Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0449: Memorize the book of Titus: First steps

Episode Date: November 26, 2015

Kina wants to memorize the book of Titus. I present the tactics and some mnemonics for the key topics and key verses of Titus. 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 449. 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. Kina asked for suggestions for memorizing the letter of Paul to Titus, the book of Titus. Titus is a short little epistle of three chapters, and the first thing that I would recommend doing is trying to think of this book in a unique entity from other books. What I mean by that

is you don't want to get the verses of this book confused with those of other books or the topics that Paul talks about here. Even though they're related, the ideas that he talks about are obviously in line with what he says in other epistles, you want to have the idea that this is its own entity so that you can always look it up. And every time you hear a verse from the book of Titus, you will know immediately that it's from that particular epistle. What I particularly do with this is I imagine that there's sort of a character, like I'm creating a movie or I'm writing a book or something about the book of Titus, and I give it a main character of my own. For you, it might be a cartoon character or a character from some movie or book or something that you find very memorable,

maybe even a friend of yours. For me personally, the number 56, because Titus is the 56th book, is a newt named Algy. And so he's my main character for memorizing the book of Titus. And so everything that happens in the book of Titus, I'm going to relate to this newt. And so anytime I hear a verse from the book of Titus, I'm going to think of this newt and I'll immediately remember that it's from the book of Titus. So anyway, the first step is just to think of this book in its unique entity and imagine its own sort of character that is associated with the book. The second thing that I would do is try to put this book also in a unique place. You don't need a very complex memory palace for the Book of Titus. You can just memorize it in

your house or in some building that you know, as long as you can think of three different rooms in that building and several sub-locations within those rooms, specifically 15 or 16 per chapter. So pick a character or a person and pick a building that you want to associate with the Book of Titus. The next step is to try to associate the topics that are talked about in the Book of Titus with the chapters that they're related to. So if you have a building that's divided into three rooms, and you store the ideas or you imagine the ideas from those chapters in association with those rooms, then anytime someone mentions one of the concepts from Titus,

like the idea of the theological basis for the way that Christians live, or the idea of being ready for every good work, you'll know that that's from chapter 2 or from chapter 3, respectively, because you've associated those ideas already with those particular rooms. So in the first room, you're going to want to store the idea of Paul greeting people. If it's the front room of your house, then it's easy to remember that Paul is greeting Titus in that first section. But there are actually a few other ideas that are covered in the first chapter, one of which is Paul's explanation of why Paul left when Titus was at Crete, and so Titus was without Paul at that time. Paul explains that in chapter one.

So imagine in your doorway at the entrance, if that's your first room, that Paul is greeting Titus, but then right inside after the entrance in a second location, for me that would be a bookshelf, imagine that he's leaving Titus somewhere. He's abandoning him on a shelf. You might make that very visual using your character that you've associated with the book of Titus. That's what I would recommend doing. So now when you think of chapter one of Titus, you think first of Paul greeting, and then of him leaving Titus, or explaining why he left Titus on Crete. The third thing that is talked about in Titus is the qualifications for elders, so how elders are selected in the church. And you want to associate that with also still your first room, but another sublocation within that room. So maybe imagine some old people sitting around, well, at this point in the house

that I'm in right now, it would be a Christmas tree. So you might imagine some old people either sitting around a Christmas tree or actually in the Christmas tree and sort of being tested as far as whether they're qualified to be elders. And then the last of the four topics covered by the first chapter of Titus is dealing with false teachers. So maybe you will have a wolf or something like that who represents a false apostle or a false teacher, and he's just at the end of the first room when you're about to go into your second room for the second chapter. So now when you think of the first chapter of Titus, you just think of the first room when you're about to go into your second room for the second chapter. So now when you think of the first chapter of Titus, you just think of that first room in the house that you've associated with Titus, and you'll think first of the greeting,

second, why Paul left Titus on Crete, third, qualifications for elders, and fourth, dealing with false teachers. The second chapter is a bit more complicated, and it's hard exactly to categorize what's happening in the first half of the second chapter is a bit more complicated, and it's hard exactly to categorize what's happening in the first half of the second chapter. At the beginning of the second chapter, I would just call it various instructions. And so you might just imagine that somebody, probably your character or maybe the Apostle Paul, is sitting there writing various things on various objects in the first part of your second room.

Then in another place in the room, you might imagine that somebody's standing on a theology book, and the reason for that is that the topic is the theological basis for Christian living. Paul is sort of talking somewhat abstractly, but also practically at the same time, about the reasons that Christians live the way that we do, and so maybe the best way to imagine this is either imagining that somebody's standing on a stack of books, like theology books, or that somebody's standing with one foot on, let's say, one theologian, like Augustine, and the other foot on Luther or Calvin or something like that, just some famous theologians, just to remind you that it's the theological basis for the way that Christians live. In the third room, we have three topics to represent. First of all, being ready for every

good work. So the idea of being prepared to do good deeds, you want that in the first place in the third room. Then avoiding foolish controversies, you want somebody avoiding an argument and to represent that in a very visual and memorable way. And then finally, just the parting greetings and final instructions. So the point of this whole exercise is that when you think of the book of Titus, you can think of all of these topics that are covered in the book. You have all of these ideas laid out sequentially and geographically for you, so it's easy for you to remember everything that's happening in the book. Then when you get down to the actual memorization of each verse,

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