews, and at night, when I go in to kiss them, sometimes they’ll have their Bibles open and be reciting Hebrews with each other. It’s a scene that’s priceless. During one season, I was making really slow progress in John. I was stalled out in, I think, chapter eight, and I just couldn’t make progress. I told my kids that I was really sad because I wanted to get to John 10, which is the Good Shepherd chapter, and how it’s my favorite chapter. And so one morning my son, Titus, said, “Mom, I’m going to start memorizing John nine because I want to encourage you and I want to help you get to John 10. Stories like that honestly make me want to cry. My own son had inspired me to get back up off the floor and to keep going. So, my challenge to you ladies, it’s simple: memorize scripture with your children. Now, I said it was simple, I did not say it was easy. How do you begin? Well, pick a book, try a narrative. Now, I want to caution you, because picking a book and having an end goal of finishing that book, it is important. It helps keep you focused, but honestly, much more important than the end goal is the process. It’s the process of scripture memory. Looking at a book in its entirety is very overwhelming. You think, how would I ever finish this? But if you just focus on being faithful each day with a little bit of memory, you will be overwhelmed by how it adds up day after day, week after week, year after year. I heard it said, we often overestimate what we can achieve in a day, but we underestimate what we can achieve in a year. My husband shared that with me. I don’t know who to attribute that quote to, but he shared it to me when I was in the process of finishing. My, my dissertation in graduate school, I felt I would never be done. What he meant by that encouragement was that we had these long to-do lists in our days, and we rarely get to all of it. But if you are simply faithful, we are typical to forget. We typically forget about the power of doing a little bit each day, and how that adds up. You would be amazed at how adding just one more word or one more verse will add up as you remain faithful day after day. Now, neither Andy nor I want you to leave here feeling like we’ve placed another burden on your shoulders. I know how that is. As a mom, especially a mom in a social media age, where we’re told we’re never doing enough, we’re never measuring up. I want to read for you Hebrews 12 one through two. It says, Let us lay aside every weight and sin that clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. You see, how there’s a distinction there between weights and sin. If you’re thinking, I want to memorize scripture, I just don’t have enough space in my day, or I can’t add one more thing. You know, what you might be 100% correct. You can’t add one more thing, but maybe you can replace something, maybe one of these meaningless weights of social media, or social pressure, or worldly influence that’s weighing and slowing you down. You could replace it with the weight of scripture memory. The yoke of Christ is easy and light, because in the end He’s ultimately the one that empowers us to shoulder those weights. He will be there to pick you up when you fall. If you haven’t been memorizing scripture, I know the guilt that you might be feeling right now. You might be thinking, what have I done? I’ve missed it, I’ve blown it, I missed my opportunity. You haven’t. You haven’t missed anything. Just start, begin today. Begin when you get back from this conference.

Anne Harford
Take those first wobbly steps, like our toddler, and don’t get discouraged when you fall. Jesus says in John six, the words that I’ve spoken to you are spirit and life. I want to finish for just a moment by reveling in the fact that we have such a marvelous privilege, a marvelous privilege, and tremendous task as moms. God gives us weak and feeble as we are the opportunity to pour into our children the very life-giving word of God. If you have children, this might be the most difficult season in your life to memorize and memorize scripture. Trust me, I get it, but I truly believe that right now in this very season, memorizing and reciting scripture to your children is when it is the most impactful, so I pray that you will be encouraged to embark on this marvelous journey with your children. I’m sad that I won’t be there to answer any of your questions, but if you reach out to Two Journeys directly after this conference, I would be more than happy to share more from my experience, and to encourage you in this wonderful lifelong journey.