On the flip side, I contend that one should never memorize a single verse until they have read the entire book which contains that verse (i.e. don't memorize Romans 10:9 until you've read all of Romans) and understand the overall theme, genre, original audience, and message of that book. Moreover, one should not memorize a given scripture from a given book until they know how the book fits in with the overall redemption narrative of the entire cannon.
At this point you say whoa... um... that's a little demanding. Not really. If the amount of time one spent memorizing a particular verse was spent figuring out what that particular verse meant, and contributed to the whole announcement of redemption you would be better off. Though you may not have word for word what the verse says you will have mastered in a sense what it means... which is far better for you.
In most academic disciplines you start broad and then narrow in. In chemistry you start with the nature of matter, and eventually move into very specific molecular interaction. In the faith we would do better to teach new people in the faith the overall redemption history of this earth, then narrow into the finer points. When this is done properly we can then look at any verse of scripture, see how it relates to Christ, and what it contributes to the redemption that is in Christ (which I would say is the theme of the whole bible.)
Thoughts anyone... sorry this was long.
Jay
