Abraham Lincoln once said, "If I had 8 hours in which to chop down a tree, I would spend the first six hours sharpening my axe". So here I am, three days into the project, and I still haven't started memorizing the Bible. But I have not been idle; I have been planning.

The first question to be answered here is , "If I am going to memorize the Bible, which translation should I use?" What would be a terrible shame is if I went to all the trouble to learn a translation, then quoted a verse to someone and they responded,

"What translation is THAT supposed to be? I've never even heard of it before."

or

"I don't understand a word of what you just said."

or

"Well of course that verse is bloody rubbish because it was translated by Joseph Smith, and he changed his version in about 600 separate locations so he could convert everybody to Mormonism!"

After giving the matter some thought, I have decided to use the New International Version (NIV). I have three reasons for this:

(1) The NIV is written in modern English. It is thus easily understandable and its words will flow off my tongue without oo much trouble while I am working on it.

(2) The NIV is more widely used for personal devotions than any other translation.

(3) My seminary professors always recognized the NIV as a very good translation.

So if I memorize the NIV, I will have memorized a translation that is both accurate and easily understandable. Also, it will be recognized as legitimate by most any Christian I come in contact with.

Now, how do I actually do the memorizing?