Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0327: Memorizing Bible verses by topic instead of order

Episode Date: June 9, 2015

Vic asks about memorizing Bible verses organized by topic (such as verses about patience) rather than sequentially (such as all the verses of one chapter in one place). I describe a method for doing both. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army […]

Master of Memory 327. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy, and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Vic submitted a written question at masterofmemory.com slash question. Vic says, Hello Timothy, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on how you would go about memorizing the scripture references, for example, 1 Corinthians 13.5, 15.8, Proverbs 3.3, 15.18, etc., on certain topics or subjects of the Bible.

For example, how would you remember all the scripture references on patience or kindness, etc.? Also, there might be several references relating to the relevant subject or topic in the same book or letter and even chapters. So as a little background for anyone who isn't familiar with MasterOfMemory.com's materials, our basic principle for our scripture memorization materials is you can memorize scripture based on the reference. So essentially, the methods that we teach lay out a foundation so that you can, when you memorize a single verse, you're doing it in a way that you can memorize all the verses around it. So you can memorize the whole chapter and all the books. And in the end, your whole memory palace is laid out so that you can, it's laid out in the order of the Bible, so you can remember the whole passages, you can remember things in order,

and you can remember long passages rather than individual verses. I myself have always preferred to memorize in passages because I'm always interested in the context of a verse rather than just the verse by itself. But this is a relevant question because it's good to see connections between verses in different parts of the Bible. So you can actually, and this is relevant to things besides scripture memorization for anyone who doesn't want to memorize scripture, you can add a second dimension to your memory palaces. So what you can do is you can have one big memory palace that's just all of the verses in order. That works out, so it's organized by the way that the verses are laid out in the book

itself. But you can have a second dimension by having a second palace somewhere else where you have all these verses, but they're organized in an entirely different way. So maybe if you choose just one of these palaces to begin with, let's just choose one topic, okay? So let's choose maybe patience or something like that. Grab all of the imagery that you've used in your linear passage, all of the imagery that you've used to memorize the verse and the reference and all of that, and stick that verse, the image that you've used, the little story for the mnemonics for the verse, and stick those in a different palace. So what you're doing is you're using the same mnemonic imagery, but you're using it in two different places. One of them signifies where the verse is in the passage. So you can learn the order of the book. You can remember what verse

comes next and things like that. But you're also placing it in a different palace as well, and you're placing it next to other verses of the same topic. You're not going to get those mixed up. Just try it out and you'll see. You're not going to get those mixed up. Just try it out and you'll see that you're not going to get those mixed up. But at any rate, you're placing that patience verse in a room in a palace where all the verses in that room have to do with patience. So since you have different characters for different books, then when you look at that patience room, you're going to see all these different characters for different books, then when you look at that patience room, you're going to see all these different characters, and you're going to remember what each of these

different characters has to do with patience. So, for example, if you place all of the verses that have to do with patience from the book of James in that room with patience verses from other books of the Bible, any verses that are represented by Loeb doing some things, our pig Loeb from the James course at masterofmemory.com slash James, he's doing things in that room, but other characters are doing things in that room as well. So you'll not only have all of those verses in one place, you'll easily remember which books they come from so you can look them up. And of course, if you have those books memorized, looking them up just means looking them up in their own palaces. So you would look up, you know, when you see Loeb there, you could look him up

in the Loeb palace and see what's happening in the book of James where that verse comes from. Now the point is, you could, okay, so you could actually do this just in the palace that's organized by topics like this. So, you have just a palace with one room for patience verses, one room for hope verses, one room for character verses, and things like that. So, you could just have that one palace, but I personally myself would always try to have a palace that, I mean, I would also try to have that other palace that represents where the verses are located in the chapter for the purpose of memorizing the context, the verses around those verses that have to do with patience and such, you know, just so that I can always have the context. So, Vic, the short answer to

your question is you don't have to choose. You actually can have both. There are ways to organize memory palaces by topic, like I just talked about, but also there are ways to organize memory palaces by the order that they happen in a book, as we do in the course at masterofmemory.com slash James, and you can have both by cross-referencing the palaces. Now, listeners have asked about how they can support Master of Memory and keep this show free for the world, particularly if you don't have a lot of time or any money to spend. So right now, I'm going to tell you that, believe it or not, right now, at this moment, the number one way that you can support the show doesn't require any money of you, is very easy, and will only take a few seconds, and it requires nothing but your smartphone

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