Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0444: Memorize 1 Corinthians 13

Episode Date: November 19, 2015

Allison wants to memorize the 1 Corinthians 13. I present a memory system, sample mnemonics, and quizzing resources for memorizing this chapter quickly and easily. 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 444. 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. Allison requested learning materials for memorizing 1 Corinthians 13, which is the famous love chapter by the Apostle Paul. Now, 1 Corinthians 13 is a pretty short chapter, and it's basically just a short passage about the nature of brother-to-brother love,

as opposed to, let's say, Romans 8, which is about the love of God. So I thought that I would present just a quick series of mnemonics for all 13 verses. If you were just to memorize the key verse of this little chapter, that's probably 1 Corinthians 13, 13, which says, so now faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love. My mnemonic for that, since my object for the number 13, for the verse 13, is a dime, a coin. I would imagine a dime and somehow mnemonically represent on that dime an F, an H, and an L, with the L being bigger than the F and the H. Maybe just to make that even more visual, if you just think of them as letters rather than as some sort of animal that starts with those letters,

you might just have a giant L and off of it are hanging an F and an H. So you'll just remember faith, hope, but the greatest is love. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love. Now to go a little bit further, you're probably going to be placing this in a memory palace, especially if you're planning on memorizing the rest of 1 Corinthians at some point. So chapter 13 is going to be in a particular room. This key verse is at the very end of the chapter, so it would be the last of 13 locations in your room. Let's go over the rest of those locations.

My object for the number 1, for verse 1, is a dish of acid. So you have a plate or a bowl, and it's full of acid that's kind of burning stuff. And what you want to imagine is that there's a tongue and a symbol inside that dish of acid. And both of those things are spilling onto your first location. If I use the room that I'm in right now, I would imagine that they're spilling perhaps on the couch next to one of the doors. So I'm going to make a journey from one door to the other door of this room. And when I think of that couch, which is the first location, I'm going to think of an acid dish, which is my object for the number one, 1 Corinthians 13.1.

And then I have a tongue and a symbol. And those are my prompts to remind me, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love I'm a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. In your next location you want the number two which is a snowball for snow zero two and you want that snowball perhaps to you might imagine that it's being read as a crystal ball or something like that because it says, and if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing. So imagine the, just to represent the prophetic powers, the mystery, and knowledge, you can imagine the snowball as a crystal ball, and then you can

see a mountain in it. So you think removing mountains. So that's your second location. First location is the gong or the clanging cymbal. The second location is the knowledge and the removing mountains. And then for verse three, I would imagine a semi-truck, my object for the number three, full of someone's furniture. So the furniture means that you're giving away all that you have. And you would also have someone blowing fire out of the exhaust pipe of the semi-truck to represent giving up the body to be burned. So that's verse 3. Now we move on to sort of a new section, a new paragraph. And my object for the number 4 is a sari, which is a sort of blanket that Indian women wear.

And you want to tie that sari, however works best for you, to P-K-E-B-A. So think of those letters. For me, they would be the first letters of animals, but you have P-K-E-B-A. And those represent patient, kind, envy, boast, arrogant. And then for verse five, in your next location, you want to imagine a whistle for the number five. And you want to imagine that it's being rude and insistent and irritable and resentful. To remember that, you might just remember the acronym R-I-I-R. Rude, insistent, irritable, and resentful.

But just make sure that that whistle is tied very well to that location so you can remember that it's the number five, so that when you're going through this memory palace in your mind, you can remember the next location easily and remember the reference, 1 Corinthians 13 5. The number six is a sage leaf. It's a kind of herb, and you want it to be shaped like a smile because you have, it is not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. The number seven is a sock, and so for verse seven, you'll have a sock with a bear and B-B-H-E. So maybe you think of a bear and honey, so you have B-B-H-E, and that stands for love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

My object for number eight is a sofa, which may be a little confusing since we're in a room and you might think, but there isn't a sofa right there. I'm at a desk at this point, but I would just imagine that there's a miniature sofa maybe on its side to represent that it's fake and it's not really there in the real room. It's just my mnemonic. And I would imagine that on the sofa, there's a heart sitting on it. But underneath the sofa, kind of on the underside, there's a scroll, a tongue, and a brain. And if I make this really visual, I can always remember that. When I think of that sofa, I'll think of the heart, the scroll, the tongue, and the brain. And that just represents that love never ends. Prophecies will pass away. Tongues will cease. Knowledge will pass away.

Represented, of course, by the scroll, the tongue, and the brain. But the love is on top. It never ends. For verse 9, I would have a soap bar with a carving of a brain and a carving of a scroll. Now, it's a little hard to represent. You have to make these really visual and memorable, just so you can make sure that when you think of that soap, you will think of that brain and that scroll, because they represent that part of the soap bar is knowledge, and part of it is prophecy because it's saying we know in part and we prophesy in part. So that's verse nine for the soap.

Verse 10 is a couple of dice and it says when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. So what I have is one die. A good die is smashing an old worn out die and replacing it. So the good die is smashing the old one and replacing it. So the good die is smashing the old one and replacing it. My number 11 is a tooth. And so in the third to last location in your room you have a baby tooth that's being replaced by an adult tooth. And you want to put that on something. For me the second to last location is a globe. And so I would imagine that the globe has two teeth and

there's a sort of tooth falling out of the globe, a baby tooth, and it's being replaced by the new tooth to represent verse 11. When I was a child, I spoke as a child. I thought of a child. I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. And then for the 12th location, my object for the number 12 is a tuna can. And I'm going to imagine a tuna can with a mirror that's being rubbed clean. And this simply represents, for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So that's the 12th verse.

So those are some ideas for mnemonics for all 13 of these verses. Obviously, if you want to memorize this, you shouldn't just review these mnemonics in your own memory palace and make sure that they're really distinctly memorable, but you should also listen to it and read it and say it a few times along with it, just to make sure that you get all of the words in between the main ideas that are represented by the mnemonics. Now, for everyone listening, if you want to support the show, please go to masterofmemory.com slash vote so that you can sort of vote for our Kickstarter project

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