When we are reciting the verses over and over, day after day, suddenly insight pops up. As brilliant as AI may seem, it can never replicate this personal experience. And with these insights come a deeper love for Christ, because he is the one speaking them directly to our souls. So, insight yields intimacy with Christ. This intimacy is the best payoff from the repetitive labor essential to memorization. And smartphones cannot do this for us, just as they cannot eat, drink, love, understand, or decide for us.

Late in 1946, a Bedouin shepherd boy looking for lost sheep made the discovery of a lifetime: the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest copies of the Old Testament in existence today.

The most significant of these was the Isaiah scroll, 24 feet long, weighing 25 pounds, written on parchment. Clearly, the scroll was not easily portable; it was designed to remain in the temple or synagogue. If the entire Old Testament were written on such scrolls, they would weigh over 320 pounds!

Now, however, by the marvels of modern technology, we have not just the Old Testament but the entire Bible available at our fingertips by means of our smartphones. My iPhone weighs six ounces.

Why Memorize?

When Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness, he answered each temptation by reciting a passage from Deuteronomy (Matthew 4:1–11). He clearly had these verses memorized, for lugging the scroll around in the desert would have been impossible. But modern minds might ask, “If I can access any verse anytime I want with the touch of a finger on a six-ounce phone, why memorize?” Has the marvel of digital technology made memorization obsolete? My answer to this question is “Absolutely not!”

For almost forty years, I have devoted myself to the extended memorization of Scripture. I began in the summer of 1986 with the book of Ephesians. Since that time, I have memorized 45 other books. (I am presently working on Jeremiah.) My practice has been to learn three new verses every day by reciting them ten times and then saying them for one hundred consecutive days after that. Then I kiss them goodbye as I continue to learn new verses.

Sadly, for the most part, my finite and flawed mind forgets most of them after I let them go. My smartphone, on the other hand, never “forgets” anything. At any moment, it can call up whatever verse I ask. What’s more, memorizing can be incredibly hard work — it takes me over 45 minutes a day, and it’s getting harder as I get older. So, why do I continue to memorize verses?

Like Seed and Sword

Here’s the thing: There is nothing fundamentally new in our digital era. A similar question could have been asked when writing was invented. When God carved the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone, from that moment on they never changed. When people in subsequent generations copied those words onto scrolls, the same was true. Once the ink hit the parchment in the shape of the Hebrew letters, they were permanent. But those letters never helped anyone to be saved or to live a godly life while they stayed external to the mind and heart.

The word of God must enter the mind and heart to bring life, health, and fruit.

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