"Quoting" to Yourself

To begin, a story that illustrates my point:

It was the summer of 1995. My teammate Todd and I are riding in the backseat of a car headed for Nationals in St. Louis, MO. My mother is driving, and my brother Kevin is riding shotgun. To pass the time, we are quoting through John in a round. This was a habit for us, as we would check each other and keep things interesting during the mindless hours of quoting. This time, Kevin was idly following along in a Scripture Portion, though we had told him that we were above such things.

So we get to a particular verse somewhere in chapter 8, and Kevin interrupts our rhythm. He tries to tell us we’ve made a mistake. We explain in a rather exasperated tone that he is mistaken because we don’t make mistakes. He simply hands us the book, at which point we look at our so-called “mistake” and then each grab our own book, certain that there is a misprint in his.

We all know how this story ends. The phantom misprint is nowhere to be found. Todd and I had been quoting incorrectly for months, never discovering our error because we checked our own minds and each other. We couldn’t begin to tell you which of us originally perpetrated the problem, but we both had repeated the violation. Thus goes the story for quizzers who “quote” to themselves.

So the scenario above starts from one of two situations. Either a quizzer is so totally isolated from the world that he/she has no one to listen to them quote (a likely story), or the quizzer is so abundantly confident in his/her own abilities that mere mortal ears are unnecessary when it comes to listening to quoting.

The truth is almost always that quoting aloud to another person takes more time because you have to actually, you know, quote. You can’t just incoherently mutter syllables under your breath while playing Angry Birds. The time that it takes and the frustration that develops when you have to speak each word at a volume and speed that someone can follow are not worth the potential prize. So it becomes easier to claim that you “quoted” to yourself.

There are three big reasons why “quoting” to yourself is a bad idea:

1. Mistakes will happen. It’s possible that you are the world’s most perfect quizzer, but unless your name rhymes with “Smabby Smogers” you probably are going to misquote something along the line. If no one is annoyingly following your quoting like a beady-eyed hawk, you are likely to repeat a mistake in competition and miss a question that could easily have been ruled correct with the help of the hawk. Take the time to get it right, and you won’t get it wrong.

2. Bad habits are hard to break. If you perpetually mutter your “quoting” to yourself at the speed of light, you are developing a habit of speaking like a psychotic auctioneer on Ritalin. As entertaining as that can be, it is rarely a key to successful quizzing. Very few answers require you to sound like the micro-machine man (forgive my dated reference). It makes more sense to try a decaffeinated approach to quoting that actually stands a chance of getting you ruled correct.

3. When you “quote” to yourself, you take away the blessing from someone else. Okay, call me sappy, but one of my favorite things in the world is listening to quizzers quote. Ask around, and I bet you’ll find a lot of coaches and parents that agree. Sure, there are times that it’s not easy, and sometimes finding the time can prove challenging, but listening to the quoted word of God is a blessing. Even though I can quote most of it myself, I still enjoy listening to quizzers spout Scripture from memory. There is power in those words, and I want access to that power in my life.

Quoting is generally the most time-consuming part of studying Bible Quiz, especially early in the season. Don’t cut corners with this process. When you do, you cheat yourself out of your best work and someone else out of a blessing. Take your quoting seriously. The results will be worth the time and effort.