A really practical guide on how to meditate
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The Bible is a place of encounter. It is a place of growth. It is the main place where we experience the love of God. Through the Bible we grow in knowing hope and peace. The Bible is a place of repentance and refreshing. The Bible is a place of discovery and adventure.
The Bible is loaded with wisdom for every day life. It paints the story of God’s love that has been at work since the dawn of creation. The Bible helps us to understand who God is and what God is like. The Bible is the place where we discover the person and work of Jesus. The Bible is where we understand the nature of man and our need for Jesus. Through the Bible we find grace and power for each day as we understand more about how a holy and pure God would love selfish sinners. The Bible is where we can grow strong in our faith and find strength to live a life of love.
So how do we read the Bible? How do we study the Bible? How do we meditate in the Bible?
First, you need to find a place where you can sit. It might be the bus, or your work desk or a comfy chair at home.
In order to meditate in the Bible, I would say there are 3 simple steps:
1: Pray
2: Read
3: Meditate
1 Pray
Holy Spirit is the one who reveals God’s love and the person of Jesus to us. We need to invite Holy Spirit to help and guide us. We need to ask him for help as we read the Bible. You don’t need to worry about eloquent language when you pray. Simply use your own words to say ‘Welcome Holy Spirit, help me and lead me as I read God’s word”.
In the act of prayer we are humbling ourselves. In the act of prayer we position ourselves to receive the love of God into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Through prayer we grow in our expectation to know more of the true beauty, majesty and power of our heavenly Father. Through prayer we grow in knowing the person and work of Jesus.
In the act of prayer we are remembering that we are not alone and that we have a teacher and guide to help us.
2 Read.
We need to read the Bible.
If you need a Bible, I would recommend a Study Bible or you can read the Bible App on your phone or laptop.
The question is - where do we start? It is a big book and can be daunting. The best way to read the Bible, is to read it all the way through from cover to cover. A good practise is to give yourself a year to read the Bible and then each year you can repeat the process.
Reading the Bible through each year will allow you to grow in understanding the big themes. When we read and study a set of verses within the wider context of a chapter and in the context of the whole Bible, we will properly understand what the Bible is saying.
When you read the Bible in a year, It takes around 15 minutes a day and you will cover around 3 chapters a day.
Here are three ways to read the Bible cover to cover:
A Start at Matthew and work through to Revelation and then go back to the start and carry on from Genesis to Mathew. This allows you to start with the story of Jesus and his life on Earth and the ministry of his disciples and then go back to see the build up to the coming of Jesus.
B Read straight from Genesis to Revelation. This allows you to get a clear chronological view of the Bible from the creation of the world until the return of Jesus.
C Read the Bible using ‘a Bible in a year plan’. You can find plans on the Bible app or you can buy a Bible that is divided into a one year plan.
3 Meditate
Meditation is thinking deeply and doing further study around the passage you have just read. Meditation is the process of Holy Spirit bringing revelation on the inside as he reveals more of Jesus and God’s love. You can choose to spend anything from 5 minutes to 5 hours in meditation on the verses that you have just read.
The First step of meditation is to go back to any words and phrases that jumped out as you were reading. Begin to ask questions as you ponder on those key words. What is the meaning of the words that stood out? Sometimes a dictionary can be useful to find out.
Second you can read other translations of the same passage to help you develop a richer understanding of the key words that stood out. Use your Bible app or if you are near a computer use Biblegateway.com and at the top of the page you have the ability to read that same passage in multiple Bible translations.
Third you can use a Study Bible and look in the margins of each page, where you will find verses listed that relate too many of the key words and phrases from that page.
Fourth you can use a Bible commentary, which is a bit like watching match of the day. A Bible commentary is where respected Bible scholars give detailed analysis and shed light on every verse of the Bible and help us think more clearly about God’s word. Over many hundreds of years, there have been many commentaries written by Godly men and women.
If you have a Study Bible, then you can read the commentaries at the bottom of each page that relate to the verses that you have read.
Through the power of the internet, there are now websites where we can easily explore lots of commentaries and find detailed analysis on every verse in the Bible. Study Light and Enduring Word are two great websites with great commentaries.
Finally meditation is the process of connection and application. It is taking the fresh understanding you have gotten through meditation and then thinking about an area in your life and allowing Holy Spirit through prayer to help you apply what you have read.
For example it might mean that you need to rethink about a situation in the light of God’s word or it might be finding fresh love for a person or it might be forgiving someone or it might be giving a situation to Jesus!
Further Study
Here are some further helpful resources:
You can watch videos that will give you an overview for every book in the Bible with the Bible Project. John Piper has produced many videos that give a detailed overview of many keys verses in the Bible.
