Bible Quizzing

Throughout high school, my church encouraged us to compete in Bible Quizzing. it was a great way to learn verses and the content of whole books of the Bible; however, the knowledge never go from the head to the heart. I memorized whole chapters of the Bible, but I had no idea what any of it really meant or how it connected to that idea of knowing Jesus. Of course, in any given situation, I could readily spout out an appropriate verse, which showed how "spiritual" I was, right?

I still hear of Bible Quizzing, and my local conference even had a "Bible Knowledge Quiz" at their latest event. I often wonder what the purpose of this is. Is it to teach students to spout Bible verses in any situation? Is it to make sure that these kids are staying out of trouble and doing nice, "Christian" things instead? Why did my church want us to engage in quizzing and memorizing?

One of the ancient Jewish commandments was to take the words of God and "write them on your heart." Somehow this doesn't seem to be what we were doing with quizzing. Internalizing instead of memorizing seems more appropriate. Finding the connection between head and heart seems more appropriate. Engaging in what the text means, how the text connects you to Jesus, allowing the text to change you... these seem more appropriate. I often wonder if being allowed to question and examining the text from different angles wouldn't have been a better use of all those hours I spent quizzing.