Biblical Meditation
“Blessed is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers!
But his delight is in the Law of the Lord, And on His Law he meditates day and night.
He will be like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.”
We live in a frenzied and fast-paced world that is increasingly demanding and digitized. A world where we are constantly being bombarded with marketing and messaging. The reality is we are constantly scrolling, skimming, surfing, and searching through a bottomless sea of data and information. And if we're being honest, we all live incredibly distracted lives. The result is that for most of us, we've lost the ability to think deeply and critically about much of anything.
Like a rock protruding from the ocean, which was once jagged and sharp, we eventually become worn down and washed out by the waves of the times. And then the door swings wide open to Satan, attempting to lure us into falling for the lies of this world. What do we do to combat all of this? Well, we'll do a five or ten-minute devotional reading of Scripture. We'll send up a few brief "flare prayers," and then we're off and running. Now, as a pastor, I'm all for Bible reading. I'm all for prayer. I'm not at all trying to malign or undermine those important spiritual disciplines. But do you see the imbalance? Do you see the problem? How is it possible to face the onslaught of information we face every day? How is it possible to fight the spiritual battles we each face with such an imbalance between biblical content and worldly influence? What I hope to show you here is that biblical meditation is an essential spiritual discipline for a thriving Christian life. It's a discipline that layers on top of our reading of God's Word. It's a discipline that builds upon the sermons we listen to on Sunday mornings. It's a discipline that drives biblical truth deep into our hearts and cements those truths into our minds. It's a discipline that enables us to fight and win the spiritual battles that we inevitably face every day.
The go-to text on biblical meditation is Psalm 1 and in the first three verses of that Psalm, it says, "How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the Law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, and in whatever he does, he prospers."
What I've just highlighted for you in Psalm 1:1-3 are the traits of the righteous person or in the words of Psalm 1:1, the blessed man. The blessed man is the one who has been redeemed, the one who loves God, and the one who is loved by God. The one who is blessed walks, abides, stands, sits, and dwells with God. Such a person is not swayed by the world and its wicked influences. Instead, their thoughts are taken captive by the thoughts of God, the perspective of God, and the plans and purposes of God, as revealed in the Word of God. That's exactly what we see in Psalm 1:2 which says, "his delight is in the Law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night."
Now, to be clear, the type of meditation the psalmist is describing here is not in any way related to the various Eastern or mystical forms of meditation that have been peddled in recent centuries. With those practices of meditation, whether it be yoga, transcendental meditation, relaxation therapy, or any of the various forms of the New Age Movement, the goal is to empty the mind. With those other forms of meditation, the emphasis is on becoming further and further detached from the world, losing our personhood, losing our individuality, and losing our consciousness as we somehow merge with the cosmic mind. That's not biblical meditation. That's not the meditation the author of Psalm 1 had in mind when he said, many centuries before any of those Eastern religions were birthed.
"And in His Law, he meditates day and night." The word that's used here in Psalm 1 for meditation means to murmur, to mutter, or even to converse in one's mind. It means to review over and over a thought in one's mind, to continually ponder or reflect. What the psalmist is describing is the blessed person being someone who is having a continual conversation with himself. Words, sentences, and thoughts are rattling around his mind as his synapses are firing. But he's not schizophrenic or deluded. He hasn't gone mad. He is intentionally and continually rolling over and over in his mind the truths he knows about God as they've been revealed to him in the Law of the Lord, meaning the Word of God.
True biblical meditation is not about emptying our minds or each of our thoughts. Instead, biblical meditation is about filling our minds with God's thoughts as we seek to draw nearer and nearer to Him and then we process those thoughts. We reflect and ruminate upon those thoughts. We chew on those thoughts the way a cow chews the cud as we go about our day. Biblical meditation is not about contemplating the concept of infinity, chants, mantras, or our eyes rolling back in our heads. No, biblical meditation involves thinking deeply about biblical truth. It's doing what Paul instructed us to do in Philippians 4:8 when he said, "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things." That word there means to reckon, consider, and give careful thought to contemplate. Dwell, he says, on these things.
Paul said it similarly in Colossians 3:2-3, "Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on the earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God." What are we called to give careful consideration to? He tells us - on the things above. Where do we find the revealed truth about the things above? We learn these truths from the wisdom that comes from above, as it says in James 3, namely the word of God. When we devote ourselves to this overlooked discipline of biblical meditation, we're going to become increasingly confident in our grasp of Scripture. We're going to sharpen our swords and become more spiritually discerning. And that, in turn, is going to better equip us to fight sin, refute error, grow in maturity and holiness, and live increasingly faithful lives in service to Christ.
