What’s the best chapter in the Bible? Six-sevennnnn. If you’ve spent even 6 or 7 seconds around kids or teens lately, you probably saw that one coming. News outlets from The New York Times to The Indian Express have covered the global phenomenon that delights children, puzzles grownups, and leaves school teachers 67 percent sure they should retire early.
One of my CT colleagues from Raleigh, North Carolina, told me her 16-year-old daughter and her friend dressed up as the numbers 6 and 7 on Halloween (“cheapest costume ever!”).
A coworker from Miami said his children stirred up a Spanish-language 6-7 wave that swept through the kids’ club on their recent cruise (“seis-siete!”).
And a church in Charlotte, North Carolina, created an entire outreach event around the infamous numbers. Jonathan White is a pastor and director of children’s programming at Mecklenburg Community Church. When he determined that the 6-7 trend wasn’t harmful and wasn’t going away, he wrote it into the church’s November family night.
A high school kid donning a 6-7 shirt showed up onstage every time the numbers were mentioned—which happened a lot, as the focus of the evening was Psalm 28:6–7. Hundreds of kids went wild. “Every single time it happened, we had about 30 seconds of ramp-down time for the kids,” Jonathan said. “And we were glad we did, because by the end they were anticipating it. They were looking for it. It was fun because they were so engaged.”
As the mom of a 9-year-old, I’ve been asked to calculate 134 divided by 2, among other tactics I’ve walked right into. I won’t attempt to explain the meaning behind the trend, but I can point young 6-7 enthusiasts to a few places where their favorite numbers appear in Scripture.
There’s only one chapter 67 within the Bible’s 66 books, and it’s a psalm. Psalm 67 begins,
May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face shine on us—
so that your ways may be known on earth,
your salvation among all nations.
May the peoples praise you, God;
may all the peoples praise you.
There are 42 instances of chapter 6 verse 7 in the Bible. Here’s a sampling of passages that could make good memory verses for children:
- “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians” (Ex. 6:7).
- “Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits” (Mark 6:7).
- “Because anyone who has died has been set free from sin” (Rom. 6:7).
- “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it” (1 Tim. 6:7).
An older child or teen who’s looking for a more challenging passage to memorize could take a stab at Proverbs 6:16–19, which contains a subtle nod to those ubiquitous numbers:
There are six things the Lord hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
a false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up conflict in the
community.
Beyond memorizing Bible verses with a convenient 6 or 7 in them, we can also note the symbolic meaning of numbers in the Bible. The individual numbers 6 and 7 each hold meaning in Scripture. Six often carries negative connotations, representing incompletion and even evil (as in the mark of the Beast in Rev. 13:18).
The number 7, on the other hand, represents completion and perfection. It appears throughout Scripture, beginning in Genesis when the Lord rested on the seventh day after creating the earth. Tim Mackie at the BibleProject discusses the importance of the number: “Seven represents both a whole completed creation and a journey to that completeness.”
But the number 7 is perhaps most prominent in the book of Revelation, where it appears more than 50 times (including the 7 churches, 7 spirits, 7 golden lampstands, 7 stars, and more).
We won’t fully understand the significance of these numbers until Jesus returns (and as the 6-7 trend stretches into yet another month, some of us may be praying more fervently for the beginning of the end). Until then, we can ride the 6-7 wave and maybe even use it to soak up some biblical truth.
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
That’s from Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses—wait for it—six-sevennnnn.
Kristy Etheridge is a features editor at Christianity Today.
