The most popular post of all time on this blog isn’t about marriage. Or sex. Or family at all. It’s actually my list of the 50 most important Bible verses to memorize. (If you’ve ever wanted to start memorizing Scripture, but you don’t know where to start, this is a great place!)
Anyway, recently someone landed on that page and then started clicking links and found an older post on our culture’s biblical heritage, which I wrote five years ago and forgot about. I just reread it, and I thought it was worth posting so that my new readers can see it. So here we are, from 2008:
What Do We Hide in Our Heart?
While homeschooling my oldest daughter recently, I came across a Grammar Lesson that caught me by surprise. We use an old 1920 Ontario textbook for grammar, largely because they understood how to teach basic skills back then. This particular assignment asked children to plan a five paragraph story, and then to write it, on one of the four following subjects: David and Goliath; Daniel and the Lions; Ruth and Naomi; or the Prodigal Son.
What was surprising to me was not that a public school textbook, even one that is 88 years old, would ask children to write Bible stories. It was that the textbook assumed the children could. You see, the Bible was not just part of Canada’s faith story back then; it was part of our whole culture. Whether or not people believed it, everybody knew it.
Philosopher and physician John Patrick likes to tell a story that illustrates this to an even greater extreme. The scene is the disastrous Canadian landing at Dieppe, in France in 1942. The Canadians had no air or sea support, they were outnumbered, and it was a lost cause perhaps before it even began. In the midst of the battle, the English headquarters sent a message across the Channel, asking how the soldiers were faring. They received a three word answer in response. “But if not.”
Do you get it yet? Few of us would. Yet those three words were not only understood by those who sent them; they were understood by those who received them. And the sender knew this would be the case. But if not.
For those of you who are still scratching your heads, “But if not” is from the story of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, better known as Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego, or to my children as Rack, Shack and Benny. When facing being thrown into the fiery furnace for refusing to bow down to an image of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, these three men told the king, “If our God is able to deliver us, let him. But if not, we will not bend the knee.” But if not, we will not bend the knee. That is the message the Canadians sent back to London. It was read, and it was understood.
There’s another story from that same period that speaks to me. An Allied POW camp (I assume it was air force or some such, because they were held for a number of years, so it must have been before D-Day), managed to recreate pretty much the entire book of Matthew (there were only a few holes) just from people’s memories. I can’t find a reference for that now, but I think that’s pretty inspiring. They wanted Scripture to keep them going, so they called everyone together, and everyone brainstormed, wrote out the verses they knew, and then tried to put them in the proper order. The chaplain kept what they wrote, and he compared it to the actual Bible when they were released. They got remarkably close. I can’t picture that happening today.
Not all of those people were Christian, in either story. And yet they knew the Word. Probably better than we do. Have any of you ever read Tom Sawyer? Mark Twain writes brilliantly and hysterically about the Bible verse drills all these kids went through, but that was late in the nineteenth century.
Do we memorize anymore?
Do we really know our Bibles? Do our kids? I think we need to get back to knowing the Word.
I know we can’t turn back the clock, and likely the rest of society won’t follow us as they did when we were still a Bible-based culture, but we need to at least be well versed in Scripture. In fact, we need to be more well-versed because we no longer hear Scripture or allusions to Scripture in normal life.
What do you think?
After all, but if not…
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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 25 years and happily married for 20! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
Those stories was incredibly encouraging to me. “But if not……” I think that might be the next verse I memorize.
Very interesting on all points. If we think about it, there are obviously many things we can think of on which to blame this cultural shift, but probably the most prevailing thing that has taken us away from Biblical literacy is television (and now, our computers, phones, etc.). Before television and the myriad ways we now keep ourselves constantly entertained, what did you do with your free time? You read…in those days before television, the one book every household surely had was the Bible. Maybe things really started to shift, when our homes started to shift to other ways of spending our free time.
Interesting thought! I remember reading the Little HOuse on the Prairie series and one thing they did for fun was a Bible verse memory contest at night! Imagine that today. But they were just trying to fill up time!
I appreciate you re-posting this article. It makes me appreciate the way I was raised !! I have been teaching my daughter scriptures and she has an awesome memory. She has memorized the Lord’s prayer and was able to say it with our congregation last night in a prayer service. That was awesome! Have a great day!!
Aside from the very real reward of “hiding thy word in my heart that I might not sin against thee” – there’s a program you can join that offers major cash rewards for those who memorize scripture well. It’s called the National Bible Bee and they give out over a quarter million dollars at their nationals each year. I was a judge at last year’s competition and the dedication and knowledge of the participants utterly blew me away. As a child, I did Bible drill tournaments and speakers’ tournaments – but this is something else entirely. Check it out at http://biblebee.org. The sign up period for the new contest is, I think, open right now.
But the Bible Bee is in the U.S.A. Tolovehonorandvacuum.com is a Canadian blog. I’m Canadian too.
I believe Sheila takes a team to the US for Bible Bee. Am I right Sheila?
We do something slightly different; it’s Bible Quizzing through the Christian and Missionary Alliance. But it’s a similar idea!
I think you are correct that it’s critical we know the Word—not just the gist of it, but really know it so it can encourage us, guide us, and keep us from sin (among other things!).
I used to memorize Bible verses quite frequently, but in the last couple of years I wasn’t as committed to it. I set some goals as 2013 began to begin memorizing it on a regular basis again. I did really well in January and February. I did okay in March. You can guess how April went. My resolve fizzled out.
Thanks for the reminder to begin memorizing again!
Thank you Sheila. This is something so dear to my heart, trying to teaching a generation of those in the church that they need to know God. Not just know ABOUT Him but KNOW Him. To know His character and all that He does. To understand truth because you’ve seen it and experienced it for yourself. We need to be students of the Word, but not just for knowledge sake but in order to live a life that is pleasing to God. A life that shines brightly for truth. I learned to study the word on my own about 10 years ago and nothing has been the same since. I just wish I would have know while my boys were still home. But God is faithful and I know that being in Christian school and Home schooled they probably know more about God than I ever did growing up! 🙂
I love you, Sheila! Perfect timing for reposting this. Thank you for your thoughts and perspective.
I’m writing from Portugal, so forgive my bad English… but I couldn’t avoid writing something. Just to say that is an excellent post, unexpected taking into account the general theme of the blog, but very accomplished in its content. In fact, it is not only our culture that is losing the biblical heritage, the most serious is that the church itself is losing this culture! Search the face and heart of the Father directly on the pages of the Bible is not, for many Christians, relevant. As we are in the era of ready-to-eat or ready-to-wear, we also expect the word ready-to-consume which is given us. But, God is personal, and our communication and fellowship with Him must also be personal. Good work!
Such a sad but true statement!!! So many under 45 do not know their Bibles at all…so can’t draw on the strength of God’s Word, discern when their is false teaching and so much more!! Breaks my heart. That is why I am committed to teaching and modelling my love for God, His Word and His people and the world, to my kids at home and also teaching Sunday School to the Grade 5/6 class. My heart’s passion and desire is to be used by God to teach them to love God’s Word deeply, to know God’s word deeply and most importantly, to know God. Stories are just that, stories, but God’s message behind them is what needs to be burned into the depth of our hearts and souls.
Totally agree! Bible stories are nice, but not enough! If we don’t teach the power and purpose behind the stories, they only remain stories. Thank you for your commitment to teach more. I’m under 45, and I know a fair bit about the Bible. (I can never say I KNOW it! There’s so much truth there that God has yet to reveal to me!). I can distinctly remember going on a young adults’ retreat, though, and someone was asking questions from a Bible trivia game. Everyone wondered why I knew so many answers…umm…doesn’t everybody?? was my thought. But I guess not. Anyway, hope that encourages you that some of us do know the Word. Though I’ll admit I need to do a better job of studying it diligently.
You are so right about all of this. Each one of us making a conscious effort to bring people into a relationship with God (like you said, not know about Him but truly KNOW Him) will make a big impact. We are not as outnumbered as the media and the secular world would have us believe.
What great ideas–Bible memory competitions!
As I read this post, my heart stopped at the “But if not,” part. I thought, “Could it be…?”
In high school years ago, I went to Costa Rica for a summer missions trip to help a family run kids’ camps for impoverished children and youth. The summer theme character was Daniel, and all the talks (given in Spanish) were about learning to persevere in faith through tough times. Quite a message for kids who lived through starvation, abuse, and hell. But it wasn’t ironic to them. It was life. It was their lifeline, and they left with a new strength to face what was back at home. Their memory verse for the week was Daniel 3:17-18, and I learned it with them in Spanish.
Nuestro Dios, a quien servimos, puede librarnos del horno de fuego ardiente; y de tus manos, rey, nos librará. Y SI NO, has de saber, oh rey, que no serviremos a tus dioses ni tampoco adoraremos la estatua que has levantado.
At the end of the summer, back home in the States, I attended Hume Lake Summer Camp with my youth group. Like every summer, they had a daily Bible verse or short passage to memorize for team points for your cabin, as well as a full passage to memorize over the week for a lot of points. I memorized all of them, but Thursday didn’t require any new memorization, just translation: “Our God, whom we serve, can free us….BUT IF NOT…”
That passage still speaks to me as a source of strength, knowing that hundreds of Tico kids, now teens and adults, have memorized the same verse and go to it for strength too. The Bible is something we share with every brother and sister. May more and more people read it and memorize it!
This post reminds me of my grammar school( high school) days in England from 1950-56. We had a service every morning with a hymn, a Bible reading and a prayer time. We had a “religious knowledge” lesson every week and Christianity was emphasised. The only people ‘excused’ from either were Roman Catholics for whom it was apparently regarded as sinful to attend a non-catholic service or instruction period.
I have been reading the Bible from Genesis to Revelation every year for many years now and my Bible knowledge has benefitted considerably as a result. This helps me greatly in times of stress.
We are suffering as did the Israelites of old. When they turned to God they were blessed when they turned away from God they suffered. Moral decay can be stopped only with a revival of Christianity in society in general.
Not sure what is going on in Canada, but Quebec’s Catholic culture has had an even more shocking collapse.
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8749
The religious situation in the USA is a bit different for various reasons. Even though we’re generally more religious in the USA, the sense of cultural and Biblical literacy has been lost. Even in US Christian circles, you see more single verses of obscure passages of Paul’s letters and Proverbs and less of the “chunks” of the great Bible stories and the Gospels.
Excellent post.
I have noticed in earlier, say pre 1950s American literature the authors were obviously knowledgeable about what was in the Bible. Even not very ‘religious’ authors like John Steinbeck and Mark Twain. Their writings were full of parallels and allusions to scripture. Not so much anymore, unless it is ridiculing faith in some way.
A preacher friend of mine said when he first went to preacher school about 30 years ago, the first day of class the professor said I want you to memorize Matthew 5, 6 & 7 by the end of the week. The students all interpreted it as memorizing Matt. 5:6-7 and thought, hey this will be a breeze!
Friday they all found out the professor had sorta done that on purpose, and they were supposed to memorize all three chapters 5,6, and 7.
I would love to hear suggestions from other parents on how they go about teaching and memorizing verses with their children for those of us who would like to do it, but haven’t really experienced it.
thanks!
Hey Stephanie,
How old are your kids? Ours love Awana – it really emphasizes scripture memory. If you don’t have a club near you, I just saw a link for a homeschool version that you could do at home (even if you don’t homeschool). The music CD’s are also on iTunes – easy to listen to in the car and learn verses that way. If you can’t find the links on Google, let me know – I will dig them out tomorrow from my desktop.