Tuesday

Hercule Poirot's Christmas - Book Review




I am reading through the novels of Agatha Christie in the order in which they were written and writing a review on each one.








Hercule Poirot's Christmas


1938


Description


It is Christmas Eve. The Lee family reunion is shattered by a deafening crash of furniture, followed by a high-pitched wailing scream. Upstairs, the tyrannical Simeon Lee lies dead in a pool of blood, his throat slashed.

But when Hercule Poirot, who is staying in the village with a friend for Christmas, offers to assist, he finds an atmosphere not of mourning but of mutual suspicion. It seems everyone had their own reason to hate the old man…









My Thoughts


This is the 32nd book by Agatha Christie and the 19th Poirot Mystery


Another one of the Poirot murders that is hard to forget once you have read it because of the memorable incident of the death - hint but not quite a spoiler -the sounds!  


The title comes from the fact that it is Christmas time and Poirot is the detective of the story but otherwise in my mind it is not really a unique descriptive title for this mystery, which does happen at Christmas time but could it have happened other than at Christmas?

If you have seen this one as the TV adaptation it must be noted that there are definite differences there to the actual novel Agatha Christie Wrote and again we must ask the question why. 
Why did they have to make those changes?

I love locked room mysteries and mysteries in a similar vein when we need to know how did the murderer get in? when did they get in? 
As is so much a part of Christie storytelling we also need to look for the misinformation and the twists in this one.

Another good murder to solve and of course Poirot is the best detective to do just that.
So we end up with an enjoyable read as we try to work it out along the way and if we read carefully we could solve it.

Agatha Christie is quoted as having said the following about this book and I have to say I imagine her laughing as she wrote the true words - 

‘You yearned for a “good violent murder with lots of blood”. So this is your special story – written for you.’


So another  "TIC"  from me.



If thinking of reading this book in the future why not pin this pic to go back to later.





















Sunday

How to Learn Psalm 34 v 1-4 - Bible Memorization with FREEBIES


I could never do it!

          Do what?

Memorize Psalm 34 verses 1 to 4!

          Yes you can one verse at a time.







Many people think they could never manage to memorize 4 verses of the Bible together.

But they might consider learning 1 verse.

Over the years you have probably memorized some verses from all over the Bible - all individual verses or perhaps two verses like Proverbs 3 v 4-5.

So why not learn a short passage of 4 verses just doing it 1 verse at a time.


So let's look at 3 things:
  • Memorising Tips
  • Some Freebies to help you.





Memorising Tips

If you read the blog post on 
10 Ways to Learn Scripture - Bible Memorization
you will know that I shared 10 ways to tackle this but some ways are more helpful than others to different people and to different verses or passages.
If you didn't read that blog post it might be good to go over to it now HERE
and then come back to see which of the 10 ways I would recommend for this one.



I am going to help you with this passage using
        Ways  1,  2,  3,  4,  7,  8,  9,  &  10  
because of the structure and Rhythm of the verses.

1.  Read the verse often, every day, multiple times in the day.
     Repeating it over and over.

2.  Write out the verse often, every day.
     Writing it out over and over and over.

3.  Feel the excitement of a verse that is an exaltation of praise to God.
     Think the praise as you say or write the words.

4.  Personal Testimony - Action from you and result from God.
     Think about the request from you and how God answers our prayers.

7.  Understand the meaning of the verse.
     Think of what it actually says and means and it will remain better in your mind.

8.  Make it easy to see the verse clearly &  regularly each day.

9.  Make or Use Bible Verse Graphics

10.  Sing It.


Each verse in this passage contains 2 parts - yet both make up just one sentence so there is help here of the second part relating to the first so that the verse makes sense.


In fact in the other blog post mentioned above you will have seen me take various verses from Psalm 34 as the examples for the different ways.




So let's look at each of these 4 verses on their own and then you can put them together.


Psalm 34 v 1

I would use any or all of  1, 2, 7, 8, & 9 

1.   Read it like it is in two sections

2.   Write it on two separate lines

7.   Understand that the second part of this verse is a natural result of the first part

8.   Stick copies of this verse on the mirror, fridge door, etc.

9.   Make or Use Bible Verse Graphics 
      (this graphic is available to download as a free printable in my Resource Library)









Here's a video I made just to show you one way and you can use this by replaying it as often as you like to learn it within a day or two depending on how often you practice it.












Psalm 34 v 2


I would use any or all of  1, 2, 7, 8, & 9 

1.   Read it & Concentrate on the two first words in each part and then get the "what each will do" straight in your head to go along with it.

2.   Write it on two separate lines

7.   Understand that the second part of this verse is a great result of the first part

8.   Stick copies of this verse on the mirror, fridge door, etc.

9.   Make or Use Bible Verse Graphics 
      (this graphic is available to download as a free printable in my Resource Library)










Psalm 34 v 3




I would use any or all of  1, 2, 7, 8, & 9

1.   Read it like it is in two sections but making a request

2.   Write it on two separate lines.

3.  Feel the excitement of this verse because it is an exaltation of praise to God.
     Think the praise as you say or write the words.

7.   Understand that the second part of this verse is reinforcing the first part.

8.   Stick copies of this verse on the mirror, fridge door, etc.

9.   Make or Use Bible Verse Graphics - because this is portrait shaped it will make a good phone screen saver 
      (this screen saver is available to download as a free printable in my Resource Library)










Psalm 34 v 4







I would use any or all of  1, 2, 7, 8, & 9

1.   Read it like it is in two sections - there is excitement here over what happened.

2.   Write it on two separate lines.

4.  Personal Testimony - Action from you and result from God.
     Think about this as a prayer from you and how God answers our prayers.

7.   Understand that the second part of this verse is God responding to the first part which was a prayer.

8.   Stick copies of this verse on the mirror, fridge door, etc.

9.   Make or Use Bible Verse Graphics - because this is portrait shaped it will make a good phone screen saver 
      (this screen saver is available to download as a free printable in my Resource Library)



Bible Verse Graphics

I post a Bible Verse Graphic every morning on my
so if you want to be encouraged by a verse each day or have a graphic you can Share to your timeline or Save in Facebook then click through to my Facebook Page and be sure to like and follow the page to see those graphics in your feed each day.




Did you notice something was missing?

For the 4 separate verses I said we would use
1,2,3,4,7,8,9,10

and as we went through the verses above we did not include no.10

because no. 10 is going to be the way to reinforce the whole passage for us

We are going to pull all 4 verses together in a song.





Rhythm

Often we see rhythm in verses of the Bible and especially so in the Psalms.

They were meant to be sung but we can use the fact of the rhythm of the words to help us learn this passage.

As I said above each verse contains 2 parts

v.1   I will bless .....
        his praise shall .....

v.2   My soul shall .....
        the humble shall .....

v.1   O magnify the Lord .....
        and let us exalt .....

v.1   I sought the Lord .....
        and delivered me .....


and if you say the words aloud you will notice the rhythm between them repeating throughout.

When we recite something rhythmically it really helps us to learn it.



PLUS

Let's not forget the best and easiest way for most people to learn scripture

We sing it!

Watch the video below of Fred and I singing this passage as a song we learnt as teenagers and have not really forgotten over all these years.

This song is fantastic for this passage as it does not leave out any words or add in any words but takes the exact verses straight from the Bible.


 

You can come back anytime and replay the video here to practise or you can find it on my YouTube channel  Scripture Memorization in Song at Sandra's Ark




We can also pull all 4 verses together by repeating them straight through as we colour a picture around them.


Here you will see an example of a colouring page I made for Psalm 34 v 1-4 and it is also available as a freebie on the Blog with the link at the end of this post.





Here you will see the 4 Word Search Puzzles I made for Psalm 34 v 1-4 and these are also available as freebies on the Blog with the link at the end of this post.









Other posts on the Memorization of Scripture are












FREEBIES

Don't forget to get all your free downloads to help with memorizing this verse

or pin the appropriate pics to remind you to come back later.


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Don't forget to download your free printables of Psalm 34 or pin this pic to come back later