Psalm 50

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.

Post Nationals Return to Normal-ness Post

We just thought that you might want to know that we are in fact alive, and have not dropped off the face of the earth. We are home from the Bible Bee —it went fine, we had fun, we may elaborate on it  more later— but now what really matters to us is that it is over.

We are back to fairly normal things! Most of our family is participating in our church's Christmas Cantata; Sarah is playing harp and I am singing alto in the choir. This is, by far, my most unprepared year. I didn't even mark up my Cantata book until last week, not to mention that I lost a couple weeks after the Bible Bee to my mouth being very swollen from getting my wisdom teeth out (which is not conducive to singing).

I am enjoying, for the first time this school year, being able to devote my attention almost entirely to my senior recital that I am preparing to do on May 13th. Before the Bible Bee I took two weeks off of practicing, then there was the week of the Bible Bee, upon returning from the Bible Bee I had Thanksgiving Break (in which I got my wisdom teeth extracted), and finally opened up my "what-pieces-I-am-learning-and-when-they-need-to-be-in-semi-decent-shape" spreadsheet to assess how far behind I was. I was about a month ahead. I had my real "Thanksgiving" then!

I have also been doing 1 and 1/2 grade with William. He is 6, very intelligent, and very scattered. He loves math, likes reading, and is not very impressed with writing. It has been very fun working with him; his wheels are always turning, just not always in the same direction.

It is so good to be at home again. I am still reviewing my verses, starting to study Acts, I finished reading my Bible through in the non-Bible-Bee months of the year, and am studying dispensationalism, but the absence of pressure is wonderful. Of course, I get a lot more done with pressure, but I still have a little adrenaline and a good bit of habit to keep me going for now.

Nationals Update

With the National Bible Bee less than a week away as I write this, our studying is intense. The 750 verses we were assigned to memorize have been memorized; however this is only the beginning of the process, as we recite each passage at least once every day--ironing out small slips in the verses we know best and struggling to recall those more difficult sections. Some of the verses are more fun to say than others: we have a couple long passages from Acts it is easy to put a lot of expression into, but there’s also a section in Lamentations that is rather depressing. I think my favorite passages to say are the two resurrection chapters: Matthew 28 and John 20:1-20. It’s rather like having Easter Sunday every day. The thrill of saying “He is risen!” never gets old. One exciting thing about all the verses is the fact that the more we study them the better we can see how many of them tie into Ephesians.
Ephesians is a very rewarding study, with many important theological concepts as well as clear practical directions on living life. My method of studying Ephesians has several parts. First I try to get a general concept of whichever chapter I’m working on by listening to sermons, summarizing each verse and the chapter as a whole, reading commentaries, asking and answering questions about the chapter, and finding the “key verse” (Which means a verse that contains the major theme or teaching of a chapter. Sometimes there is more than one!) Next I focus on more specific aspects of the chapter through greek word studies and cross-references. I also hope to memorize all of Ephesians before the competition, because I have found this helps me understand how everything works together and recall what I’ve learned about each verse.
It’s a lot of work, but I’ve been very blessed to be part of the Bible Bee for the last five years. It has really helped me understand the richness of God’s Word, and given me experience I can continue to use for the rest of my life. We are both looking forward to returning to Tennessee this year, as we had a very enjoyable time last year.

Waiting for a Second Wind

I am tired. Sarah and I finished memorizing our verses the first week of October and I have been reviewing them pretty faithfully since, but still sometimes when one of our quizzers says a reference I will look at them blankly for a few seconds before giving up and saying, "What's the first word?" Also, I am beginning to be of the opinion that when the first word is "for", "and", or "then", they should not count it as a prompt, and when the first phrase is something like: "And (or "then") the Lord (or "God", or both) spoke (or "said") to Moses (or Noah, Jacob, Abraham, or him, or them, or whoever) saying (or "and said")"– that should not count either. Or they could make it all count as one prompt: "AndtheLordspoketoMosessaying" sort of like "inasmuch" or "nevertheless". However, that is not the case, so I must resign myself to trying to make stick in my head whether it was God or the Lord, spoke or said, Moses or him, in all the times that God (or the Lord) spoke (or said) to Moses (or whoever) and put as brave a face on it as possible under the circumstances.

We really are enjoying ourselves. I promise.
But we do look forward to that moment on the plane ride home, on the car ride on the way to church, while I wait for my piano lesson, to not need to recite/mutter verses to ourselves. It will be nice to have a break for a few months. But we will miss it very much.
I remember last year when we came home, getting a frantic feeling whenever I went anywhere for weeks afterward that I was forgetting something only to realize that I was missing my stacks of verses and that I didn't need them anymore. However, just because we won't be carrying around our stacks of verses, that does not mean that we won't have them with us. Now that they are in our memory, God will bring them to us just when we need them most. Which is why we knock ourselves out over a competition that just started a few years ago and still has many wrinkles and flaws. Because, of all competitions, this is one that you can truly say from your heart:

"It isn't about the competition".

Psalms 71:14-17  But I will hope continually,

And will praise You yet more and more. 

  My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness

And Your salvation all the day,

For I do not know their limits. 

I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD;

I will make mention of Your righteousness, of Yours only. 

  O God, You have taught me from my youth;

 and to this day I will declare your wondrous works.

2013 Nationals

In mid-November Sarah and I will be going to participate as competitors in the 2013 Bible Bee Nationals in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee! We are very excited at this opportunity to study Ephesians and memorize 750 more verses over the next few months, as well as being able to spend a few days in the fellowship of hundreds of families from all over America who have been studying not only God's word like we have been, but the same parts of God's word!
Some of those who follow our blog may have noticed that we have not been as faithful in posting every couple of weeks. This will probably continue be the case until after November. We apologize, but, –still recovering from extreme suspense followed by extreme excitement– we do not feel as regretful as we might.

Why Memorize?

Well, Megan keeps saying it's my turn to write a post, so I'm taking her word for it. Since the Bible Bee is quite close now, I thought I'd write about why I like to memorize scripture, specifically large portions of scripture such as an entire book. There are lots of general reasons, like the fact that the verses you've memorized are often the ones that God will bring to mind when you need them, but I am going to stick more with personal reasons, since this is a blog, not a sermon.

I have been memorizing scripture since before I can remember, but the first long sections I memorized where Romans 6, and then Matthew 5. This gave me the first clue on how fun memorizing was, but I really started to get serious about it four years ago when the Bible Bee started. There is a certain thrill connected with remembering a large chunk of text for a certain period of time. So Reason #1 to Memorize: It is fun! 

Be warned that this does assume some level of enjoyment in using your brain. Which leads directly into the second reason: Reason #2 to Memorize: It is challenging. I like challenges, but even if you don't usually, they are still good for you. If you are not intimidated enough by an "easy" book like 2 Timothy or 1 John, you could always opt for something longer, like Romans, or John. I don't know how common this is, but I have a plan for my Bible memorization over the next 5 years. 

Finish Romans (by the end of this year)
Proverbs
Isaiah
Genesis
Acts

I think that Genesis and Acts will actually be fairly quick (maybe a year for each) because there is so much narrative. I found Jonah to be pretty easy because of this. I don't know what I'll memorize after these, and they may get switched around a bit (I was very tempted to add John, and I may still memorize that before some of the others...) but that is the general plan. 

Finally, the most serious reason; Reason #3 to Memorize: Spiritual Warfare. I wasn't exactly sure what to call this reason, and it is a bit hard to explain, but basically, memorizing or reciting memorized scripture is one of the best methods I have found for controlling negative or angry thoughts, etc. It also helps me calm down when I'm nervous. 

These are just a few of my personal reasons for memorizing, above and beyond the Biblical ones, but I hope they will encourage others to memorize more as well. 
God bless.

Free to Serve

Our country is a free country. But as American Christians we have a double reason for rejoicing: We are also free in Christ! 

1 Corinthians 9:19-23 For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more;  and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.  Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.

Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. 

Galatians 5:13  For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 

Happy Independence Day!