Introduction

Scripture declares of Gods thoughts,

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts (Isa. 55:8-9).

We are also told to be of the same mind toward one another which means essentially that we must develop and maintain the mind of Christ or Gods thoughts. We are to stand firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel (Rom. 12:16; Phil. 2:5; 1:27). But if my thoughts are contrary to Gods, then I must exchange my thinking with Gods and for that process, He has given us His inspired, inerrant, and authoritative Word. So what is our need? We are to study the Scripture, but for that to be effective, we also need to develop the art of biblical meditation.

Joshua 1:8 This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.

Psalm 1:2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.

Psalm 4:4 Tremble, and do not sin; Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still.

If I were the devil (please, no comment), I would do my best to divide and fragment the thinking of the church of Jesus Christ. I would try to get Gods people confused as to who they are and why they are here. I would try to get them preoccupied with other things. I would try to get them to live independently, to think like the world thinks, to think like the natural man thinks in the futility of his mind (Eph. 4:17-18). In other words, I would like to keep people away from serious involvement with the Word of God. I would want to keep their relationship to Gods Word superficial and secondary. Someone has said that the Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds. But he also has a number of cultural values or belief systems, actually illusions and snares, that he uses to confuse and manipulate the church so that it must, of necessity, fail in its calling and purpose whenever it operates under these illusions.

Each of these are opposed to and work against developing and maintaining the mind of Christ through studying and meditating on the Word. They are designed to keep us out of the Word which is so essential to our ability to avoid the delusions of Satan and the world system and to hear and respond to the call of God on our lives.

The first question we must consider concerns the meaning of meditation and what meditation involves. This is particularly important to the Christian because of the great and growing emphasis on meditation in eastern religions. Transcendental meditation, as it is often called, is not biblical meditation. It is dangerous and actually opens up ones mind for Satanic attack as it is found in New Age thinking. My purpose here is to deal only with the meaning and blessing of biblical meditation and to point out that eastern forms of meditation and biblical meditation are miles apart.

Meditation means the act of focusing ones thoughts: to ponder, think on, muse. Meditation consists of reflective thinking or contemplation, usually on a specific subject to discern its meaning or significance or a plan of action.

Some synonyms would be contemplation, reflection, rumination, deep thinking, or remembering in the sense of keeping or calling something to mind for the purpose of consideration, reflection, or meditation. Compare for instance the following verses of Scripture:

Psalm 63:6 When I remember Thee on my bed, I meditate on Thee in the night watches,

Psalm 77:11 I shall remember the deeds of the LORD; Surely I will remember Thy wonders of old.

Psalm 78:42 They did not remember His power, The day when He redeemed them from the adversary,

Psalm 143:5 I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Thy doings; I muse on the work of Thy hands.

In Eastern forms of meditation as in TM there is an attempt to empty the mind. Biblical meditation, however, is an attempt to empty the mind of the wrong things in order to fill it with what is right and true according to the index of Gods inspired Word.

All Eastern forms of meditation stress the need to become detached from the world. There is an emphasis upon losing personhood and individuality and merging with the Cosmic Mind Detachment is the final goal of Eastern religion. It is an escaping from the miserable wheel of existenceIt is merely a method of controlling the brain waves in order to improve your psychological and emotional well-being.1

Biblical meditation involves becoming detached from the controlling and hindering influences of the world and attached to the living God through Christ that we might, through faith and transformed values, experience the sufficiency of the Savior and reach out to a hurting world in need of the living Christ.

Biblical meditation is object oriented. It begins with reflective reading and rereading of the Word and is followed by reflection on what has been read and committed to memory. In Scripture, the word meditate is generally found with an object (God, His Word, or works, etc.) or in a context where the object of meditation is understood.

In Scripture it does not mean to sit and ponder infinity or to empty the mind so some force can fill it by repeating some chant or mantra. Such is dangerous and opens the mind to demonic attack. Meditation in the Bible means reflective thinking on biblical truth so that God is able to speak to us through Scripture and through the thoughts that come to mind as we are reflecting on the Word, but that must also be filtered by the Word.

The goal of Christian meditation is to internalize and personalize the Scripture so that its truth can affect how we think, our attitudes, and how we live, our actions.

(1) WorshipIt is designed to focus on the Lord and His works (Ps. 27:4; 77:12). It is a place and space in our lives for communion with God. It is a means of elevating the spiritual over the material world and the world of activity: the world of hustle and bustle and coming and going.

(2) InstructionIt is designed to improve our understanding of the Word and Gods ways as it applies to our lives (Ps. 49:3 [i.e., understanding comes from the meditations of his heart]; 119:27, 97f). In meditation we exchange our thoughts with God's.

(3) Motivation or EncouragementIt is designed to motivate and inspire us in service and courage for the works God has called us to do (Josh. 1:7-8)

(4) TransformationIt is designed to transform and change our lives. This would apply to all the above (Ps. 4:4; 19:14; 119:15; Rom. 12:2; Col. 3:1f).

In Joshua 1:8, God promised Joshua success as part of the fruit of his meditation on the Word, but this has nothing to do with the prosperity mentality of the positive thinking and eastern meditation that is so present today in New Age thinking where, through positive thinking, one is able to control his or her destiny. Rather this is the success of obedient and godly living which experiences Gods provision and deliverance from the enemies of this life. It is not a guarantee against trials and pain.

(1) At prescribes times set aside for Bible study and thinking on the Word (Gen. 24:63; Ps. 4:4; 27:4; 63:6; 77:6; 119:148). It means making space in a special place for God and spiritual values.

(2) At all times throughout the day and night, as we face the varied situations of life. It involves the constant application of the Word through remembrance and reflective thinking (Josh. 1:8).

(1) Because of what the Bible isRevelation from God. In the Bible God has spoken and through this book God reveals Himself, reveals who and what man is, and what His plan for man consists of. (Cf. Ps. 19:7f; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:20-21; Isa. 55:8f.)

The Bible was given to us by God to be read and meditated on. An unread Bible is like food that is refused, an unopened love letter, a buried sword, a road map not studied, a gold mine not worked.2

(2) Because of what man is and needsReconciliation to God and one another. The nature of man and the nature of the world and Satan constitutes a great need for personalizing the Word: cf. Eph. 4:16f; 5:15f; 2 Cor. 4:4; etc. Because man is a holistic being, his spiritual, psychological, and physical faculties are complexly intertwined. Dr. Paul Meier writes:

To prepare myself as a Christian psychiatrist, I undertook college studies, an M.S. degree in human physiology, an M.D. from medical school, psychiatric residency training in two different programs, and theological course ware from two evangelical seminaries. During those years I was equipped with many techniques and shortcuts for bringing human beings relief from anxieties, depression, phobias, fears, insecurities, and other kinds of emotional and physical pain. Among the many tools I learned to use, by far the one that has been most valuable in helping people attain spiritual well-being is Scripture meditation.3

Meditation affects mans whole being. Another reason is the fact man does not innately contain Gods thoughts and ways. Again Meier writes:

Man is a totally depraved being, possessing selfish and ultimately self-destructive thought patterns and behavior. Show me a natural man, untaught in Gods principles and Ill show you a natural man who suffers from emotional pain. Ill show you a man who experiences the guilt and discomfort of a God-vacuum. Ill show you a man who is unconsciously fighting and struggling for a sense of significance, using worldly ways (e.g., sexual fantasy, materialism, power struggles, and prestige) in a vain attempt to attain significance all of which will fail. The ways of the world bring temporary relief, like bandaids on open flesh wounds, but not ultimate relief from mans inner awareness of his insignificance apart from God.4

(3) Because of what the meditation doesReformation of the mind and life. Using the words meditate and remember which is sometimes used as a synonym for meditate (Ps. 63:6; 77:5-7; 119:55-56; 143:5-6), lets note from Scripture some of the reasons we should meditate on the Word.

May we join the Psalmist who, rather than use the methods of the world to deal with his pain, declared his commitment to meditation when he wrote:

Psalm 119:78 May the arrogant be ashamed, for they subvert me with a lie; But I shall meditate on Thy precepts.

How to Profit From Biblical Meditation

Biblical meditation is the art of reflection, of pondering and going over a matter in ones mind. It is important that we recognize we cannot divorce meditation from all the processes by which we learn and apply the Word. It is intricately tied to Bible study in all its forms.

Concerning one of the chief Hebrew words used for meditation, hagah, Herbert Wolf says, Perhaps the Scripture was read half out loud in the process of meditation.5

Biblical meditation involves the whole process of reading and observing a portion of Scripture in order to seek both its meaning and application. Though we generally think in terms of the final aspect in which one reflects on his observations and understanding of a particular text or concept of the Word, reading the text of Scripture reflectively is a part of the process of biblical meditation.

The point is this. We cant effectively reflect on and respond to a portion of the Word or a biblical truth without the whole process of careful Bible study. Just as meditating in a vacuum or to empty the mind as it is done in eastern religions is dangerous and may open the mind to demonic attack, so meditating on error drawn from a misunderstanding of a passage can lead to unhappy results.

There are three things that must go together in biblical meditation: READING, REFLECTING, and RESPONDING. The ultimate purpose of these three are the three great purposes of Bible study:

Careful reading for observation comes first. The word read or reading occurs 80 times in Scripture, 34 times in the New Testament. This involves the following:

(1) Read Reverently, ever mindful that you are reading the Word of God. The Bible is God breathed and each word and sentence has a purpose and function. This means reading deliberately, slowly, and alertly, not mechanically or legalistically.

(2) Read Repeatedly, going over and over the passage to observe more and more knowing that you do not exhaust the meaning of any verse even when it becomes familiar and you think you know it. There are always new observations to be seen or mined as a miner searches for silver or gold (Prov. 2:4).

(3) Read Creatively, visualizing yourself in the time, history, and situation of the passage as much as possible to experience a feel for what the author and the people of his day were experiencing. Precisely because God chose to speak in the context of real human history, we may take courage that these same words will speak again and again in our own real history, as they have throughout the history of the church.6

(4) Read With Study Tools In Hand, with paper and pen and Bible study helps at your finger tips to help you observe and answer your questions. Howard Hendricks use to tell us in class something like, A pencil, gentlemen, is the crow bar of the mind and understanding. You wouldnt go mining for silver or gold without tools would you? Of course not. So we need to use tools like a CONCORDANCE, COMMENTARIES, BIBLE DICTIONARY, ATLAS, and WORD STUDY HELPS like Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, Revel, or New Testament Words, by William Barclay, SCM Press, or A Treasury of New Testament Synonyms, by Stewart Custer, Bob Jones University Press.

(5) Read to Understand, purposely, to make observations of the text that will help you understand its meaning. This means asking questions like our six important friends in Bible study, who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Of course, such reading requires constant reflection and pondering over the text you are reading. This brings us to our next point in the process of meditation, reflection.

Irving Jensen writes, Reflection is the mind and heart at work, thinking over and concentrating on what the eyes have seen Reflection in Bible reading should have the intensity of meditation, whereby the soul has the desire and intention of obeying Gods Word.7

So, how can we read the Bible like this? Jensen suggest the following which I have summarized as follows:

(1) Reflect Purposely, to fulfill the biblical objectives of meditationworship, instruction, motivation, transformation. As the Psalmist who prayed: I will meditate on Thy precepts, and regard Thy ways (Psa. 119:15), and again, Make me to understand the way of Thy precepts, So I will meditate on Thy wonders (vs. 27).

(2) Reflect Imaginatively, visualize the setting and put yourself there. Try to feel the burden, the concern, the fear, the love, etc. Seek to taste and feel every word you read.

(3) Reflect Humbly, realizing that you are not reading just a book, but that which is the very Word from God, God-breathed and authoritative, alive and powerful. It should truly humble us to know that in the Bible, the Holy One who is also the Almighty One, has spoken to us in the Bible.

(4) Reflect Prayerfully, trusting the Spirit of God to open up your eyes and heart to see, understand, and respond to the Word. Again, read as the Psalmist who prayed: Open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things from Thy law (Ps. 119:18). This is also the position of humility and respect. Gods Word is a spiritual book requiring spiritual perception.

(5) Reflect Patiently but expectantly, waiting on the Lord to teach you and show you. Time and patience are important elements to effective meditation and examination of the Word. Again remember that the great enemies of meditating on the Word are noise, hurry, and crowds. Thus, the Psalmist, looking for insight to Gods Word and direction in his life prayed, Lead me in Thy truth and teach me, For Thou art the God of my salvation; For Thee I wait all the day (Ps. 25:5).

Concluding his section on reflection, Jensen writes:

The purpose of reading and reflecting on Scripture is response, responding and applying the passage to our own lives. So we naturally turn to the third aspect of meditation and the ultimate purpose of the Word. The call to reflection in Bible reading is expressed in Samuels plain words to Saul, Stand here thou still a while, that I may shew thee the word of God (1 Samuel 9:27, KJV).8

Responding is the process whereby we make personal application of our observations and understanding of the text. Through meditation we internalize that we may personalize.

(1) The focal point of application: You are the focal point in application. This is not selfish or self-centered. 2 Tim. 3:16 makes this clear. You are meditating on the Word as part of your search for spiritual help, direction, and food. The Bible is addressed to each of us personally.

(2) The key spheres of application: (see diagram).

(3) Important questions for application:

(4) Three vital responses for application:

First, the response of confession: The Word of God is like a sword (it penetrates), like a mirror (it reveals), and like a critic of the heart (it judges and reproves or exposes our attitudes and actions). Whenever we read the Word, it should be with an open heart that is ready to acknowledge sin and confess it. So David prayed, Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my ways, and see if there be any wicked way within me (Ps. 139:23-24a; cf. 1 John 1:7-9; walking in the light).

Proverbs 28:13 He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, But he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.

Second, the response of faith: One of our reasons for meditating on the Word is to develop and build our faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, (Romans 10:17 brick by brick). We must mix faith with what we read and hear. In other words, we must act by faith in what God has shown us from His Word or our hearts can become hardened (cf. Mk. 6 and Heb. 3:7f).

Hebrews 4:2 For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.

Third, the response of obedience: When we obey the Word we are demonstrating the reality of our love for the Lord and how much we really believe what we have seen and learned. It demonstrates our faith and just how serious we are in our relationship with Jesus Christ.

1 Sam. 15:22-23 And Samuel said, Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination, And insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being king.

In his excellent book, Pathways to Power, a book written in the early 1950s, Dr. Unger wrote:

Meditation upon Gods Word is fast becoming a lost art among many Christian people. This holy exercise of pondering over the Word, chewing it as an animal chews its cud to get its sweetness and nutritive virtue into the heart and life, takes time, which ill fits into the speed of our modern age. Today most Christians devotions are too hurried, their lives too rushed.9

If that was true in the early fifties, how much more is it not true todayforty years later in an age that has become even more activity oriented, materialistic, and consumer minded. Unger goes on to say:

But holiness and hurry never did suit well together. Prayer and preoccupation have always been strange bed-fellows. A head knowledge of the Word may perhaps be consonant with the scurry of the age, but not a deep heart experience of its preciousness. A deep knowledge of spiritual things can only come by the way of unhurried reflection upon Gods truth and by prayer.10

Speaking of Satan and his activity, someone has said our adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds. What we need is a time for quiet, stillness, and solitude for the purpose of meditating on the Word.

Listen to these words from the Psalms:

Psalm 19:14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.

Psalm 104:34 Let my meditation be pleasing to Him; As for me, I shall be glad in the Lord.

From these verses it is clear that our meditation can be unacceptable and displeasing to the Lord. What does this mean? What are the implications of this? In what ways can my meditation be unacceptable and displeasing to the Lord? There are obstacles, dangers or hazards, and hindrances to meditation.

Writing to the Corinthian church the apostle wrote,

2 Corinthians 10:5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,

(1) Speculations is the Greek logismos, calculation, reasoning, reflection, thought and in this context it refers to wrong thinking or reasoning and is connected to those thinking processes and attitudes that usurp Gods viewpoint and stand against the knowledge of God and what that should do to and in our lives.

(2) We see that Paul and his co-workers were committed to destroying and dealing with any such thinking in their lives because it was so destructive to their ability to wage war against the enemy and carry out Gods purpose as soldiers of the cross. The suggestion is that this is a daily battle, an ongoing process without which we are unable to obey and serve the Lord. He uses a military term, taking captive (aichmalotizo) plus the present tense which point to this as a continual struggle and warfare.

(3) The battle concerns our minds in both the content of our minds and in the way we think with our minds, the human devices of our minds which are so often influenced by Satan. Thoughts is the plural of noema, mind, thought, purpose, device, design. It is used of the schemes or devices of Satan in 2 Corinthians 2:11 and of the effects of his work on the minds of men (blinding, in 4:4).

(4) Finally, we see that this affects our obedience to Christ. If we do not bring our thoughts captive, control them and order them according to the Word, the mind of Christ, we cannot live in obedience. The goal and result of every thought captive is obedience to the Lord.

So, meditating on the Word, internalizing and personalizing the Scripture, is a crucial part of the Christian life. It becomes part of the means by which we can bring every thought captive to Christ.

The importance of this is further seen in the Psalms, particularly, Psalm 119. Six times the Psalmist prays for understanding and three other times he speaks of the understanding which comes from the Word:

Psalm 119:27 Make me understand the way of Thy precepts, So I will meditate on Thy wonders.

Psalm 119:34 Give me understanding, that I may observe Thy law, And keep it with all my heart.

Psalm 119:73 Thy hands made me and fashioned me; Give me understanding, that I may learn Thy commandments.

Psalm 119:125 I am Thy servant; give me understanding, That I may know Thy testimonies.

Psalm 119:144 Thy testimonies are righteous forever; Give me understanding that I may live.

Psalm 119:169 Let my cry come before Thee, O LORD; Give me understanding according to Thy word.

Why does the Psalmist pray like this?

Thus, eight times in this Psalm, we read of him meditating on the Word that he might better understand the Scripture and apply it to his life (vss. 15, 23, 27, 48, 78, 97, 99, 148).

But listen to these words from the Psalms:

Psalm 19:14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Thy sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.

Psalm 104:34 Let my meditation be pleasing to Him; As for me, I shall be glad in the LORD.

See more here:

Biblical Meditation | Bible.org