Post Bible Bee

Posted on September 02, 2011 Alex Watt 88 comments

On August 27, many of you competed in Local Bible Bees across the United States. On Wednesday, August 31, those of you in the National track learned whether you will be traveling to Nashville for the National competition as a competitor. Today, you're probably either getting ready for a more intense competition or going back to "normal" life. Either way, we want to congratulate you for your diligence in memorizing Scripture! Every hour we spend now establishing a more fervent walk with our gracious God through family discipleship, Scripture memorization, and prayer is of great value and can change the course of our lives and the lives of those around us for God's glory. Paul reminded Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:8 that "physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." We do not memorize merely for information, but we seek the truth of God's Word because it is a "lamp to our feet and a light for our path," a comfort to our souls, the Sword of the Spirit we need to kill sin in our own lives, and the way to truly knowing Him.

When the Bible Bee competition ends for you, we pray you would find the beginning of a new chapter in your life filled with the grace of God through Scripture memorization and intentional time spent with Him. (Dakota challenges us about how Christians should budget time here.) Consider memorizing a book of the Bible to see how verses and chapters fit together with the larger scope of the book's theme. Some are memorizing 1 Peter to give themselves a fuller understanding of that book which they studied over the summer while preparing for the Bee. This is a great choice. You can check out that project.

We also have been encouraged lately to memorize one of the most amazing books of the Bible: Romans. This book is, to quote from J. I. Packer's Knowing God:

... the high peak of Scripture, however you look at it. Luther called it "the clearest gospel of all." "If a man understands it," wrote Calvin, "he has a sure road opened for him to the understanding of the whole Scripture." Tyndale, in his preface to Romans, linked both thoughts, calling Romans "the principal and most excellent part of the New Testament, and most pure Euangelion, that is to say glad tidings and that we call gospel, and also a light and a way in unto the whole Scripture." All roads in the Bible lead to Romans, and all views afforded by the Bible are seen most clearly from Romans, and when the message of Romans gets into a person's heart there is no telling what may happen.

If this is true, we should seek to understand Romans and memorize it. To see a wonderful calendar for memorizing Romans from September 1, 2011, through December 31, 2012, please choose a file format: PDF or DOC. (Courtesy of the Alexander family - thank you.) At one verse a day, with separate review days built in, you can memorize Romans in just over a year.

Maybe the Bible Bee isn't over for you, and you are preparing for Nationals. If so, we want to help you. Phil Walker has prepared materials to help those studying the additional 100, 200, or 300 verses (depending on your age division: Primary, Junior, or Senior) in the NIV 1984 version. Not only are there documents for each division with the verses printed word-for-word or prompterized like he kindly did for us last time, but there is also a document containing a game you can play. To play the game, you will need to print it out and cut each page into word strips, keeping the strips grouped by passages. Then scramble several (or all, if you're up for a big challenge!) of the passage groups together. By racing against time as you and your friends arrange the verse texts in the correct order, you can learn your verses for Nationals and have a lot of fun. Please see the appropriate links below:

If anyone has resources for other Bible Bee versions, please let us know in the comments and we can post them as well. (Phil expects to also have Study Stack sets created for the new verses as well, and we will link to those as they become available. Thanks for putting all this together for us!)

We are also planning to hold a few more Bible Bee Live Quizzes before this marathon is over. We would like to hold at least one with verses you studied for the Local Bee targeted at all Bible Bee participants, regardless of whether you've qualified for Nationals. Please check back sometime next week when we will have more information.

Update 09/05: We have determined dates for six more Bible Bee Live Quizzes. On each of these dates we will hold a quiz (and maybe a re-run of that quiz) starting at 4:00 p.m. EDT — except for November 11, which begins at 4:00 p.m. EST. Please see below and mark your calendars! This post will be updated before each quiz with a link to it. We hope you can attend one or more quizzes. If for any reason we need to cancel a quiz, we will do our best to let you know as soon as possible. The first quiz will contain material from what was studied for the local competition, so as to allow anyone in the Bible Bee to participate (some Primary, Junior, and Senior verses), but after that we will focus on verses for the National qualifiers with some review from earlier material.

Friday, September 9
Friday, September 23
Friday, October 7
Friday, October 21
Friday, November 4
Friday, November 11

Packer, J. I. Knowing God. Downer's Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1973. Print.