Avoiding Legalism in Bible Memory

It is in the nature of human beings to turn tools for spiritual growth into legalistic mechanics used to measure our goodness and worthiness to God and with each other.  It is important that the emphasis stay on the inner delighting in God’s word and not simply on mastering the ability to mimic large quantities of Scripture passages.  This can be aided by being flexible about which books of the Bible are taken on first, allowing freedom about which verses speak to a person and are included in the daily and weekly plan, laughing off small mistakes in recall and doing our best to focus on celebrating the inner formation and outer lifestyle changes as the real benchmarks of growth.  We will also celebrate choices to combine other healthy dopamine delivering experiences with meditation on Scripture passages like going for a prayerful walk with a passage or two that relate to a problem you are facing, laying in a hammock in the shade and meditating on some passages about rest and security in the Lord, and taking a passage or two to bed with you to fall asleep thinking about.  There are no rules regarding media consumption but disciples are encouraged to look for ways the world is deforming them into the chaff of Psalm 1:4 and to be suspicious of the dopamine being delivered through media, materialism, food etc.  It is an expectation that our media diets and appetites will change.

Mastery?

Mastery of the passages word for word may not be as significant as you think especially at first.  If you are using the Bible Memory App you can let it do the work to a degree.  The app is preset to give you a "nice job!" every time you recall your verse with 90% accuracy.  The app will keep an eye on your level of mastery and make sure you review your verse daily until you start getting it down better.  At some point it will use science based memory informed logrithms to start spacing out how often you review your passage.  This will free up time to focus on newer passages and also help the passage go from your short term memory to your long term memory. I bring all of this up here just to say "don't sweat the mistakes!"