Lesson 2 | Learning to slow down: making observations, comparing versions
Own the value of meditating on God's Word
bib⦁li⦁cal med⦁i⦁ta⦁tion noun Lingering long over a portion of Scripture with careful, prayerful thought to both the meaning of the text and its implications for our lives.
David Mathis explores the biblical value of meditating on Scripture in his book, Habits of Grace:
Maybe it’s the multiplied distractions of modern life, and the increased impairments of sin’s corruption, but meditation is more the lost art today than it was for our fathers in the faith. We are told, “Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening” (Gen. 24:63), and three of the more important texts in the Hebrew Scriptures, among others, call for meditation in such a way that we should sit up and take notice—or better, slow down, block out distractions, and give it some serious consideration. The first is Joshua 1:8. At a key juncture in redemptive history, following the death of Moses, God himself speaks to Joshua, and three times gives the clear directive, “Be strong and courageous” (Josh. 1:6, 7, 9). How is he to do this? Where will he fill his tank with such strength and courage? Meditation. “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night” (Josh. 1:8). God means not for Joshua to be merely familiar with the Book, or that he read through sections of it quickly in the morning, or even just that he go deep in it in study, but that he be captivated by it and build his life on its truths. His spare thoughts should go there, his idle mind gravitate there. God’s words of instruction are to saturate his life, give him direction, shape his mind, form his patterns, fuel his affections, and inspire his actions. Two more key texts come in the first Psalm and the longest. Psalm 1:1–2 echoes the language of Joshua 1, “Blessed is the man . . . [whose] delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” The blessed one, the happy one, who delights in God’s word, doesn’t avail himself of the words of life merely with some quick breadth reading, punctuated with blocks of study, but “meditates day and night.” And meditation nearly dominates Psalm 119 and its celebration of the words of God, as the psalmist says he meditates “on your precepts” (vv. 15 and 78), “on your statutes” (vv. 23 and 48), and “on your wondrous works” (v. 27). He claims, “Your testimonies are my meditation” (v. 99) and exclaims, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” (v. 97). If God’s old-covenant instruction could be so precious to the psalmist, how much more should the new-covenant gospel captivate our meditation.
Rather than simply reading about meditation, let’s take some time to actually meditate on God’s word. Before hurrying on to the next step, take the time to watch the following meditation by John Piper. Don’t merely watch in order to see a great example of what biblical meditation looks like. Open your Bible to Proverbs 22:13 and meditate on God’s word along with Pastor John.
