“A bible that is falling apart usually belongs to a person who isn’t!”

I’ve heard that phrase all my life. It seems like sound wisdom on the surface, and yet, like most things in life, it turns out that there is quite a lot more below the surface. Pithy, bumper sticker wisdom often has a way of letting us down. It’s so simple that sometimes I think it may be too simple. Maybe you can relate to this story:

When Johnny became a Christian, someone placed a bible in his hands, and told him that a very important part of following Jesus was to have a daily “quiet time”. “What’s a quiet time?”, wondered Johnny. A very special time, he was told, that you spend each day reading the bible and praying. Well, this sounded agreeable to Johnny, and he began in earnest the very next day. 6 months later, Johnny hasn’t had a “quiet time” in weeks. When he considers where things went wrong, he admits that the practice was so incredibly boring that he quickly lost interest. He didn’t know what to say in his prayers, and the reading of scripture seemed entirely fruitless. He thought reading the very Word of God would be exciting and enlightening! Instead, he could barely remember anything he had read after he finished, and it didn’t seem to be affecting him in any way. “Maybe I’m just not as spiritual as other Christians”, thought Johnny.

Johnny’s fictitious story is not unique. Maybe you read that story feeling a bit like Johnny yourself. I’ve heard a similar tale from many Christians. They are taught early on in their spiritual journeys that they are supposed to have a “quiet time” which usually consists of bible reading and prayer. But when they read the bible, many Christians wrestle with finding the Word of God to be dull and boring. When reading it doesn’t lead to transformation in their lives, they get dejected, and settle for a mediocre Christianity in which the drudgery of their “quiet time” is rarely, if ever, observed. “Maybe I’m just not spiritual enough for that”, they think. And so, they go along, living a powerless Christian life, and assume that’s all there is to it. After all, this surface-level type of Christian life is often what they see lived out all around them. “Maybe this is how it’s supposed to be”, they think.

I am convinced that what is lacking in the life of most believers is a proper understanding of how to compose their bible intake. Prayer is a topic we’ll tackle another day, but when it comes to bible intake, I’m afraid that many Christians don’t do much other than read the bible. Perhaps this will be old news to you, or perhaps it might be a revelation, but the piece that is missing from Johnny’s story above, the element that would finally bring his “quiet time” to life, is meditation. Reading the bible is fine. Studying it is good. But meditating on the Word of God is essential. Without this practice, we can expect our experience of spiritual growth to be poor at best.

Why Meditation?

The Christian life is one of ongoing transformation (2 Cor. 3:18). In Christ, we have been made new creations (2 Cor. 5:17), and now we are free to live a life that actively pursues ever-increasing growth in holiness (1 Tim. 4:7; Heb. 12:14). While this truth is amazing, it only takes being a Christian for about 5 minutes to realize that this growth consists of hard work. We recognize that there is certainly a “God side” to our growth. He sanctifies us and promotes our growth through the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:7-9). But he also calls us to be active participants in the process of our sanctification (Phil. 2:12-13). One of the ways we participate in this growth is through the practice of spiritual disciplines.

There are as many different lists of sound spiritual disciplines as there are list writers, and many activities could be included on these lists. Prayer, bible reading, worship, silence, solitude, fasting, journaling, etc. However, I am firmly convinced that two spiritual disciplines in particular constitute a foundation for all the others – biblical meditation and prayer. All other spiritual disciplines find their roots in prayer and meditation and apart from these two all others will be weak and lacking. In fact, of these two, meditation may be foundational even to prayer, as it is often meditation that will best inform our prayers, filling them with power and potency. Therefore, I believe it is safe to say that meditation is the key.

What Meditation Is Not

Before diving in to what biblical meditation is, I think it would be helpful to dismiss a few things that meditation is not. First, biblical meditation is not the same thing as Eastern meditation. Due to unfortunate cultural influences, the word “meditation” may conjure images of sitting with crossed legs, closed eyes and an empty mind, seeking inner connection with the Divine. But the idea of biblical meditation is very different from the practice of Eastern meditation. In the types of meditation practiced by various Eastern religions and new age ideologues, the goal is usually the emptying of the mind and the seeking of divine connection, whereas biblical meditation is all about filling the mind with God’s holy Word. Jesus indicates in Luke 11:24-26 that the spiritual state of a person who is emptied of an unclean spirit but not filled with the spirit of God is far worse than he was at the first. Biblical meditation is not about emptying ourselves and seeking the divine found within, but instead seeking to know more of the Divine who has revealed himself in his Word.

Second, biblical meditation is not reading or hearing the Word of God. Note that for our purposes here, I am considering reading and hearing to be essentially the same. After all, for most of human history the majority of the common people were largely illiterate. As one of my seminary professors once helpfully pointed out, we must be careful not to require literacy as a prerequisite to being a Christian. Thus, hearing and reading the Word can be considered the same activity. However, if we read the Word, or listen to the Word, but do not meditate on the Word, then we have not made any real use of the Word. It would be much the same as sitting down before a hot and delicious plate of food, taking a deep inhale of the wonderful aroma and proceeding to scrape the contents directly into the trash. The food looked nice. It smelled nice. We took a great snapshot of it to put on Instagram. But until we eat the food, we have not put it to any use for the fueling of our bodies. So it is with hearing the Word, but not meditating upon it so that it may transform us (James 1:22-25).

Finally, biblical meditation is not studying the Word. When I say studying the Word, I mean using external resources like commentaries or devotionals to aid in gaining a deeper understanding of a text through things like historical context, intertextual connections, or exegetical reflection. Thomas Merton makes the point far more eloquently than I could, so I’ll allow him the honor: 

“Meditation and study can, of course, be closely related. In fact, study is not spiritually fruitful unless it leads to some kind of meditation. By study we seek the truth in books or in some other source outside our own minds. In meditation we strive to absorb what we have already taken in. We consider the principles we have learned and we apply them to our own lives. Instead of simply storing up facts and ideas in our memory, we strive to do some original thinking of our own.”

Thomas Merton

Richard Foster, in his classic work, Celebration of Discipline, agrees: “Whereas the study of Scripture centers on exegesis, the meditation of Scripture centers on internalizing and personalizing the passage.” Please don’t misunderstand me – reading, hearing, and studying are all important aspects of interacting with the Word of God. But any of these activities on their own, stripped from the practice of meditation will be anemic and inadequate. All of these practices serve meditation, but they must culminate in meditation or else we will be leaving the meat on the bone when we walk away from our feast upon God’s Word. I am convinced that it is a lack of meditation, more than anything else, that leaves most people unchanged by the Word, even if they are reading it regularly.

What Meditation Is

What then is meditation? There are a variety of definitions. Thomas Merton, says that “to meditate is to exercise the mind in serious reflection” which “implies serious mental activity and a certain absorption or concentration which does not permit our faculties to wander off at random or to remain slack and undirected”. Likewise, Richard Foster says “Christian meditation, very simply, is the ability to hear God’s voice and obey his word”. Brian Hedges, who has been invaluably formative for me, defines meditation as, “listening to God speak to us through his Word for the purpose of transformation”. My personal favorite definition is probably Don Whitney’s – “meditation [is] deep thinking on the truths and spiritual realities revealed in Scripture, or upon life from a scriptural perspective, for the purposes of understanding, application, and prayer”.

Among all these varied definitions, one aspect becomes clear: meditation involves bringing our reflection and active critical thinking skills to bear upon scripture in order to absorb it for the sake of transformation. Without this vital element our interactions with the Word of God will always be incomplete. Meditation on the Word, more than mere reading or study of the Word, is what transforms us (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23; Eph. 5:26-27; Titus 3:5). A lack of proper meditation will leave us deficient in both the transformative effect of our bible intake and in the power and potency of our prayers. Brian Hedges in Christ Formed in You uses the illustration of meditation acting as a “bridge” between God speaking to us and us speaking back to him. Meditation is the essential link between reading the Word and prayer. As we meditate on the Word, allowing it to do its renewing work upon our minds and transform us more into the image of Christ, it will enliven and enrich our prayers as well. What often makes the typical “quiet time” a flat, disinteresting discipline for most people is a failure to meditate!

How to Practice Biblical Meditation

This brings us to the million dollar question. How does one begin the process of meditation on the Word of God? The goal of good biblical meditation is to reflect and think deeply upon scripture for the sake of transformation. All of the works cited (and linked to) in this article contain helpful ideas about how to do this. In my opinion though, Don Whitney has compiled the best list of meditation methods in his book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. I’ll list a few of my favorites below, but I highly recommend checking out his entire list of 17 different methods for meditating on scripture. (You should definitely buy this book, but if you’re running low on funds at the moment, you can also find the full list on Don Whitney’s website, here.)

Emphasize different words in the text.

This is an easy, and often surprisingly effective method for meditating on scripture. Like a diamond held up to the light you can roll the passage around in your mind and enjoy multiple facets of its truth. The idea here is to repeat the passage with a different emphasis each time and reflect on how that impacts your thoughts about the passage. Using this practice on Jesus’s words in John 11:25 might look like this:

“I am the resurrection and the life.” (Jesus alone is the resurrection and the life, no one else can claim this.)

“I am the resurrection and the life.” (This is a statement of absolute truth. He is in fact the resurrection.)

“I am the resurrection and the life.” (There is no other resurrection! It is found in Jesus alone!) etc…

Pray through the text.

Prayer can so easily become rote and boring. There are only so many times we can utter the same requests for God to help us be good and take care of all our loved ones. When we meditate on the scripture, however, it creates a bridge between what God has said to us in the scripture that we are reading, and what we say back to him in prayer. Praying through a text creates more of a ‘conversational style’ to our prayers as we interact with the words God has spoken in the bible and respond to them directly. If this is a new practice for you, I cannot recommend Don Whitney’s Praying the Bible highly enough. This short little book can likely be read in a single sitting and may revolutionize your prayer life if you’ve never attempted to pray the scriptures before. It certainly was revolutionary for me.

Memorize the text.

Part of the beauty of memorizing the Word of God is that you unlock the ability to take it with you and meditate on it anywhere, at any time. Additionally, you grant the Holy Spirit a tool to bring the scriptures to your heart and mind in times of need. Many people struggle with this concept because they find memorization too difficult a task. I plan to present my method for memorizing scripture (including large blocks of scripture and entire books of the bible) in a later post. For now, it will suffice to say that memorization is more manageable than you may think, and the benefits of undertaking this discipline are entirely worth the effort. Start with a single verse that has a lot to offer for meditation and you will quickly see how valuable the practice can be.

Ask the Philippians 4:8 questions of the text.

This is a fairly simple method – ask the questions found in Philippians 4:8 of the text you are meditating upon, and see where those reflections lead you. “What is true about this text, or what truth does it exemplify?” What is honorable about it?” “What is right or just about it?” Etc.

Ask how the text speaks to your current issue or question.

We should be cautious about how quickly we jump into applying the scriptures to our lives. We want to make certain that we are rightly understanding what it is that we are applying, so that we know we are making wise applications. But the intent of the scriptures is certainly for life application. As you think deeply and reflect upon the Word, perhaps it will strike you how it speaks to or affects a question or concern in your life. Feel free to reflect upon this, and even use other methods of meditation to reflect even further. Does the passage or verse indicate things you should do, or attitudes you should adopt? Great fruit can come from reflecting upon how the scriptures can be applied to your life.

Meditation Makes the Difference!

Biblical meditation is not hard, but it is essential. If you have not made the practice of intentional meditation upon the Word of God a part of your regular bible intake, I encourage you to begin doing so now. If you’ve struggled with your “quiet times” feeling more dull and less life-giving, I would humbly suggest that the practice of meditation might make a significant difference. Of course, time in the Word and prayer will not always result in a mountaintop experience. If you’re only seeking an emotional boost to your quiet time, meditation is no guarantee. But if you’re seeking transformation – quiet, steady, day-by-day transformation by the renewing of your mind – then meditation on the Word is just the element you will need.