Mnemonics: now there’s a pretty word. Simple really. It just means memory tricks. You remember how we learned at school to remember the colours of the rainbow: Richard of York gave battle in vain? You may have gone on to remember the battles that Marlborough fought (BROM), i.e. Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, Malplaquet.
With the help of mnemonics we can remember the notable stages of Paul’s three bone-crunching Mediterranean campaigns. He started off with Cyprus, (where he met ‘a son of the devil’), then PAIL i.e. Perga, Antioch, Iconium, Lystra (where he was taken for a god). Next came PT and BAC (Physical Training and British Aircraft Corporation). That gives us Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, Athens, Corinth. The third one in the sequence is ECTAM, i.e. Ephesus, Corinth, Troas, Assos, Miletus (where he said what he thought would be his last good-byes to friends who came over from Ephesus).
If you can never remember who received letters from Paul, think of the vowels AEIOU. This gives you Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and – no he didn’t actually write to the Nubians. And of course there were letters to Romans and Corinthians. We don’t really need any help with RCC. Radio-Controlled Cookies, perhaps?
Silly, I know but needs must when the devil drives. And it’s useful to have these things at our fingertips rather than buried along with a heap of other miscellaneous items good and bad. Why not get our memories to work for us rather than against us? Did you know that the Bible has 66 books made up of 39 OT books and 27 NT books – and what do three thirteens and three nines come to when you add them together?
Let me invite you to make up your own mnemonics. The Pentateuch has five books (that’s what the word means): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Here on the spur of the moment is my best shot: Green Energy Leaves No Dregs. Or perhaps Grandad Enters Lockdown Notwithstanding Discomfort.
That’s enough for today.
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