Why . . . St. John Chrysostom Oratory Competition?

A student asked me the other day, “Why is there so much memorization at this school?!?  What good is it?”  It’s a fair question.  In an age where looking up Colossians 1:15-23 or the opening lines of Paradise Lost is nearly instantaneous, is there any point to having a St. John Chrysostom Oratory Competition where students memorize lengthy sections of ancient texts?  Surely the number of seconds that memorization saves a student when looking up a passage is not worth the hours of work to commit it to memory in the first place.  And even if memorization allows faster retrieval for one passage, what are the odds that the student will need quick access to that specific passage at some point in the future instead of all of the other passages that he has not yet memorized?  Isn’t it better simply to abandon the whole project and rely on our smartphones?

When I was growing up, I heard stories of believers who were imprisoned in communist Romania and denied access to Bibles, so the only Scripture they had was the Scripture they had stored up in their hearts.  I haven’t conducted a survey recently, but I suspect that most BCS students rate their chances of prison as rather low, and their chances of seeing the inside of a communist prison lower still.  So also with their chances of being stranded on a desert island without ubiquitous WiFi.  When technology can supply nearly every bit of information that mankind could crave, is memorization still a good worth pursuing?

The Good of Biblical Memory Work

Bible memorization is one thing.  We commit God’s Word to memory so that we might better meditate on his Word day and night (Psalm 1:2) and thereby commune with God.  We store up God’s word in our hearts to keep our way pure (Psalm 119:11) and to defeat temptation just like Jesus did (Matthew 4:1-11).  We allow God’s Word to dwell in us richly so that we might better teach and admonish one another (Colossians 3:16).  And we memorize Bible passages to better communicate the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ to unbelievers (1 Corinthians 15:1-5).

But do lengthy passages from The Odyssey or Beowulf do us any good?  Part of what it means to be an image-bearer is that we function like mirrors—like reflectors, or images, of whatever we set before us.  When we set idols before us, we become like them. Psalm 115:4-8: 

4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.  5 They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.  6 They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.  7 They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat.   8 Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.

Similarly, when we set Christ before us, we become like him.  It is by “beholding the glory of the Lord” with unveiled face that we “are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

The Good of Classical Memory Work

The Bible encourages us to meditate on Scriptures that point us to Christ, but it does not restrict believers only to those texts.  It calls us, in fact, to dwell upon whatever is true, or honorable, or just, or pure, or lovely, or commendable, or excellent, or praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8).  Hector’s refusal to shrink from battle against Achilles sets honorable deeds before our eyes and hearts.  The crafting of Achilles’s shield exalts excellent, beautiful, and commendable work.  Odysseus’s passage between Scylla and Charybdis is a true metaphor of the costly decisions that confront us in life.  Even Satan’s temptation of Eve in Paradise Lost truly exposes the deceitful and bankrupt nature of sin.  And all these texts tune our hearts to love what is beautiful by filling our minds with poetic rhythm and language.

The memorization we do at BCS is intended to fill us with good things.  On one hand, this will have the effect of pushing out of our minds some of the inferior things that may enter our hearts from other sources.  On the other hand, it will transform us into people who increasingly embody the good qualities we find in those texts.  Jesus said that “the good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil” (Matthew 12:35).  By memorizing Scripture along with true, good, and beautiful texts, we want to become people who have stored up good treasure in our hearts—treasure that nourishes not only us but also those around us as we serve as bold and obedient ambassadors for Christ.