Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0459: Specific mnemonics for memorizing Colossians

Episode Date: December 10, 2015

Gene wants to memorize the book of Colossians and specifically requested mnemonic examples for how I myself would memorize Colossians. I present mnemonics for key verses of Colossians and how to store them in a memory palace. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by […]

Master of Memory 459. 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. Gene asked in an email for ideas on memorizing the book of Colossians. He specifically requested mnemonic examples for how I myself would memorize Colossians. So the first thing that you're going to do is, because Colossians has four chapters, you'll choose four rooms.

And in my case, I'm just going to choose a big entry room that's sort of a living room, then a dining room, and then a kitchen, and then finally a bathroom. And I'm going to give you the four key verses from the first chapter of Colossians as mnemonic examples for what I'd place there, and then the two or three key verses from each of the other chapters and ideas of what I would put there. So in the first room, when we enter, the key verse for the first section of Colossians is, well, he's greeting them. And so that would be near the entrance, probably in the entryway in that living room. And the verse is verse two, where he says it's to the faithful brothers in Colossae. Now for me, the number two is a snowball. And so for the faithful brothers in Colossae,

I would just hang a snowball basically on the coat rack in the entrance, and the faithful brothers is probably, the snowball is dripping onto those brothers' hats, and they don't mind. Those hats are just staying there. They're not getting phased. They're staying there faithfully. So that's my mnemonic for to the faithful brothers in Colossae, and I'll just remember where it is and all of that stuff and the fact that it's verse two. Verse three is the key verse for the next part. And so near the hat rack, there's a shelf further into the living room. And the verse is thanksgiving when Paul says that they give thanks when they pray for the Colossians. And so thanksgiving and prayer, I'm going to represent on the shelf. Now, the object for the number three is a semi-truck. And so I'm going to put probably a turkey in the semi-truck and have the semi-truck

folding its tires as if it's praying. So we have Thanksgiving and prayer. And then to tie that to the bookshelf, I'm going to have it holding some books while it's praying. And so that just kind of ties it to the location and shows me that that's the key verse. And the verse is number three because of the semi-truck. The next key verse is verse 16. And going around the living room a little bit more,

we'll eventually get to a painting on the wall above a couch. And this is going to be my key verse for the third section, where he says that all things were created by, through, and for Christ. Now, my mnemonic object for the number 16 is a tissue. And so I might just have the tissue hanging in front of the painting, and it's covering something up on the painting. And to represent the important words here, which are by, through, and for, I'm going to imagine that the tissue is painting that painting itself. And so you can imagine if a tissue was trying to paint something, it would be getting the paint all through it, and the fact is it's painting the painting. So

basically the picture is being painted by the tissue, but also through the tissue, and for the tissue, because it wants to end up with the painting in the end. And so that represents the number 16 for verse 16 with the tissue, but it also represents where it is in the book, which is further into the living room in about the middle of the chapter. Then toward the end of the chapter, we have verse 29, which for me will be over near a fake fireplace. And my object for the number 29 is a knob, a disembodied doorknob that's just kind of sitting there. And so what it says is Paul is toiling and struggling with the energy that God gives him. And so basically my idea is that the doorknob is in the fireplace and it's turning back and forth. But the only reason it's turning back and forth as a

disembodied doorknob is that the fire is giving it that energy. And so that's how I would kind of represent the idea in my mind, and also store it in the location where it goes and represent the number of the verse with the number 29 for knob. Then in chapter two, going on to the dining room, we have verse five at the beginning, and this is going to be on a little table in the corner. And the idea here is absent in the body, but present in spirit. So my object for the number 5, as many of you will know, is a whistle. And I would just imagine that one of these, let's see, there are some bottles on the table. I would imagine that one of them is trying to blow the whistle, but the bottle is not at the whistle. It's removed from it. So it's trying to blow on the whistle, but it wouldn't work if the bottle was so far away from

the whistle because it's not holding it, but the whistle is still working for some reason. So that represents that the bottle is not actually there in body, but it's still able to blow the whistle. So it's there in spirit. So that's verse 5. And then in verse 13 of chapter 2, we have the idea of being dead in trespasses in the flesh, but alive in God by his forgiveness. And my object for the number 13 is a dime or a coin. And so the place here is a little refrigerator. And so I would imagine that the refrigerator has closed on this little dime, and the dime is kind of dead on the inside of the refrigerator, but alive on the outside of the refrigerator. And it represents that sort of

dichotomy, or that idea that, you know, the transition, but from inside the refrigerator to outside the refrigerator, from being dead in trespasses and in the flesh to being alive in God by his forgiveness. And then verse 23 is going to be on the cuckoo clock, and this will be a gnome. So my object for the number 23 is sort of a garden decoration that looks like an old man with a beard, a gnome. And the verse says that legalism is of no value, essentially. That's what it's saying. It says it in more detail, but just to represent the idea, I'm going to place the gnome on the cuckoo clock, and the gnome is trying to teach that bird a lesson, but the bird simply is not learning. The bird still goes in and out of the clock because it's a cuckoo bird. It just goes

in and out when it does, and this gnome who's trying to beat it into obedience is not listening to it. Now, if anyone's wondering, I am making up these mnemonics completely on the fly as we go through this episode, and so just stick with my images. You may be able to enhance these in some ways by being a little bit more clever, but these are just my ideas as they occur to me. So now let's go to the kitchen. We have two topics here. One is for verse nine, and the object is soap. And the verse is about not lying because you have put off the old self. And so that's pretty simple. We're going to put the soap in the kitchen, which is in the sink in the kitchen, I should say. And that's one of the first things you encounter in the kitchen.

And this person was lying. They were writing lies in their hand, but they're washing it off with the soap. That's easy for me because in Harry Potter, he writes on his hand, I must not tell lies. And so you're just washing that off. So you're washing off the old self and not lying, which is what verse 9 says, representing soap. And then 23, which again is a gnome, we're going to go over to the shelves where there's a basket on the shelves where dry goods are stored. And the idea is working heartily

as for the Lord and not for man. So this gnome is in the basket and he's moving around all these dried goods in the basket, which for me is pretty visual. And he's saying to himself these dried goods in the basket, which for me is pretty visual. And he's saying to himself, even though nobody can see him because he's in the basket on a top shelf where nobody would see him, he's not working so that people will see him. He's only working so that he can be seen from above. So that'll represent that. And it's pretty easy for me to remember that that's verse 23.

And so Colossians 3.23, a pretty well-known verse, is now stored in a location in the kitchen. Now we'll go to the bathroom. We have three topics here for the last chapter of Colossians. First of all, the first verse says, treat bond servants justly because you also have a master in heaven. And the first thing you get to in the bathroom is, this is kind of funny, but this is my sister's bathroom. It's up to her. She has a little bathroom guest book that you sign when you go in. And the verse says, treat bond servants justly. And since the object for the number one is a dish of acid, what I'm going to do is I'm going to imagine pouring acid on the book, but then all the signatures that are inside the book are revealed, and they start to complain to the master of the person who dumped the acid on them. It's a little abstract because you have to come up with the guy who's dumping the acid on them, but that'll be represented by your character for the book of Colossians, which I haven't gone into yet.

You might just imagine yourself doing it if you just want to memorize this particular book. And then the next verse is verse six, which I'm going to put in the bathroom, let's see, next to the bathroom sink at the soap dispenser. And the verse says, let your speech be gracious. And so let's see, verse six, the object for that is a sage leaf. So instead of soap coming out of the soap dispenser,

we have a sage leaf that comes out of the soap dispenser and just kind of floats down speaking softly as it falls and maybe sprinkling a little salt off of it. So it's trying to be as pleasant as it possibly can in coming out of the soap dispenser, which is the concept that's spoken of in this verse, in verse 6. And then finally, verse 18, at the shower, I'm actually going to place this on the shower head itself. And my object for 18 is a sofa. And so I'll imagine that a sofa is crammed into the shower head. It's stuck into the shower head.

And that's because Paul says, I'm writing this greeting in my own hand. And he says, remember my chains. And so this is his final greeting. And basically, the sofa is entrapped in the shower head, and it's like it's chained up in there, but it's still able to reach out and write awkwardly a kind of final greeting on the letter that it's writing. So Gene, those are my mnemonics for the Book of Colossians. You can see this didn't take way too long. It took me a little time to choose the key of Colossians. You can see this didn't take way too long. It took me a little time to choose the key verses that I did. But once you do that, you can store your verses in a memory palace

and just kind of make up a story on the fly relating each of the ideas and each of the verses to the objects that represent your verse references and to the location where they'll be stored. Now for everyone listening, if you get any value from this show, to keep the show going, please go to masterofmemory.com slash mandarin. This project, our Mandarin course, is not just to create a free course for learning Mandarin, which is something that's fairly lacking online, but it's also a way to get the ball rolling for further projects at Master of Memory so that we can create more and more free courses for history, geography, our poetry memorization course, and our biblical Greek course. Getting the word out about the Mandarin project and getting it funded by Friday, December 18,

is the best way that we can get the ball rolling quickly on these other projects, and so just go to masterofmemory.com slash mandarin to find out about that. Meanwhile, 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.