Have you ever had the experience when you are given a new piece of information, but you feel like you don’t know what to do with it? The truth is that your brain has a sort of filing system (sorry scientists for the analogy). When we receive new bits of information, the brain has to decide whether or not the information is worth storing or moving from our short term to our long term memories.
Once the brain has decided (for lack of a better term) to keep a bit of information, then it wants to attach it in a meaningful way to something we have already learned. This makes it easier for our brain to find and retrieve that information when we need it again. When that process becomes difficult, a piece of information may remain unattached or be attached to something unconnected or even discarded entirely – making it difficult for us to remember.
While your Bible students may not need to easily recall the five words of a new language they learned on a vacation or how to fix a sink like they saw on a YouTube video, we do want them to recall the things we are teaching them in Bible classes. Not just so they can remember details of Bible stories, but so they can easily recall what God wants them to know when they are in certain situations – like deciding whether something is right or sinful to God when making split second choices.
To help Bible students store biblical information in their long term memories in ways in which it can be easily retrieved, we have to help them (and their brains) connect the information together in meaningful ways. How? Start by helping them understand how the story, principle or command fits in with other things they have already learned. Teach them how to do this themselves by asking them questions like, “What else does this remind you of in the Bible?” “Or who else in the Bible said/did/taught/wrote something similar?” Or even, “What are some situations in your life when it might be helpful to remember this?”
Get in the habit of helping students regularly make connections between the new information you teach them and information they already know. Spend time helping them connect the dots between bits of information they learned previously, but perhaps never connected in meaningful ways. It takes a little extra time and effort, it can make it easier for them to remember and use God’s Words as they need them.