Did you know that there are some people who claim to have learned the Bible in its entirety? One of them is Aacen White, an 11 year old boy from Mississippi, USA and the other is Jack Van Impe, a deceased North American evangelist.

How many books did they memorize? First let's see how many books they are.

The Protestant or Christian bible has 66 books, the Catholic bible has 73. Both have 27 books in the New Testament, the difference is in the Old Testament, the Protestant has 7 books less than the Catholic. Both bibles have the 5 books of the Torah, Book of the laws of the Jews, what we call the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch is made up of the books of the law: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, in that order. The 7 books that differentiate one bible from the other are the deuterocanonical books. The deuterocanonical books are: Tobias, Judith, Of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus (Not to be confused with Ecclesiastes), book of Baruch, Maccabees 1 and 2. This means that Catholics have more books to learn.

Fun fact: in the books of Esther and Song of Solomon there is no mention of God, in case you didn't know.

According to Aacen White and Jack Van Impe, it takes a lot of time and dedication to learn the bible, you have to review it permanently. Both agree that there are certain verses that are easier to remember, especially the most important in the life of each one, but there are others that are difficult to memorize. There are some books that, because of their writing, structure and content, such as Leviticus and Numbers, are complex to understand and memorize, at least for me.

"22] Don't just listen to the word of God; you have to put it into practice. Otherwise, you only deceive yourselves. [23] For if you hear the word but do not obey it, it would be like looking at your face in a mirror; [24] you see yourself, then turn away and forget what you look like. [25] But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free and put it into practice and do not forget what you heard, then God will bless you for your obedience. " James 1:22-25 NTV

Both Aacen and Jack Van Impe are emphatic in saying that memorizing the word is only a small part of the process, because the most important thing is to put it into practice in our lives, and that is what Christ came for.

Christ came to save the world by fulfilling the law. He gave himself as a living sacrifice (Leviticus 4:3) because the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) and in that way he makes us new (Isaiah 43:19) and by following him (Matthew 16:24) we fulfill the law as Christ fulfills the law (Matthew 5:17) because Christ is the way to the father (John 14:6) and gives us eternal life (John 11:25-26).

The importance of knowing the bible, reading it, memorizing verses is not like a college or university assignment, but by knowing it we realize how real it is and how it begins to make sense of many things in our lives.

Read the bible as much as you can, take notes, ask questions, look for verses that support your reading. In every city and congregation there are Bible study groups, ours is every Tuesday at 6:30 pm. We share, converse, study the bible, its teachings and enrich it with the testimonies we have of how the word of the Lord has transformed our lives. Or also do it at home with your family, learn together the value of the word of the Lord, it is the perfect glue to keep a family together (Malachi 4:6).

God bless you!