Mnemonic Devices

At our informal meeting for mid-week Bible study, the pastor asked us to turn to the book of Ephesians. "It's in the New Testament, between Galatians and Philippians," he prompted. That prompted me to share something I remembered a long-ago pastor saying that was helpful to me:"Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians--Go Eat Pop Corn. That's the way I always find it," I piped up.

You would have thought I had revealed the key to the Bible Code or something! Pastor laughed in surprise and said he'd never heard that, and he thought he'd heard it all. "I'm going to remember that," he said. He even said he was going to tell it to his mother, a minister herself. "She knows a million of those little sayings," he said, shaking his head.

Acronyms have always been popular memory aids, used by everyone from school children in learning to spell words, to corporations and government for programs and services, such as AARP, NASA, etc. Not long ago I was helping my 8-year-old granddaughter spell Geography. "This is what my dad taught me when I was your age," I said, "Just think, George Eat Old Gray Rat At Paul's House Yesterday." She caught on right away and wrote the word correctly.

Since then, I have seen the word, Arithmetic, made easy to spell by saying, "A Rat In The House Might Eat The Ice Cream." When we see a rainbow, we think of Roy G Biv, remembering that the colors of the spectrum are Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. An easy way to remember the lines and spaces in music's treble clef is Every Good Boy Does Fine, for the lines, and F A C E for the spaces.

The early Christians used secret symbols and words to convey meanings to the faithful and hide them from their oppressors. Many today object to using Xmas for Christmas, but X may have been an early symbol of Christianity. The image of a fish is recognized as a symbol of Christianity, which began when the Greek word for fish, ichtys, was made into an acrostic meaning Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.

So I guess my tip for finding Ephesians was perfectly appropriate, an acrostic in very good company!