Bible Memory Institute
Most Bible colleges, Bible institutes and seminaries have their students spend a lot of time in Scripture but they also make them read lots of other books about the Bible. The number of pages needed to be read gives a rush of words and page flipping. Professors often want to focus on "problem passages" that the students were not previously aware of. Much time is focused on speculation about the Bible and on the uncertainties in Scripture rather than on the sure and solid truths of God's greatness and love that are met in a more practical way in the Bible. The result of focus on the speculative and uncertain can be one of disorientation instead of orientation. The Bible Memory Institute of Be A Tree aims to do the opposite by focusing on memorization, meditation, formation, and witness.
Memorizing one verse (or cluster) in all 260 chapters of the New Testament as well as selected Old Testament passages the student will go deep and wide and gaining a grasp of the breadth of the different books of the Bible and an ability to move to core truths with quick confidence in a ministry context. The Witness of one who has obsessively delighted in God's Word can not be compared with someone who has a vague recollection of a truth in the Bible and googles to find and then share it.
As Interest arrises a program will be developed to walk along side disciples as they take more formal and holistic approach to formation through memorization.
Knowledge and Skill Outcome Goals:
A deep sense of confidence in God’s Word with an ability to think through every chapter of the New Testament, the Psalms, Proverbs, and select passages from the rest of the 66 books of the Bible. This will mean memorizing about 500 Bible verses over the period of the course.
Themes of the Bible, its books, and how to use its genres will be explored by watching about 100 Bible Project videos.
Basic hermeneutics of understanding different genres and how to read a passage in its immediate and canonical context will be practiced. Word study tools with a focus on finding original language roots in other books of the Bible (and the LXX) will be practiced. Outcomes focus on skills and are used to actually feed one’s soul and not for a grade with the expectations that students will use these basic tools for the rest of their lives.
Transformation Goals:
Students learn to delight in God’s word and meditate on it (Psalm 1) in a way that makes their faith and character like a deeply rooted tree.
To grow in love of God from our whole person and love of neighbor. We are looking for growth in these areas.
Growing experience of meditation on Scripture that blurs into a sort of extended burning prayer. An example would be using a memorized passage as a lens through which to see your city as you drive through it and prayerfully mediate for it.
Delight in God’s word is only real if we are loving what he loves, hating what he hates, wanting to and learning to do what his will is. We look for growth in these directions.
Witness becomes more natural as we delight in God’s word and naturally want to talk about what we delight in and we transform our view of people and the world as belonging to God (Ps 24:1).
Structure
There is flexibility to how this can be structured. It can be remote with a high reliance on zoom or done in a local cohort model that involves a lot of shared time and space. It can be done synchronously where participants go through the same books at the same time or it could be done asynchronously where people are doing their own passages at their own pace and meeting in person or on zoom in small groups to discuss their insights into the text and themselves as they interact with it. When a group of people become interested in this process a dialogue can be entered into that should result in a schedule that fits the situation.
Methodology
This is touched on in the guiding concept document linked at the top of the page. Here is the gist:
Take a paper Bible and a yellow highlighter and read chapter one looking thoughtfully for a verse (or maybe a cluster of 2 verses) that are vivid and moving and hopefully give a sense of the main theme of the chapter. There isn’t necessarily a right or wrong answer here on which verse to pick and it will be good for different people to pick different verses. For those with years of familiarity with the Bible they may want to skip a passage that they already know too well especially if they already knew what chapter of the Bible the verse was in without having to use an electronic search tool. You can go ahead keep doing this for the rest of the chapters or some more of the following chapters in the book or you can move on to step 2 and come back to step 1 later.
Download The Bible Memory App and put the verse(s) into the app using the NIV. Feel free to trim off a conjunction that seems clunky when memorizing a verse on its own. We want the language to be as natural in English as possible.
Commit to touching the app at least four times a day and ideally more with one of those being sitting down thoughtfully with a paper Bible and pen and highlighter. Put the app in a prominent part of your phone. Use the desktop version and the watch tool. Meditating on Scripture should naturally change your appetite and where you go instinctively for dopamine but you can aid this process by choosing to either cut certain apps, websites, or other forms of media out of your life for a time period or even just making a customized commitment like opening the app before opening Instagram or Youtube.
A Slack, Whatsapp, or Signal group should be opened either for the group to interact with close to daily. The leader of the Be A Tree discussion groups will feed instructions to their group every day or two to keep discussion going. The groups should have weekly zoom calls for discussing the texts covered, their context, and our personal transformation. Sample content to be covered and discussed includes:
Have the group watch the Bible Project Video for the Genre (gospel, narrative, poetry, epistle, apocalyptic) and discuss including insights it gives into their verse/chapter.
Have the group do the same for the Bible Project Video for the specific book being studied (also possible other themes like sacrifice that are relevant.
Instruct disciples to sit down with a paper Bible and a different colored (not yellow) highlighter and a pen and mark up two to three passages in the first chapter that shed light on their meditation verse (or vise versa). Discuss. (note: this is
Ask dopamine/delight questions not just speculative questions meant to get Americans what they love doing…abstracting and pontificating. Did anybody have an experience of taking their passage to bed with them or on a walk and meditating? What did the passage do in you? Did this generate any changed behavior in you (obedience)? Did it lead to any opportunities for witness?
Occasionally a small group time could be committed to looking thematically through the book to get a broader sense of the connections and working towards a Biblical theology.
Opportunities for moving into public spaces or intersections with the lost or needy could be arranged where service and witness are anticipated.
Guided practices of moving from dopamine to oxytocin…from delight to connection both with people and with God can be encouraged and then celebrated.
College Credit Question
At this time getting college credit has not been investigated but for ministries looking for knowledge and skills acquisition the full program of 500 verses, 500 chapters studied, and 100 videos watched could possibly be considered equivalent of 9 to 12 credit hours covering Old Testament (3) and New Testament (3) survey, hermeneutics (3), and spiritual formation (3). Written papers, journals, and capstone projects can be considered if desired.
