Learning by Heart

By Rev. David Petersen

When I was in confirmation instruction, my pastor repeatedly told us about an American POW in Korea.This poor fellow’s only Bible and source of comfort in his captivity were the passages he had memorized as a confirmation student.

I don’t doubt the story, corny though it might sound. Our Lord provides.That poor fellow had much to be thankful for in a thorough instruction.

But that extreme, and somewhat unlikely, scenario hardly seemed justification to me at the time for all that memory work. I always thought that if I found myself in such dire straits I would simply ask the Red Cross for a Bible, and in the meantime, I could use the time saved on memory work to build a bomb shelter or otherwise prepare for crazy possibilities.

For me, shallow as I was, it came down to this: Why should I memorize something I can just look up?

Now I am a pastor. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t listen to children recite their memory work. Children are much nicer and better behaved now then when I was a boy. They hardly ever complain or argue about it. But when they do (because there is always someone who does, isn’t there?), I tell them that I don’t want them to memorize. I want them to learn by heart.

You could, I note, look up your phone number in the phone book. It is there in the public record. It is probably on the Internet as well. You could even write it down and carry it in your wallet. But that doesn’t seem convenient for a number so important. I think the Bible passages and the Catechism are more important than that. I want people to have them on the tips of their tongues.

But there is more to it than that.There is more than the possibility of Siberian prison camps without Bibles or the convenience of a quick reference. The main reason I want people to learn God’s Word by heart is so that they will be transformed by the Word. For when you memorize, you internalize, and the Word becomes a part of you. This is why in years gone by people used to memorize poetry. It is also why actors become so attached to their characters. A poem comes out differently when you’ve savored every word and let it settle down inside your mind; so also does your sense of it change over the years. The meaning doesn’t change, but understanding deepens. I’ve never met anyone who wished he could forget the poems of William Shakespeare or Robert Frost or who regretted the ability to recite the Gettysburg Address. If that is true of secular works of art, and it is, then it is even truer of the Word of God.

When we know the Word of God by heart, it changes our hearts. It transforms and deepens how we think and speak. It changes our view of the world, our families, our pets, the steaming blacktop, and the majestic birds. Learning the Word of God by heart doesn’t change the meaning of the words. It changes us.The Word of Christ is the power of God unto salvation. He speaks with authority. He is not simply some nice ideas or playful sounds or even profound ideas. He is more than the most sublime of haikus. He is grace. He makes sinners into saints. He washes black hearts as white as snow. He gives new starts every day.

When the Word of God is in our hearts, Christ, the Lord, lives and moves inside of us. He lives in our hearts. That is a most helpful and comforting thing if you are ever in a POW camp. But it is also a most helpful and comforting thing if you ever have to ride the bus, or watch a sunset, or be told by your beloved that she doesn’t love you, or take a test, or eat an apple. It is good and right, healthy and helpful in every situation of this life, and it certainly will not fail in the next life either.

Rev. David Petersen is pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and is also on the Higher Things editorial board. His e-mail address is David.H.Petersen@att.net.

Preface to The Large Catechism

12 And what need is there for more words? If I were to list all the profit and fruit God’s Word produces, where would I get enough paper and time? The devil is

13 called the master of a thousand arts. But what shall we call God’s Word, which drives away and brings to nothing this master of a thousand arts with all his arts and power? The Word must indeed be the master of more than a hundred thousand arts. And shall we easily despise such power, profit, strength, and fruit—we, especially, who claim to be pastors and preachers? If so, not only should we have nothing given us to eat, but we should also be driven out, baited with dogs, and pelted with dung.We not only need all this every day just as we need our daily bread, but we must also daily use it against the daily and unending attacks and lurking of the devil [1 Peter 5:8], the master of a thousand arts.

14 If these reasons were not enough to move us to read the catechism daily, we should feel bound well enough by God’s command alone. He solemnly commands in Deuteronomy 6:6–8 that we should always meditate on His precepts, sitting, walking, standing, lying down, and rising.We should have them before our eyes and in our hands as a constant mark and sign. Clearly He did not solemnly require and command this without a purpose. For He knows our danger and need, as well as the constant and furious assaults and temptations of devils. He wants to warn, equip, and preserve us against them, as with a good armor against their fiery darts [Ephesians 6:10–17] and with good medicine against their evil infection and temptation.

McCain, Paul, ed., Concordia:The Lutheran Confessions (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2005), 354.