Join Dr. Larry Dinkins and Josh Summers as they explore the science behind memory and what we can learn about memorizing Scripture. What is the key to creating a strong memory that won’t easily be forgotten?
Or you can listen to the Memorize What Matters podcast on your favorite player:
Listen to “Bible Memory 101: Tips to Build a STRONG Biblical Foundation” on Spreaker.Resources from this interview:
- Check out Memory 101: https://amzn.to/3ME5ePk
- Orality as a Form of Bible Memory (previous interview with Dr. Dinkins)
- How to Use Scripture Memory in Daily Life (with Dr. Larry Dinkins)
Interview Transcript with Dr. Larry Dinkins
Josh Summers:
What really stood out to you in terms of what you learned about how memory works and how that applies to what you’ve learned with scripture memory?
Dr. Larry Dinkins:
I think in one word it would be association, because when you’re trying to pick up something new and it’s very new to you, then it’s hard to make the connections that would keep it in your, not just short-term memory, but bring it into long-term memory. And I think what we’ve both experienced is all these pneumonic techniques strengthen probably an innate ability to make some connections, but you strengthen it to the point where it can stay into long term memory. So the word association and connecting different items. For instance, one of the things we did last week was we had the list. And the list is like, this is 10 items, woman, tray, dish, foot, stairs, face, blood, daughter, phone, police. There’s 10 items there. And when you ask them who can remember it, we always get about five to six and then the next step we go, well listen to it again. There was a woman with a tray and a glass on it and her foot hit the stair, her face hit the ground, blood came out, her daughter saw it and called the police. And then you say, can you tell us the 10 items? And then always, it seems like they always go up to 10.
Because it’s a story. And before it was grocery list of unrelated items. And you’re struggling to keep them in your head, you only get half of them. But the moment that you tell a story, it’s more of a story, but it’s also connecting each point together. And I think enhancing the associations and the connections is what makes the strength of memory.
Josh Summers:
Yeah, I’ve seen it in two different ways. Like you said, there’s one part of it where the more, it’s almost like connecting bungee cords to something in the middle. The more connections you can make, the stronger that’s going to hold as if you just had two of them. It can move all around. The other part of that is the more that I’ve realized that if I can connect a memory to something that my brain already will never forget. And I think in the memory world, that’s something known as pegging, where you’re taking things that you already know, whether that’s a space, that’s where the memory, the mine palace comes from. It’s you’re always going to remember the house that you grew up in, or like what you’re saying is creating a story that you can then visualize. And that’s something that is going to be harder for you to forget than just the individual items by themselves.
And so I remember being taught when I was younger, this system where, you know, got a peg of 10 items and it could be done, let’s say the rhyming way. One is sun, two is shoe, three, tree, four door, all that. And then those are harder to forget because they rhyme. And then connecting whatever it is you want to remember to those 10 items, what I’m talking about. And so if it is a grocery list and I want to remember to bring eggs, and that’s the fourth item on my list, I can imagine myself egging a door or throwing eggs at a door and something like that. But taking and attaching a memory to something that your brain won’t forget or already knows. And I think that’s another reason why songs work well, because your brain knows that melody. And when you can attach something else to that melody, your brain’s not going to forget the melody. And so now you’re trying to help bring that along. But I love you and I have talked about sat down over coffee and talked about, okay, when we’re talking about connections, one of the most important connections in my mind to anything that I’m wanting to memorize is understanding. So if I can understand a passage that I’m memorizing or even just take the time to study it as I’m memorizing, that’s an added connection. But what are some other connections that can be made to a memory that would help to strengthen that memory?
Dr. Larry Dinkins:
Well, one is exaggeration. And if you look at any book on Bible memory, they’re going to have different aspects that strengthen that. And I always try to make sure that it’s visualized or I see the picture, I do a storyboard on my stories. But also you talked about bungee cords, I was thinking that’s more a eclectic type. Put everything on a page in the middle, you have the center of, and then you have all these strings that come out. So if you’re more of a graphic picturing person, man, use that in the Greece, there’s some artists that can actually see things much clearer than I can. And so exaggeration is important and just kind of crazy things that will stick because we have an accident, we can tell that story the rest of our life because it is so impactive. And however you make the connection more impactive and enhance it through color, through making it graphic exaggerations. And there’s some basic laws or rules on how you make those connections really strong.
Josh Summers:
Yeah, I remember there’s one that I think even you had said is one of the strongest ones that we tend to forget, which is, what do you call it? Olfactory. Olfactory.
Dr. Larry Dinkins:
Olfactory.
Josh Summers:
Yeah. And it happens, I don’t know, to hopefully more than just myself, but you know, walk in a room and you’re like, all of a sudden you’re thrown back into your grandma’s house and you’re like, that smell is my grandma to a T. That’s right. Yeah. And it’s hard. You kind of happen to imagine it, but if you can bring in some of these senses into even the memories that you’re trying to create, I think that can add even more power to whatever you’re trying to memorize.
Dr. Larry Dinkins:
So there’s oral, there’s audio, there’s symbols, there’s reading, there’s olfactory, there’s colors. I think we talked about 12 different pipes that deliver information. And the more that you can use, the more pipes you use, the more information is going to be delivered. I’d like to get back to this understanding aspect. In simply the story we spend just maybe 10 minutes in a very simple way to absorb a story and then have someone read it and then close the Bible and someone tells it. And just like the list story, they’re up to 50%. You read it again, you have them moving, they close their eyes to help their concentration, and then they get up to 60% the next person who tells it. And then by the third telling, you’ve heard it six times, right? And the third person, he’s close to 80%, particularly when you pick an optimum story that’s not too long.
Yeah, it’s got action in it. What we do after that, it has been 50 minutes actually digging and Thai, we say [inaudible] which means to take a hole and dig into that story. And we use basic questions. What do we learn spiritually about the people from what they say and do from the choices they made or the choices they could have made? What were the results of those choices? And then finally, you never want to miss this. What do we understand about God from that story? Because every story in the scripture is there to understand God. And as for 50 minutes you’re doing that, the 80% goes to a hundred. And invariably I see my small group, each one of ’em are able to tell that story, content accuracy, but in their own words. So that aspect of going into the meaning now in the epistles, how easy it is to actually get commentary and really understand the meaning behind what you’ve memorized. And you better do that. Yeah. Because often it’s very abstract, maybe theological information. So it’s vital that you do some digging.
Josh Summers:
And I love even let’s say you had, you’re going through a passage and you can use a lot of different ways to add that type of information of just understanding. So the example I like to give is I remember going through the book of Philemon. And Philemon in verse, I believe it’s 1, 2, 3, 4, I think it’s five, where Paul uses a word that in Greek is kononia or kononia or however you pronounce that. And he uses it a second time, I think in verse 25. He uses the same word. And I remember hearing a sermon on that, and part of what really caught my attention was just the importance of what does that mean to your partnership is how it’s translated at least in the NIV. And there was just something to that. Now, now I could take, and I could highlight that word partnership if I was writing that down for me, because I do visualizations. I actually put a gold coin for kononia in that location. And again, I’m not going to say the word kononia as I’m doing that, but I’ve, like you’re saying, I’ve dug in with listening to a sermon or somebody talk about that. And now I want to actually add that in, not because that’s what I’m going to say, but because by adding that connection, I feel like I’m going to remember that part of Philemon.
Dr. Larry Dinkins:
Very strong.
Josh Summers:
A whole lot more and going to, it’s going to force me to, when I say it, not just kind of wrote, whoop, and then let it fly out of my mouth. I’ve got to stop and go, oh, actually in that verse five, that word, I want to dig into that again because I haven’t dug into that in a while. You know what I mean? That’s good.
Dr. Larry Dinkins:
That’s a great example of digging and really being able to seal it to your heart and mind through that picture. I think in our storytelling type approach to dig deeper, it’s all on the pa basis of discussion. A lot of what I hear as far as Bible memory is you’re doing at home, at your desk with yourself. But what I had the great joy this last week for three days, I’m in small groups constantly and we’re digging in it together. And I love the perspective of Thai people on a story. I don’t see the same things that they see. And as you actually have discussion and you’re exchanging your ideas, that helps you go even deeper. So my encouragement would be, if you’re memorizing, make sure that you have a partner and you’re able to talk about the meaning of whatever you’re memorizing too. Not just go through the steps of, okay, I want to hear you recite the book of Ephesians and I’ll be your partner, and then I’m going to recite the first chapter of Colossians.
I think that is great. But for me, with a story, it yields itself to a lot of good discussion. And the light bulbs go off, the eyes get big because they might have heard that story about Zakia a hundred times, and suddenly they’re discovering something new. And to me, what you want to see happen is a joy of discovery. The pastor that preaches to us has spent 20 hours discovering things, but we’re passively listening to his discoveries. If people have a firsthand opportunity to discover truth, that truth goes deeper. And so what’s lovely about a story discussion is people absorb a story and then without notes and looking at the script, they’re able to very naturally talk about it around the small group. And that’s very different than most Bible studies where everybody’s got their Bible out, people got notes. And what I’m afraid is the attention goes much more to printed material and you’re pulling out of life and blood interaction with other people.
So that I think that’s my encouragement. If you really want to absorb scripture, get into a small group, do something, and maybe start on a story. Because you certainly can discuss Romans one, Romans of chapter nine in a small group, but often that’s for mature believers. Anybody in a small group can talk about the story of Zaccheus, the doctor, theologian, and the housewife. It’s a level playing field. Everybody can contribute, everybody can play. And I think that’s the joy I had last week is we had young people all the way from 12 years old up until 73 year old, and they’re in the same group. Men and women, very diverse backgrounds, but the commonality is us focusing on the story and talking about it.
Josh Summers:
Yeah, adding that element of community. I think if you remember from the memory 1, 0, 1 of the things that they brought was the fact that when you’re talking about, let’s say somebody that is going to be a witness on a stand in a trial, oftentimes studies have shown that their memory can actually be very heavily influenced by somebody else saying, oh, wasn’t the light yellow at that time? And you weren’t even looking at the light. But now because somebody else has in injected this new information, your brain, in a good way, God designed it this way, but your brain will modify its own memory based on what other people will say. And obviously that can be done in a negative way. And I think in the same way with Bible, you know, don’t want to introduce fallacies or wrong thinking into what you’re doing, but like you said, different people are going to approach the scripture in with different ways and from different life experiences and situations. And I think that you’re right, that adds not just a new element, but new now, connection to that piece of scripture that when you’re wanting to memorize it and hold it on for the long term, that you can do so easier because you’re doing it in community. I think that’s great.
Dr. Larry Dinkins:
And think about it, a husband and wife, I’ve seen marriages actually be hugely benefited because they tried to talk about theological things and it just kind of was a miax, but suddenly the one of the husband or wife got really involved with story, and then they’re driving down the road, and let’s talk about this particular story. I had a friend say, I’ve been married for 40 years and we had very few Bible discussions in a natural way, but when we drive down the road, I, I’m working on this story and suddenly had, and I think with kids, my goodness, oh yeah, an influence of a father or mother telling stories. And most of ’em Christian parents do that, right? You’ve got your little storybook, but I want to be known as a storyteller that doesn’t have to use the storybook. And I sit down with my nine grandkids and I’m going to tell them a story from my heart and I’m going to look them in the eye, not look on the page, and then I’m going to have them retell it. I know some things about probably the best way, the best practices of how you do story. I’m going to get them more involved. I’m going to ask them more questions because I see parents just read to them and close it. Yeah, no, engage your kids. Make them think through the Goliath story. What’s really going on with David beating the Goliath and not just moralize, “Dare to be a Daniel!”, “Be brave like David”. That’s not the end. All of those stories, there is much deeper aspects to those stories that kids could pick up on.
Josh Summers:
That’s a great point. Just taking, I do this as well a lot of times is just we’ve got the book that we go through and we read and ending with questions that really force them to engage with the material is could make a big difference on
Dr. Larry Dinkins:
That. And once again, it’s so simple and I’ll use some hand signs. I love to do hand signs.
Josh Summers:
I can tell,
Dr. Larry Dinkins:
What could you tell a story? And then what can we learn about these characters from what they say? You can do this with me, Josh. Yeah. Say yeah and do,
Josh Summers:
Okay,
Dr. Larry Dinkins:
What choice was made in the story, but whether other options or other story choices could have been made. Then what was the result? Like a drop of rock into water. What was the result and the impact of that decision. Because there is a decision made in every story, right? And you got to result in an impact. And then what do we learn about the person of God, father, son, holy Spirit, and never leave that out. Because if you leave that out, they’re just going to see it’s Aesop’s fable or they’re going to see that it’s just a moral Yeah. But the moment that they see, oh, the person of God and how he shows up in that story, that’s the power.
More Bible Memory Resources
Are you interested to memorize more of God’s Word? Check out the various resources we have available on Bible Memory Goal:
- Not sure where to start? Learn where to start with Bible memory here!
- Want to join a community? We have a great Bible memory community here!
- Want to listen to more interviews? We have amazing Scripture memory interviews here!
