The Bible Memory App Review Using Tech

There are three steps to the process for each verse:

Become familiar with the verse. The app shows you the text and the reference. Type the first letter of the word, and the font becomes bold.
Memorize the verse. The app shows you every second or third word. Type the first letter of EVERY word, including the reference. The visible words become bold, and the invisible words appear in bold font.
Master the verse. The app shows you an empty box. Type the first letter of each word as in step two. When you complete this step with the set level of accuracy, you've mastered the verse.

3 Things to Do With Verses

1. Meditate on a verse

Using the first step is a great way to meditate on a Scripture passage, whether or not you ever memorize it. Typing the first letter of each word causes you to slow down, allowing you to reflect on the passage. If you want to slow down even more, you can change the settings so the app makes you type every letter of each word.

2. Memorize a verse

If memorization is your aim, the app uses a spaced repetition algorithm so the verse doesn't show up for review as often when you type it correctly. However, there may be certain verses that you'd like to review daily. The app allows you to lock the review frequency to daily or any other frequency you choose.

3. Memorize a Prayer

My favourite way to use the app is to memorize prayers. There's a trick to that, which I describe below. This will be especially useful when I start memorizing Latin prayers. I've been praying the rosary in Latin for months but still haven't mastered the Credo.

When I started using this app in 2015, it was called Scripture Typer. As of April 2024, when I wrote this, I've reached level 44, gained 26,703 points, and earned nine badges. I have 28 current verses (mastered verses that have been reviewed within the time limit and have a green checkmark).

My five favourite features

Can group verses in collections and sub-collections
Can sort verses using a tagging system
Can use Bible translations not included in the app
Can specify the level of accuracy required to consider a verse correctly entered
Can make the verse font very large

The four features I don't use

graphs of progress
audio record verses
groups
flash cards

Three reasons to buy the app

Absence of ads
Allowed more than the 50 verses available on the free version of the app
Add three family members (not necessarily living with you)

Walk Through Mobile App

The Home Screen is the first screen you see when you open the app. At the bottom are five icons with text where you can access the other parts of the app. The icons on the screens of the inactive screen are grey, and the icon for the active screen is red.

Settings

I could have gone through the screens in order, but it made more sense to start with the settings.

If you're new to Bible Memory and want to sign up, you can do it through the app under Create a New Account in Settings or on the login page of the Bible Memory website. Once you've done that, I don't see why you'd need to change accounts. When I signed up for the Pro version, I did it from this page on the site.

On the right side of both the login and the signup pages, there's a link called "Remove advertisements. This shows you all the benefits of the Pro Account. It's a lifetime one-time payment of USD 9.99. Such a treat after the surge of subscription-based services you find online these days!

On the Profile screen, you can add a profile picture, which I chose not to do. I also turned off the daily and weekly email review options. From this page, you can log out of the app or delete the account. On the Notifications screen, I set the frequency to Never. I left the time of day at the default of 12:00 am and turned the Notification Sound off. Tapping the Technical Support line in Settings generates an email form where you can type your issue in the body of the email and tap the arrow on the top right corner to send the support request. The Rate or Review and the Reset App are self-explanatory.

Preferences

You'll find this between Pro Accounts and Profile in the Settings area.

Here's how I set my preferences and why I did it this way.

Appearance: light
Verse Font Size: Extra Large. The sizes range from Extra Small to 3X Large. Even with my vision impairment, Extra Large is big enough.
Max Review Time: Monthly. You can go as long as annually or even choose "Do not review" for verses you expect to never forget. When I was using the app more regularly, I set this to "Review Every 3 Months", though not too many verses fell into this category.
Target Accuracy: 97%. I could have chosen 100%, but I'm a recovering perfectionist. Also, I also have a bit of a tremor, so I'm covered if I make unintentional mistakes.
Reduce frequency if less than: 90%. I'm not even sure what this does. My guess is that if your accuracy on typing the verse is less than 90%, it reduces the time between reviews.
Typing Mode: Type the first letter of every word. The other option is to type everything. I didn't see the need for that.
Reference Test: Toggle switch on. I thought that if I turned it off, I wouldn't need to specify the verse reference. Even after closing and re-opening the app, it still asks for the verse reference.
Drawings: Toggle switch off. Not sure what this does and not interested.
Heat Map: Toggle switch off. I tried having it on, but the red patches it put on the screen where I made the most errors was a visual distraction.
Haptic Keyboard Feedback: Toggle switch on
Vibration: Toggle switch on
Beep on Error: Toggle switch on
Flashing Cursor: Toggle switch on
Speech Recognition Toggle switch off. If there came a time when I wanted to try recording verses to listen to, I'd need to turn this on.

Getting Started

The site developer made my job easier here by creating videos for each step of the process.

I chose my verses based on the devotional books I was studying. One of these is Taste for Truth by Barb Raveling. YouVersion has excellent themed plans that include short devotions and related Scripture verses. Just create a collection, giving it the same title as the devotional, and add the verses that most speak to your heart.

I have organized my collections, and the app creates a master list. When I created a topic-based collection, I added a number to the collection title so they are together at the top. My other collections contain sub-collections based on sections of the Bible. If you want to change the order in which your collections are arranged, it's only possible with a computer or laptop. This feature doesn't exist on the mobile version.

In the Review section of the app, all my collections at the top level show grey check marks because they contain verses I've not started memorizing yet. If I tap the first one, its three sub-collections appear. When a collection shows a red check mark, it contains verses I'm overdue in reviewing.

When I review the verses in one of these sub-collections and get it 96% correct, a green check mark will replace the red one beside each verse. Once I've completed reviewing all the verses in the sub-collection with sufficient accuracy, the check mark next the sub-collection will turn green.

Memorizing Catholic Prayers

When I realized that you could use the "Other" option in the Bible translation when adding a new verse, I decided to use it to memorize more than Bible verses. I knew there was nothing in the Book of Leviticus I'd ever want to memorize, so I decided to use those chapters and verses as containers for the prayers I wanted to memorize. Leviticus has 27 chapters, so I'd have lots of "space" for prayers or other text I might want to memorize. I kept track of these prayers in Word, but you could use any note-taking app for this.

If the prayer is short, you only need to assign it as one verse. I've been working on memorizing St. Elizabeth of the Trinity's prayer, which is quite long. I assigned the fragments of this prayer to verses of chapter 11. I ended up breaking it up into 11 short chunks.

I used verse 12 of the chapter to combine chunks 1–3, verse 13 to combine chunks 4–7, and verse 14 to combine chunks 8 to 11. I plan to start memorizing Latin prayers and assigning them to the 16th chapter of Leviticus. If I find other texts I want to memorize, I use chapters 20–27 of Leviticus for those.

Do you want to meditate on and pray through a Scripture passage?

Do you want to compete with others to memorize verses?

Do you want to memorize other texts using spaced repetition?

Do it all with the Bible Memory app available on iOS and Android.