After five years of participating in the Bible Bee, it is very strange to now be structuring my reading and memorization schedule without its motivating presence.
Right now I’m reading through Proverbs in ESV, which has been interesting and sometimes frustrating, after a lifetime of using NKJV. In other ways it is nice to have a different version, since one can often see aspects of a verse that were previously unnoticed. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to make myself switch completely, but I’m going to try it for a year.
I also just memorized Psalm 50 in ESV. I wasn’t quite aware what I was getting myself into when I picked it, since it starts out nice:
The Mighty One, God the LORD,
speaks and summons the earth
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God shines forth.
When I’d gotten that far and turned the page, I saw that the Psalm took a bit of a different tone.
“Hear, O my people, and I will speak;
O Israel, I will testify against you.
...
I will not accept a bull from your house
or goats from your folds.
The next verses are fun. Also famous, so not very hard to memorize.
For every beast of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know all the birds of the hills,
and all that moves in the field is mine.
These next verses I was surprised to recognize. Jonah quotes them fairly closely in Jonah chapter two, from the fish’s belly. One of those unexpected connections that are fun to find:
Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and perform your vows to the Most High,
and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”
At this point the tone switches again, contrasting the righteous to the wicked.
But to the wicked God says:
“What right have you to recite my statutes
or take my covenant on your lips?
For you hate discipline,
and you cast my words behind you
...
“You give your mouth free rein for evil,
and your tongue frames deceit.
God also tells the wicked what is going to happen if they don’t change. Such statements are an important but sobering aspect of the Bible.
“Mark this, then, you who forget God,
lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver!
The Psalm ends happily, though, with the results that follow correct behavior.
The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;
to one who orders his way rightly
I will show the salvation of God!”
It was fun to just pick a chapter to memorize over a few days, and Psalms work well for that type of thing, since the context is pretty much contained in itself. The end is possibly my favorite part: glorifying God is an awesome goal, and seeing his salvation is a great motivation.
