The 2015 Bible Bee Video!

Posted on July 31, 2015 Bethany Meckle 11 comments

Last year, my brother and I created a video about the Bible Bee study every other week. This year, due to all the changes and a crazy schedule, we almost decided not to do a video this year - but surprise, surprise, here it is! Thanks to a fellow Memverse family, we have a five minute video full of great tips and resources.

If you want more tips for last minute studying and test taking, here are two links you can check out:
1. The Sweeter Than Honey Blog
2. Last year's Bible Bee tip video

This video is not endorsed by the National Bible Bee or the Shelby Kennedy Foundation.

Click here to watch!

Part 3: The four best ways to memorize anything

Posted on September 27, 2010 River La Belle 17 comments

Well, the four best ways not including Memverse. :)

Ok, here is the last part of this series. Pray over these applications and apply them to your life as much as time will allow. . . . and more!! You will grow so much in your Christian walk with God, and we all know how absolutely wonderful that is. . .

Store your memories in the time of your youth.––”Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth.” (Eccles. 12:1). Right now, your memories are fresh and strong; later, as some can testify, they will be shattered with cares and business. A new ship, or any vessel that is new, is free from leaks; but time and travel will batter it. So will it be with you; care will batter you, grief will batter you: and therefore now store yourselves. Take heed: a dozen chapters, a good catechism, a collection of useful texts and doctrines, will take no room, nor make you live the heavier, nor sleep the worse. And therefore it concerns parents, both to have such things in their hearts, and to teach them diligently to their children. (Deut. 6:7). Perhaps they may not understand the sense of them at the present; but these will be ready in their minds till grace and understanding come, and then they will help them exceedingly; as we lay some sticks or kindling ready in the chimney, which, when fire comes, signify something.

Writing what we would remember is a merciful help to the memory.––Socrates, indeed, held that letters proved the ruin of the memory, because, before the invention of letters, people committed worthy matters to memory, but afterward to books [or blogs :P ]; but certainly both memory and books are little enough to preserve those things that should be remembered. The Holy Spirit teaches better: “You shall write them upon the doorposts of your house, and on your gates.” (Deut. 11:20). Yea, the king himself was to “write for himself in a book a copy of this law,” that he might remember it the better! (Deut. 17:18). The very writing of anything fixes it deeper in the mind. And therefore I should still recommend the writing of sermon-notes, not only as a help to memory, but also as a good preservative from sleeping under God’s ordinance, as also from gazing about, to the great distraction of the thoughts at that sacred employment. For, alas, how many excellent doctrines, directions, and marks have you heard, that are quite forgotten, which a discreet use of writing might have preserved unto you! 

Prayer is a second help.––For “every good gift and every perfect gift,” whereof this is one, “is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17); and therefore is to be sought by frequent and earnest prayer, which is the golden key to unlock the treasures of heaven to the needy soul. O, beg it, then, of Him, that as he sanctifies the soul, he would sanctify this with the rest. And you have a ground for your prayer in John 14:26, where our Savior has said, that “the Father will send the Holy Ghost, to teach us all things, and to bring all things to our remembrance.” And this Spirit you may have for the asking: “your Heavenly Father shall give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.” (Luke 11:13). Understand, that God will grant your prayer herein, there being joined with the same a due use of all other means, on which earnest prayer brings a blessing. And you must not only crave this in your solemn prayers; but also, when you are reading or hearing, you should dart up a quick prayer, “Lord, write this truth in my heart, and bless it to me!” This is like the clinching of a nail. And when you have heard a sermon, lock the chest with David’s prayer: “O Lord, keep forever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of your people.” (1 Chron. 29:18). Be assured that God will hear the breathings of his own Spirit, and give thee a memory to serve your turn.

Serious meditation is the last help I shall mention.–– [I know this next sentence is definitely the case with me!!] When people read or hear, and presently plunge themselves in foreign business, then generally all is lost: “For he looks at himself, and goes away, and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into” (the word signifies “to penetrate into a thing with his eye”) “the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres,” that is, considering what he has heard, “being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” (James 1:24-25). By which is not meant a speculative and fruitless meditation, but that which is practical; that is, which digests the things we read or hear for use or practice: “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” (Psalm 119:11). Here is a truth, or a duty, or a promise, for such a time or case. Such rolling of good things in our thoughts doth habituate and familiarize them to the soul, and they abide the longer. This is clear in other cases: for, if one has received an injurious or unkind word, if it go out at one ear as it came in at the other, it leaves no great impression; but if you set yourself to ruminate upon it, and to aggravate it, then it is a long time before you forget it. And so in some measure it would be in good things: give them a little heart-room, bestow some second thoughts upon them, shut the book when you have read a little, and think of it; and it will abide. It is the soaking rain that enters deepest into the earth, when a sudden shower slides away. But herein our ordinary hearers are strangely negligent: they read, they hear, they forget; for they never think nor meditate of it. They turn down leaves in their Bibles in the congregation, but they seldom turn them up again in reflecting upon what they heard; and so their labor is lost, and ours. 

But I conclude. It is worth observing, that holy David, among all the rest of his blessed psalms, has one (which is the thirty-eighth psalm) which he styles, “A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance.” His memory, it seems, had need of help, as well as ours.

EDIT: After a few comments, I've decided to add these: reciting out loud, and writing out what you are memorizing, are also very good ways to memorize anything. Courtesy of Andy. . . Read the comments to find out more.

EDIT: I've written another blog post that goes very well with this one, called Getting to Know You: How do you Memorize? There are a lot of great techniques mentioned in the comments, that you should definitely check out.

Getting Started: How Many Verses to Add

Posted on November 17, 2009 Andy 86 comments

If you are new to Memverse we highly recommend starting with no more than 5-10 verses. We have noticed that people who add 50 verses on their first day almost always become discouraged and give up. It is very difficult to start memorizing too many new verses at once. If you plan to log in daily, starting with 5-10 verses means that your first memorization sessions will take about ten minutes and will be manageable.

Even if you plan to memorize hundreds (or even thousands) of Bible verses, we still recommend starting with around 10 verses. As you gradually memorize the verses, they will be presented to you for review less frequently and the daily time commitment will start to decline. At that point it is a good idea to add another one or two verses. Always resist the temptation to add more than a couple of verses a day. It is much easier to focus on a few new verses than to be swamped with 20 new Proverbs! (Trust me, I've tried)

You might have noticed that some of the people on the leaderboard are learning around 50 verses at a time. We can assure you that they all worked up to that slowly or suffered through some very frustrating memory sessions. As the verse intervals increase, it is quite possible to have 50 verses on 'Learning' status.

Your daily time commitment is listed on both the home page and on the progress page. Lots of people have found that the best approach is to add verses only when the daily time commitment is below what you're targeting. It will vary slightly from day to day but it is a pretty good guide so keep an eye on it.

Getting Started: Adding Verses

Posted on November 17, 2009 Andy 12 comments

There are a variety of ways to add Bible verses on Memverse. You can go to the popular verses page. As you hover your mouse over a given translation, the text of the verse should appear to the right. You can click on the translation and it will give you the option to add the verse to your list of memory verses.

The main way to add verses is from the 'Add Verse' page, also located under the Home tab. Type the reference for the verse (e.g. Romans 12:1) into the top left box (labelled 'Verse'). If other users have entered the verse you will see the available translations appearing on the right. If the translation you want to use appears on the right you can click it and the verse will be added to your list. There are already thousands of verses in the database so there is a good chance that the verse you want will appear under the available translations.

Alternatively, if the translation you want to use does not appear, you can select the translation in the drop down menu (below the 'Verse' box) and then enter the actual text of the verse into the large box. We recommend either cutting and pasting the text from a website like Bible Gateway or typing it in very carefully from your own Bible. Remember, other people will be using the verses you enter yourself to memorize so don't alter the text to suit yourself!

There is also a list of popular verses on the 'Add Verse' page. You can add those verses to your list of memory verses with a single click.

Rating Your Memory Recall

Posted on November 17, 2009 Andy 96 comments

We are often asked which of the five buttons to select after reviewing a memory verse. There is no hard and fast answer but hopefully this guide will help:

5. Remembered - Perfect

Only select this option when you feel that you are reviewing a memory verse too frequently. Selecting this option will increase the review interval fairly dramatically. As tempting as it is to get the verse memorized as quickly as possible, you will find that you will have an increasingly difficult time recalling the verse if you select this option too frequently. It is best selected when you recall a verse instantly and can recite it perfectly without any hesitation whatsoever.

4. Remembered - Hesitation

We have had difficulty coming up with a suitable label for this option but it is intended to be used when you feel that you have recalled a memory verse to your satisfaction and with only slight hesitation. This is the option to select when everything feels just right. If you think to yourself: "It's a good thing I reviewed this verse now otherwise I might have forgotten it", then you should select this option.

3. Remembered - Difficult

We recommend making frequent use of this option. If you struggle to recall a passage of scripture but can eventually get it correct without flipping over the flash card then you should select this option. If you have any doubt about rating yourself with button 4 or 5 then this is the selection for you. You will get to review the verse more frequently than the two options above but the interval will still continue to increase.

2. Don't Know - Familiar

Either of these next two options will reset the interval to one day and the verse will revert to 'learning' status. Don't worry, bible memorization is a long term effort and starting again sooner, rather than later, will be profitable in the long run. Select this option if you can't associate the bible reference with the memory verse or if you cannot recite or type the verse without using the flash card.

1. Don't Know - No Idea

Select this when you can't remember anything. Memverse will adjust the review of the verse to be more frequent. This is a good option to select when you are starting a new verse as it will start the verse on a more frequent review schedule.

You shouldn't think of the five options as though you are grading yourself on a test. Rather, think of them as you giving feedback to the Memverse system to allow it to adjust the review schedule optimally. It is designed to be a flexible system: if you are the type of person who would like to know each verse backwards and forwards with perfect punctuation, then you can use the five memory assessment options to achieve that goal. If it's not critical to you whether you occasionally substitute the word 'for' in place of 'because' or swap 'Jesus Christ' with 'Christ Jesus' then you can adjust your feedback accordingly.

Finally, don't agonize too much over which button to select. If you remembered the verse select one of the top three buttons. If you can't remember select one of the bottom two. The Memverse algorithm will gradually adjust over time.