Meditating on God’s Word

Thoughts on Psalm 4:4

The Bible places great emphasis on the meditation of God and His Word. In fact, the Bible makes clear that you cannot grow spiritually without meditating on His Word.

Perhaps the best way to describe the importance of meditation is to liken it to the process of digestion. While it is important to consume the food (or to use a spiritual analogy based on Matthew 6:11 and 4:4, to consume the Word of God), if what we consume is not broken down and digested so that it can be absorbed by the body and become nutritious, it renders no benefit. In fact, there are medical maladies whereby individuals can actually consume large amounts of food but die of starvation because the body does not break down and digest the food; so, too, with the intake of God’s Word.

First Timothy 4:15 commands “meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all” (NKJV). Notice the sequence: if you (1) mediate on these things, (2) your growth and maturity will become evident to everyone. Similarly, Joshua 1:8 commands us to (1) meditate in His Word day and night, then (2) your way will be prosperous and you will have good success. Other verses that emphasize the importance of meditation include Psalm 63:6, Psalm 119:15, 99.

In both the spiritual and the physical realms, it is not how fast or how much you eat that is important, but rather how much you digest. And digestion takes time; you have to go over and over the same content similar to a cow chewing its cud. After cows have eaten, they lie down and remain quietly in place, going back over what they ingested to allow digestion, and thus health and growth, to take place.

When you read God’s word, which should be done dail), be sure to meditate on what you just read. Take the time to ask yourself questions such as who (To whom was this passage written?), what (What was the theme of this passage?), when and where (What were the circumstances that caused the message in this passage to be delivered?), why (Why was the message in this passage given?), and how (How will I apply what is in this passage to my own life? What changes must I make in my own speaking, thinking, or behavior?). This meditation will move our spiritual life beyond merely ingesting the “milk” of God’s Word and on to its “solid food” (Hebrews 5:12-14).

John Quincy Adams was one of many Founding Fathers who had consumed much of God’s Word. As he acknowledged:

My custom is to read four or five chapters every morning immediately after rising from my bed. It employs about an hour of my time and seems to me the most suitable manner of beginning the day.¹

In addition to his regular daily readings, every Sunday he usually covered additional chapters, frequently studying and comparing translations of the Bible in several different languages (of which he could speak seven). One Sunday in 1826, while serving as president of the United States, he recorded:

Heard Mr. [Robert] Little [pastor of a church Adams attended] from Psalm 119:133: “Order my steps in Thy Word, and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.” A desultory [spontaneous] and impressive moral discourse [sermon], setting forth by various illustrations the different modes by which iniquity [sin] may obtain dominion over us. Among his quotations from Scripture was that of the first seven verses of the fifth chapter of Isaiah (the song of the vineyard that brought forth wild grapes). In this instance, as in numberless others, I was struck with the careless inattention of my own mind when reading the Bible. I had read the chapter of Isaiah, containing this parable I dare say fifty times, and it was altogether familiar to my memory; but I had never perceived a fiftieth part of its beauty and sublimity. The closing verse of the parable, especially which points the moral of the allegory, speaks with irresistible energy: “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant, and He looked for judgment, but behold oppression – for righteousness, but behold a cry” [Isaiah 5:7].²

Significantly, Adams was fifty-eight when he made this diary entry, and it had been his practice from his youth to read through the entire Bible every year.³ So despite having already read this passage from Isaiah “I dare say fifty times,” he still saw something brand new in it. As he confessed, “I was struck with the careless inattention of my own mind when reading the Bible,” and it is for this reason that meditation receives such an emphasis in the Bible. We must read God’s Word every day; but we must also take time to digest what we read—to “meditate within your own heart…and be still” (Psalm 4:4).

Endnotes

¹ John Quincy Adams, Letters of John Quincy Adams, to His Son on the Bible and Its Teachings (New York: Derby, Miller, & Co., 1848), 11-12.

² John Quincy Adams, diary entry for November 5, 1826, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1874), 7:168-169.

³ Adams, Letters of John Quincy Adams, to His Son (1848), 10-11.