Biblical Meditation: What it is and what it is not.

In the first blog of this series on biblical meditation, we considered why this spiritual discipline is essential. The overall thrust of that blog was to highlight the need for us, as disciples of Jesus, to take seriously this spiritual discipline. In this blog, I aim to clarify what meditation is and is not. 

THE NEED FOR CLARITY

If you were to ask a couple of your neighbors or co-workers to describe what meditation is, you would receive diverse answers. The reason for this is the fact that meditation is no longer viewed primarily through the lens of Scripture. For many people, meditation reminds them of deep introspection, mindlessness, mysticism, or even Yoga. What is more unfortunate is that many Christians would answer similarly. David W. Saxton highlights this sad reality in his excellent book on biblical meditation titled God’s Battle Plan For The Mind; he writes, “Modern Christians have neglected the biblical practice of meditation to such an extent that many believe the entire practice is based in a pagan or Far Eastern religious concept.” (1)

Such confusion necessitates that we go back to the Scriptures to understand meditation as we seek to grow in this spiritual discipline as disciples. But before we do that, I believe it’ll be helpful to consider what meditation is not.

WHAT MEDITATION IS NOT

1) Meditation is not emptying your mind:

The picture that comes to mind for many when they hear the word meditation is the pursuit of mindlessness. They imagine a person sitting with their legs crossed and their eyes closed. Maybe they are murmuring a mantra or sitting in complete silence. Either way, they aim at a transcendental experience where they break free from thought and tap into pure awareness and inner peace. 

2) Meditation is not a mystical pursuit:

As people continue to pursue spirituality outside of Biblical Christianity, mysticism has continued to grow. Mysticism seeks spiritual experience in a way not patterned in and governed by Scripture. A movement that is steeped in this form of mysticism is the Contemplative Spirituality Movement. Many men and women who crave to be spiritually strong turn to some aspect of Contemplative Spirituality without even knowing it. They participate in actions like sitting in silence and solitude to hear God’s voice more clearly. 

These forms of meditation are not what the Bible commands and supports. Donald Whitney highlights this well, 

“The kind of meditation encouraged in the Bible differs from other kinds of meditation in several ways. While some advocate a kind of meditation in which you do your best to empty your mind, Christian meditation involves filling your mind with God and His truth. For some, meditation is an attempt to achieve complete mental passivity, but biblical meditation requires constructive mental activity.” (2)

WHAT MEDITATION IS

So now that we’ve considered what meditation is not. Let’s now begin to wrap our minds around what meditation, as defined by the Scriptures, actually is. To do this, let’s consider a couple of well-known Bible passages. The first is from the book of Psalms. The psalmist writes, “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” (Psalm 1:1-2).

The word “meditate” in this passage means to ponder and give serious thought and consideration to selected information. (3)

Another well-known Old Testament passage that speaks about meditation is Psalm 119:97, where we read, “O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.” The word meditation here is a different Hebrew word than the one in Psalm 1, but the emphasis is primarily the same. One Hebrew Dictionary defined the word this way, “devotional thought, i.e., the act of giving considerable thought about a person or subject, with a focus of responding properly to the information.” (4)

We see this emphasized also in the New Testament as well. For example, Paul in his instructions to the believers in Philippi told them the importance dwelling upon that which is honorable, right, pure, lovely, good repute, and excellent (Phi. 4:8). The Scriptures aptly fit all of these adjectives as the perfect Word of God (cf. Psalm 19:7). Thus we should make it our aim to dwell (i.e., meditate or ponder) upon the Scriptures. James the half brother of Jesus in his epistle states, “But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does” (James 1:25). The looking intently is another way of describing the discipline of meditation. 

As you can tell, the practice of meditation mentioned in these OT passages is far different from the world's understanding and practice of meditation. Biblical meditation is not emptying our mind or seeking subjective experience; it is the exact opposite. Biblical mediation is the act of filling and fixing our mind upon the Word of God.  

Donald Whitney defined it this way,

“the deep thinking on the truths and spiritual realities revealed in Scripture, or upon life from a scriptural perspective, for the purpose of understanding, application, and prayer.” (5)

Meditation as defined by the Scripture is the discipline of taking a specific truth or text and thinking deeply upon it so that it moves from truth you’ve heard or read to truth that you are convinced of and as a result of that you begin to live out.

Understanding what meditation is biblically also helps us to see that every person meditates. What a person must ask themself, especially the Christian, is “what am I meditating on?”

In the next blog, I’ll cover some practical ways for you to start and grow in this discipline so that you can live ON MISSION for the glory of God!

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1 David W. Saxton, God’s Battle Plan For The Mind (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2020), 15.

2  Donald Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2014), 46.

3  Swanson, J. (1997). In Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.). Logos Research Systems, Inc.

4  Swanson, J. (1997). In Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.). Logos Research Systems, Inc.

5 Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life, 46-47.