Memorize So You Can Think

14 July 2026  Isaiah 7:1-9

“Unless your faith is firm, you shall not be firm.”  (Isaiah 7:9)   

Although we have vastly more information at our fingertips than any ancient society, the ancients had far better memories than we do. They had to, because memory was their only information storage device.

The move away from memory as a storage device began early, in fact, with the beginning of writing. Writing was (and still is) a way of storing large amounts of information so that you don’t have to keep it all in your head. Some high-rolling ancients saw the problem with this almost immediately – less information in your head means less information available to think with. Plato commented on this very thing in his dialogue Phaedrus:

 If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.

It is still true that you can only think with information that is stored in living tissue. If it is stored anyplace else, it is not available to you to think with.

Maybe, while we are being dazzled by how much time AI saves us, we could use the time we save to commit more and larger chunks of the Bible to memory so it is available to us to think with.

This wasn’t the problem in the ancient world that it is today, however, because writing was so expensive. Paper was extremely costly and time-consuming to make, and copying texts was so expensive that only the elite could afford books. Writers, therefore, depended on public readings of their works to make a living, and they loaded their writing with literary devices to help people remember them. Isaiah made use of a device called synchesis, interlocking word order, usually in an ABAB pattern, that made for snappy quotations: “Unless your faith (A) is firm (B), you shall not (A) be firm (B) – in Hebrew, ta’aminu…te’aminu. Other biblical writers made use of asyndeton, elimination of conjunctions where you might expect them to creaty a catchy rhythm (Psalm 23, He maketh…He leadeth…He restoreth; 1 Corinthians 13, Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things). Dozens and dozens of these devices are used liberally all over the Bible because they helped people remember, and they did remember, prodigious amounts in fact, far more than later periods would think even possible.

Technological developments have changed this dramatically. Paper made from wood pulp made books far less expensive, as did printing with moveable type, so literacy spread wildly. Industrialized printing made books available to more and more people. The internet has made vast amounts of textual information instantly available, and AI is increasing that exponentially. The speed, accuracy, and predictive power of available information is changing the way we do medicine, commerce, finance, and education, and we can’t yet see all the changes that has in store for us. And yet it is still true that you can only think with information stored in living tissue. Only the information you get into your brain is available to you to think with, decide with, believe with.

So, maybe, while we are taking advantage of the information systems technology is making available, we would do well to remember that the writing of the ancients has all the devices that it does to help us remember. Maybe, while we are being dazzled by how much time AI saves us, we could use the time we save to commit more and larger chunks of the Bible to memory so it is available to us to think with. “Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened unto you” (Matthew 7:7) is an example of tricolon crescens (a series of three imperatives escalating in intensity), and polysyndeton (repetition of conjunctions to slow the pace for dramatic effect), all to help us remember the benefit of persistent faith. That’s the thing we should be thinking about.