At Bible Gateway, we don’t think biblical meditation is a lost art by any means. Nor does it have to be that far out of reach, though it sometimes seems to be.
While I was in school I made a handful of attempts to systematically read through the Bible from Genesis through Revelation. I always seemed to get mired in Leviticus, and this frustrated me—my failure of progress.
But I wasn’t reading Scripture as an act of devotion to my Creator. I wasn’t reading it to gain a greater resistance to temptation or to increase my wisdom in Christ. All of us at Bible Gateway are advocates of reading the entirety of Scripture. Each book is unique and God-breathed. But my early attempts at “reading the Bible” were not different than the way I might tackle any other challenging, or long, book.
It wasn’t an act of worship in which progress and a sense of completion are never as important as an openness to the living words of God in earthly binding. I hadn’t grasped the discipline of meditating on Scripture.
People often talk about the idea of biblical meditation as a lost art. In an age when every second is counted, a practice that—by its very nature—requires slowness and time might seem “lost” in some sense. It’s certainly counter-cultural.
But, like any other discipline, it’s just that biblical meditation is overlooked; uncultivated. Its success is a matter of mindset, priorities, and—most of all—practice.
Bible Gateway is devoted to the discipline of biblical meditation. We understand that the Bible is more than merely a book to be read, which is why we focus on a range of different ways to engage with Scripture.
One good place to start is Meditation: The Overlooked Christian Discipline, our one-week daily devotional that will walk you through the simple joy of meditating on God’s Word. It’s free; we email it to you; it’s very simple. But its goal is that you learn how a quiet focus on Scripture can transform your mind and, therefore, your outlook on the hectic world.
Sometimes starting simple is the best way to form a habit that becomes a life-long discipline. Each day’s reading includes some important verses to go to and a tip for how to sharpen your mind on God’s words.
Here’s the sign-up page to get started.
See how you will benefit when you become a member of Bible Gateway Plus.
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