Scripture Mastering
In the music recording industry, mastering is the process of preparing a "master" copy of a recording from which all other copies will be made. Sound mastering engineers have to finely tune various factors like equalization and dynamic range compression so that the recording will sound great whether it's being played on a CD player hooked up to a state of the art sound system or streaming on laggy Internet from someone's phone speaker. By making the master copy as good as possible, it allows the recording to maintain the best quality regardless of what format it gets translated into. When I was in seminary, we had what was called Scripture mastery. On the surface level, this involved rote memorization of verses of Scripture. Simply memorizing the words without considering the meaning behind them would result in a poor, inflexible master copy in our hearts. But if we truly apply ourselves to making a golden master copy of the scriptures in our hearts, then we can be like Enos. "And the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, sunk deep into my heart." (Enos 1:3). By making pristine, dynamic, robust master copies of our favorite scripture verses, by letting them sink deep into our hearts, we then have the flexibility to use them in all kinds of different challenges that we may be facing. It may not be obvious that a specific verse of Scripture can help us resolve a conflict at work and give us the courage to share our testimony with a stranger and walk us through a particularly tough family crisis, but if we have truly mastered the Scriptures then it can. Just as a really good master copy of a song can be adapted to play as an mp3 file or a CD or an audio cassette or a Vinyl, a really good master copy of a scripture can help us with any leap of faith or trial by fire or hope against hope as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I hope that we all dedicate ourselves to mastering the scriptures so that we can apply them to all the wonderful and varied challenges that we face from day to day.
