Memorizing the bible

Except evil is a fictional concept alltogether, often personalized in the form of Satan. Life, good and bad are all real. Although subjective, as what might be good for you could be bad for me and vice versa. Evil belongs in stuff like Lord of the Rings and Star wars

 

So I was wondering about Paul/Paulus because that's the only one i wasn't certain of: Paul is a latin (roman) name. Saul (as the apostle Paul was named originally is of course classic hebrew: you had a king Saul for instance long before the ancient greeks influenced the area of Israel.
David, Daniel, Matthew/Mattheus, Jacob etc. all are classic hebrew names, if not as they are now then certainly in origin. If anything, you could question why everyone in our neck of the woods is/was called like that. Although its still better than Jayden or Kayden

 

Do it like a drinking game, every time you read something that sounds like a rule: shot of tequila

 

Getting properly intoxicated is indeed a wellknown tactic for properly memorizing stuff out of a book
If that would work college students would always study like that

 

Hmmm can't really help with advice, but some interesting things in this thread. Religious education is a part of the curriculum here, in both elementary and high schools. Teachers are usually laypeople, but can be nuns or priests too. My favorite was a Greek Catholic priest from Ukraine. He was mild-tempered and understanding. It's very Catholic oriented, but non religious children have the option to choose „Ethics“ instead. Not quite sure what Sunday school is? Maybe something similar to what we had in terms of catechizing when preparing for First Communion and Confirmation. That had nothing to do with school curriculum and took place in church classrooms.

Anyways, during all of this not once were we really required to memorize Bible verses. Of course, you learn the structure and where everything is. This may sound harsh, but we had like 45 minutes a week, and it'd mostly be time wasted. Focus is (and should be) on the concepts and understanding. Not reproduction of text. It often does not lead to understanding. Especially when it comes to children. Hey even Jesus used parables to help people understand in the way that was closer to them. Not saying Bible isn't important, one can (and certainly should) memorize, but it shouldn't be the focus. Like...one should definitely read the Bible and know it, but maybe memorize what appeals to you, helps you...like a lil prayer.

I've kinda noticed how this seems to be a difference between Catholics and evangelicals. Evangelicals seem to take their Bible memorization very seriously. Listing Bible verses to support or prove this or that. And I don't mean to be offensive, but sometimes it seems like nit-picking certain verses and repeating them over and over and over again. I never felt like it was a proof text, in the sense that you can just use that and quote it indefinitely to make a point. Underlying theology is important. Context too. Otherwise it's often just Bible-thumping.

Anyways2, I actually enjoyed our religious class. We read the Bible a lot, but also excerpts from the Quran and other non Christian religious texts, and learned basics about other religions. Which I think is important. We also read different stories, for example by Selma Lagerlöf (Fun fact1: the first woman to win Nobel in literature. Fun fact2: she was in love with a woman). We prayed. We listened to music. We did art. We did presentations on different topics. It was easygoing and fun. The concept was there though.

Anyways3, this has nothing to do with OP. I am not critizicing you personally, OP.

 

Sunday school (which thank God wasn't a thing around here or in my youth) is similar to your religion education you got at school. Except you usually don't get it at school but its by the local or joined church. I thought it was mostly bible study.
You're right about the blatantly memorizing stuff, like naming all the bible books in the right order: my mom can probably still do it. I think it mostly ended with that generation though, here at least. It's quite pointless. Even my mom admitted this (only once but still ).
We also had religion education at 'highschool', it was also generally a big waste of time. Although no priest or layman, the teacher most often was christian (protestant) and it rarely was about anything else. When we actually got a religion teacher in like the final year of highschool that focussed on different religions and in a non evangelical way that was an eye-opener and even fun and interesting. I say even because at that point it was a real suprise!

 

so how do you reciprocate a sexual advance if one isn't made? i'm not sure how you would make a sexual advance in the first place if you're waiting for reciprocation, which by definition can't be done without the initial advance.

i feel like a robot whose head is about to explode from the paradox.

 

And that pic is a great example of nit-picking

 

Daily Reading for Monday, March 4th, 2019 - Bible - Catholic Online
Here is a catholic daily reading../ if your into that stuff..

 

At the risk of being the oddball here, I liked Sunday School. i can't imagine my religious/spiritual teaching being complete or whole without Sunday School. It is (in Baptist churches) the hour before the sermon. One goes to Sunday School from as young as 4 yrs or when you start kindergarten to when you're old. (lol) The lessons get more difficult as one gets older. That is where I really began learning the bible, and hearing the most interesting stories. Of course there are some boring ones also, but I find a great many stories in the bible interesting. I was always extremely interested in understanding the scripture, and asked any number of questions.

Other Protestant churches have Sunday School also...it is certainly not a Baptist thing alone.

Also - evangelicals are a group all of their own...for real. They do NOT represent Protestants in general!!! Not at all!!! Lord no. They change the "rules" as they see fit, and add in odd, extra "rules" that come from their "interpretation/s" of the bible. Just because someone calls themselves an evangelical, it does not make them automatically right nor indicate they "follow the bible" anymore than anybody else.

I learned there were some absolutely stupid people teaching Sunday School when I would ask questions, and they wouldn't know any more than me. For the record, those (stupid) teachers that couldn't answer my questions never liked me, and the smart teachers that understood the bible welcomed my questions and liked me.

To me, the most important part of Sunday School and church overall is for the person to understand the bible. Without understanding being a part of one's religious experience , I don't comprehend why anybody would even want to go to church or be interested in religion or the bible, the apocrypha, catechisms or whatever one's particular belief is based on.

 

66 books, 40 different writers

Biblia

 

I’ve memorized a few passages like the 23rd Psalm



........and of course “God is Good, God is Great, Thank you for our food, Amen” .......now let’s dig in.

 

I would like to respectfully totally and absolutely disagree with you.

I believe there are truly good people, and I also believe there are truly evil people. We could discuss and/or argue for eternity why someone is evil (or good). I've worked with people with mental issues, and even studied sociopaths. People with mental issues are NOT evil, they are sick and need help. Sociopaths are another thing entirely.

A sociopath is without conscience, and they can and will do anything - with no remorse. I've never met a sociopath I didn't eventually find to be evil. For a time (when I was writing papers and exposed/allowed in a hospital environment with access to these people after they were caught doing something bad) I thought I would find a sociopath that wasn't really evil...narcissistic maybe, but not evil. I was wrong. Each one did evil things, and each would, given time, (if they thought you were just taking notes for a paper and "not judging") admit to evil actions...such as having immense pleasure in killing and torturing animals, feeling joy at humiliating and/or physically hurting family members and peers. That's just a start. I still find myself going to trouble at times to forget what these evil sociopaths told me.

I'm actually surprised to learn that you find evil to be a fictional concept...and I cannot disagree more.

When you hear someone talk about when they were a child to a teenager and how they would torture and kill animals, and enjoy hurting people....and then smile at those memories, I knew definitively I was seeing the embodiment of evil.

 

There seem to me to be some things that from our human perspective would always have to be considered to be evil - child rape being probabaly a good example. It's really difficult to think of a situation where it wouldn't be considered as 'evil' in some sense of the word.
The person committing such an act may be someone who has suffered similar themself, or have other kinds of trauma etc, but the act itself I would consider to be evil nonetheless.

But I suppose you could drop the word 'evil' and just say 'bad'. I can't see though that doing so makes much difference to the actual reality.

 

In my last year at primary school (age 11) we had a teacher who was a member of a small church, and something of a religious fanatic in some ways. At that time in the UK teachers had a certain amount of freedom in the content of what was taught, and this gentleman was very concerned that we go through most of the Bible in some depth, which most of us kids found very boring.
But here's the rub as they say. We had one girl in the class who was - let's say not particualrly intelligent - but happened to be a member of the same church as teacher. She had already, at such a young age memeorized the locations and content of many Bible verses, whch led to a kind of favouritism which given her academic performance was entirely unmerited.

This wouldn't happen now, as the education system has changed since the 60's. But I never really saw the point in memorizing all that stuff, Seemed to me like a throwback to a previous system of mind control. And nowadys you can get an e-Bible that is fully searchable, so even less point.

 

There are books on memorizing individual scriptures, although I would suggest just memorize first the scriptures that resonate with you they should be fairly easy but you seem to be asking about know how to find the different books of the Bible,

I would suggest dividing the Bible in to groups, such as the first 5 books or Pentateuch; Genesis to Deuteronomy.
Then the Judges from Joshua, Moses' replacement, to 2 Samuel.
Then the time of the kings, 1 Kings to 2 Chronicles.
Next the time of exile and return, Ezra to Esther.
Then Job to The Song of Solomon is usually lumped together.
Next the major prophets, Isaiah to Ezekiel.
Then Daniel.
Next the minor prophets, Hosea to Malachi.
The same can be done with the Christian scriptures, starting with the gospels Matthew to John.
Then the Acts of the Apostles.
Next the letters to the congregations, Romans to 2 Thessalonians.
Then Paul's letters to fellow Christians, 1 Timothy to Jude.
Then Revelation.

 

Can't go along with "Evil" is just a matter of opinion. Whereas some things called evil can be subjective opinion, there are other things that are evil, that are objectively "Evil", no opinion to it.

 

As for knowing the books of the Bible being pointless, it is only pointless if you have no real interest in the Bible but if you want to study the Bible and you want to look something up, it can be quite time consuming to find it if you don't know where it is in the Bible.

 

Google: verse about so and so in the bible.

"here are 4 billion results''