What do you think when you hear someone say the word “meditation?” What comes to mind for most people is what’s been called TM, or transcendental meditation. Its popularity some years ago kind of “highjacked” the term, and as a result, Christians especially, have unfortunately avoided the idea of meditation.
Today, what has been called transcendental meditation is now being called “mindfulness.” It’s basically the same thing with a different name. Both terms refer to a form of medication that is based on the Buddhist teaching on the 7th noble truth, which is “right mindfulness.” The field of psychology is loving the term “mindfulness, and there is a multiplicity of seminars on the use of mindfulness in working with clients.
Let’s clear up some of this confusion. Basically there are two types of meditation.
1.) There is the Eastern meditation, like mindfulness or TM, that seeks to empty the mind– to arrive at a state of “nothingness.” 2.) Then there is what is called “discursive meditation” which seeks the opposite of emptiness. It seeks to fill the mind through a sharpened focus. Some who teach a variant of mindfulness blend these two together. Discursive meditation is the kind of meditation the Bible speaks about, in particular in the Psalms. In Psalm 1, the psalmist says, I “delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night” (verse 2). Here the writer is filling his mind–i.e., discursive meditation.
Psalm 119 also repeatedly focuses on meditation. The author uses words like “the law,” “the commandments,” “decrees,” etc., as synonyms for “God’s word.” The same is true in Psalm 1. So we can look at these passages and substitute “God’s word” for the variety of different words used by the writer. For example:
“I will study your word and reflect on your ways.” (verse 15)
“Open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in your word.” (verse 18)
“Help me understand the meaning of your word, and I will meditate on your wonderful deeds.” (verse 27)
“How I delight in your words! How I love them.” (verse 47)
“I meditate on your age-old word; O Lord, they comfort me.” (verse 52)
You can read this Psalm and find more references to meditating on God’s word. But look especially at Psalm 119 11: “I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” What does he mean by “hiding your word in my heart?”
When Mary, the mother of Jesus, heard what the shepherds were told by the angels, Luke says she “hid all these things in her heart and thought about them often” (Luke 2:19). In other words, she meditated on them often.
How is meditation different from Bible study? In a Bible study, we are trying to understand what the passage meant to the writer, and what it means to me. The focus is on gaining knowledge about the facts. In contrast, meditation allows the passage to speak to me directly and individually. In meditation, it is my dependence on the Holy Spirit to make scripture speak into my life. In our next posting, we will describe the four parts of discursive mediation.
Question: Can you see the difference between studying the Bible and meditating on it?