I was challenged by the fact that there aren't very many Christians who committed large passages of scripture to memory anymore. While there are people of other religious traditions who have memorized their entire holy books.

I came across a video in which a leader in one of the aforementioned religions mocks the fact that Christians don't memorize. I felt indignant, so I decided to figure out how to do it. After doing a lot of research into the topic, I decided to make a systematic plan with resources so that anyone who might want to try with me would have the things they needed to do the same.

My plan is to dive into the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation, step by step. Initially, I thought of starting with the shortest books and then progressing based on length. However, how to systematically review everything evenly was a challenge.

But then, I stumbled upon resources used by other religious groups, which structured memorization around the amount of text on a standardized page per day. After a bit of searching for a Bible that was widely available and had a (relatively) manageable/comparable amount of text per page, I found these handy pocket bibles at Dollar Tree Stores, which had just the right amount of text. So, armed with these resources and that little Bible, I embarked on creating my plan.

I'm staying motivated by zooming out a lot. I'm approaching this project by looking at the New Testament as a book of various authors and trying to continually read through it each time, thinking about the Big picture and what I am learning. In that same vein I'm memorizing the outline of the New Testament, that is I've used a parallel online Bible to look at the chapter heading for all of the 260 chapters in the NT and compiled them into a document and then put each chapter on a flash card. So, as I'm learning the individual pages, I'm also working on the big picture as I learn the main topics for each chapter. I also spent a lot of time listening to presentations on the New Testament as a whole and talks on the individual books so that I could better understand the context.

I briefly thought about memorizing from Revelation to Matthew, so I also created that plan. If I get bored going forward, I can always work backward a little or go back and forth and meet in the middle of ACTS!

The Dollar Tree Pocket KJV New Testament, on which I based this plan, has 401 pages. If I can stay generally on the schedule of a page a day at least on weekdays, I should be finished in a little under 2 years.

Yes, I understand that life happens. The 802-day plan is kinda of a fallback for days when I can't get a full page memorized or have something come up. And I understand there may be times when I may not make any progress, and when those times come. I'll just be in a holding pattern maintaining what I've done until I can move farther. But I know that no matter what happens, every little bit of progress that I make will help me to have more of the thoughts of God in my mind, which in turn will push out other things that are taking up needless space in my head lol.

In addition to my memorization plans, I also created flashcards with the Dollar Tree Pocket KJV Bible page on one side and the associated first-letter reminders on the other. I also have chapter outline cards and a New Testament in a Month Reading/Quoting Schedule.

I've spent a lot of prep time really trying to get a good overview of the New Testament. I've read the entire New Testament from cover to cover over twenty times in the last six months, and I've listened to the New Testament read aloud more times than I can count. Many nights, I go to bed with it playing as I sleep.

I also trained my ear to listen to most things 2x - 3x normal, so it takes me 8 - 6 hours to listen to the entire New Testament as opposed to 19 - 20+ at normal speed.)

Yes, my church family is cheering me on, and I've found a community with which I can share wins.

I can already see it changing me. Each time I go through the New Testament, I get insights. As I listen to sermons, I am usually familiar with the context of many of the passages mentioned in a way I didn't have before I started this journey. So, if this is happening and I've barely started memorizing, I can't imagine how different my life will be when I have it all hidden in my heart!