Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0359: How to memorize the gospel of John

Episode Date: July 23, 2015

Stacey asks about memorizing the gospel of John. I present an outline for accomplishing this and invite her to collaborate with me on a new free memory course for memorizing the book of John. 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 Band.

Master of Memory 359 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. Stacy submitted a written question at masterofmemory.com slash question. Stacy says, I'm a newer Christian and I'm working with a small group of women from my church. We just finished the book, Experiencing God, and now we'll be reading a book from the Bible. Last night we decided to read John, so I thought it would be nice to memorize it after reading it.

It'd be nice to have the help from Master of Memory in order to accomplish it. So Stacey, yes, now the thing is, John is the most difficult gospel to memorize, because while it's not as long, probably, as Luke is, the way that it's written isn't nearly as straightforward as kind of goes around in circles and rambles, so memorization tactics will help a lot, but it is going to be a difficult project. However, what won't be difficult is simply memorizing the key verses, and then from there, it'll be easier to memorize the verses in between. So I would recommend finding the key verses from each chapter, which there will be probably 1 to ten key verses for every chapter, and memorizing those first.

For example, with chapter 17, the High Priestly Prayer, I would say that the 19th verse is probably the one that's the most important as far as that whole passage goes in summarizing what he's doing with that passage. Now, the specific tactics on memorization have already been presented multiple times in other episodes and at masterofmemory.com, but I'm going to go ahead and present which verses I would recommend starting with if you're memorizing the Gospel of John, particularly some passages that people would want to memorize toward the end of John, chapters 17 through 21. So again, for the high priestly prayer, which is all of chapter 17, you have one key verse, and that's verse 19. If you take chapter 18, I would divide that into about seven smaller sections.

So for the first part of that chapter, you have the betrayal and arrest of Jesus, which could be summarized in verse 5. So you just memorize verse 5, and then you have Jesus facing Annas and Caiaphas, and verse 13 represents that. Verse 17 represents Peter denying Jesus the first of two times in this chapter. And then verse 19 represents the section where the high priest questions Jesus. Then Peter denies Jesus again, and that's represented in verse 27. And then verse 31 represents Jesus being before Pilate. And then he says, my kingdom is not of this world, in a sort of dialogue that happens at the end of the chapter, and you can represent that just by memorizing verse 36. So there are a lot of things that happen in chapter

18, but if you just memorize these seven verses that I just mentioned, you have the essence of the chapter and pretty much everything that happens in the chapter in just those seven verses. And then for chapter 19, there are about five different sections. Jesus is delivered to be crucified, represented by verse 15. He's crucified, represented by verse 18. Verse 30 represents his death. Verse 34 is when his side is pierced. And verse 42 is his burial. So it's a long chapter, but again, you can represent the whole thing by just memorizing these five verses. Similarly, in chapter 20, I would recommend memorizing verses 6, 16, 19, 27, and 31. And then in chapter 21, I would recommend memorizing verses 12, 15, and 24. In total, that's 21 verses to memorize to have the essence of chapters 17 through 21 down.

You could, based on being able to recite those verses and also know their references, you could find pretty much anything in those chapters, and you could tell anyone where anything is in those chapters. That's a big win for just memorizing 21 verses rather than the whole of each of those chapters. Then, of course, from there you can go on to memorize the whole of each of those chapters. Then of course from there you can go on to memorize the rest of the book, but I would definitely start with these most important verses first to give yourself some quick wins and encouragement and to inspire you to keep going. If you're serious about this, Stacey, and I mean honestly most people write in and aren't really serious about it, but if you are serious about this, Stacey, I'd be happy to collaborate with you on this

and actually create a course for memorizing John, create resources for memorizing John that other people can use as well. We'll just post them at masterofmemory.com and let other people use them for free out there. So just let me know and write me an email and also write me an iTunes review, please. These iTunes reviews have a multiplying effect as to how many people iTunes allows to see the show. So a rating and review would be greatly appreciated.

For everyone listening, what do you want to learn? The world's knowledge can be yours. Leave your learning request at masterofmemory.com slash question and I'll talk to you again soon.