Turning the Corner

Concept Fourteen - “How to Use the Slides”

After you have become fairly familiar with the first phrases for any group of passages, the next challenge is to absorb the sequences of lines found in the slide shows.  We’d like to suggest a particular strategy for this part of the challenge.  We’ll call it the “Three-Step Drop.”

The “Three-Step Drop” comes from a football idea where the quarterback takes the ball and goes backwards three steps before setting himself to throw the ball to one of the receivers.

In our case, we’re adapting the term to mean that the lines of text in the verses are not going to be tackled all at once, but rather as though they were divided into thirds.

Imagine for a moment that there were three columns going down the page, like a piece of paper folded in thirds vertically.  Some words which are next to the left edge of the page would land in the first column.  Some words which are located in the middle of the page would land in the center column, and the last few words in the line would land in the third column.

Now suppose your challenge at first was only to link the last words of the first phrase to the first few words in the second line.  As an example, if you were working with the slide for Genesis 1:1-2, you would see...

1. 1. Genesis 1:1–2
      

   2. 
      

   3. In the beginning God created
      

   4. 
      

2. and your mind would automatically wonder what words would come next.  Now let’s pretend for a moment that you had never worked with this verse before, and you didn’t know what the next line was.  Proceeding ahead to the next line, you would see...
   

1. 1. Genesis 1:1–2
      

   2. 
      

   3. In the beginning God created
      

   4. 
      

   5. the heavens and the earth. The earth was
      

2. 
   

Now you could, if you wanted to, try to memorize the whole line, but what we’re suggesting is that you only memorize the words which would be in the first column if the page were divided into thirds.  So in your mind you would concentrate on the words “the heavens,” perhaps looking back a couple times at the previous words “God created” and then again at the words “the heavens”.

This idea, connecting the end of one phrase to the beginning of the next, we’ll call “Turning the Corner.”

When you can turn the corner on one line, just read the rest of the line (out loud if you like) without attempting to memorize it, and then pause a second when you reach the end of that line to allow your mind to ask the question, “What’s next?”

After a second or two, advance to the next slide and look carefully at the first couple words in that line.  Again glance back at the ending of the previous line and then look again at the beginning of this new line.  Then read this line and continue the process down through the sequence of slides that contain that verse or passage.

This explanation takes a while to write out, but it’s actually very fast when you are working your way down one of the passages.  You can even make a game out of it.  For example, you could take a collection of anything (we’ll take small marshmallows as an example), and you could sit down with someone else and alternate who has to guess the next line.  If you can get the next line started correctly, you pick up a marshmallow.  Then your friend gets to try the following line.  When you hit a line either person doesn’t know, stop and look at it.  Most of the connections will not be too hard to remember, especially after you have looked at them a number of times, because the phrases are divided so as to make it easy to recall, right before important words, or just after verbs, etc.

The cool thing is that though you are not trying to memorize whole lines, your mind is seeing them as you go by (and hearing them if you are also speaking them out loud).  You might only be concentrating on “turning the corner,” but your mind is going the extra mile and noticing the rest of the phrase.

Later on, after you can go through a whole sequence of slides and turn the corner on each line, then you can expand your challenge by seeing if you can go further into the line, into the second column, instead of just the first couple words.  You will probably find that if you have done the first couple words well, the rest of the phrases begin to follow along naturally.

Notice again the strategy--instead of trying to accomplish something hard, and feeling lost if you can’t remember, you are simply taking one small step at a time, giving your mind a chance to do what it does well, and enjoying the process, even sometimes making up little games to have fun while learning, all the while putting yourself into an environment where the passages flow into your mind and heart at whatever pace is most natural for you.

I hope you have fun learning, and I hope these ideas help you explore ways to learn the scriptures without any sense of pressure or inner tension, because a child-like mind, without pressure or tension, can absorb information very freely.

A Word of Perspective

It seems wise to me that every family and student, studying the materials for the Bible Bee, choose an appropriate level of involvement for that particular student.  To receive the blessing that flows to those who study and meditate on the scriptures is a beautiful thing, and lives can change rapidly when light and truth shine in.  But clearly every student has a unique collection of gifts and abilities, and some abilities received are more suited to competition-style challenges than others, and the students with those gifts will likely shine when the competitions are held.

At the same time, the race of life has a thousand different paths, and receiving the blessing that Jesus gives, so that we each run our individual races with joy--that’s one of the goals of spending time in the scriptures and hiding God’s word in our hearts.

May your particular path be blessed to rise higher and higher!

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®,

© Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995

by The Lockman Foundation.  Used by permission.   (www.Lockman.org)

               Copyright 2009 Steve Mugglin