{"id":1518,"date":"2009-05-21T04:05:27","date_gmt":"2009-05-21T10:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2009\/05\/praying-the-bible-the-meditation-of-lectio-divina\/"},"modified":"2015-03-13T17:05:01","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T22:05:01","slug":"praying-the-bible-the-meditation-of-lectio-divina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2009\/05\/21\/praying-the-bible-the-meditation-of-lectio-divina\/","title":{"rendered":"Praying the Bible – The Meditation of Lectio Divina"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Praying the Bible<\/b><\/u>
Intro<\/a> \u2013 lectio divina<\/a> \u2013 reading<\/a> \u2013 meditating<\/b> \u2013 praying \u2013 contemplating<\/div>\n

Depending on what version of the Bible you use, the word meditate<\/b> appears about fifteen times in the Old Testament. (It\u2019s not used at all in the New Testament.) Fourteen of the Old Testament uses are in the Psalms, six in Psalm 119.<\/p>\n

The one reference to meditate not in a psalm is a famous line from the opening of the book of Joshua. Moses has just died, and God speaks to Joshua, who will be leading the people of Israel into their Promised Land:<\/p>\n

\u201cMoses my servant is dead. Get going. Cross this Jordan River, you and all the people. Cross to the country I\u2019m giving to the People of Israel. . . . I\u2019ll be with you. I won\u2019t give up on you; I won\u2019t leave you. Strength! Courage! . . . Make sure you carry out The Revelation that Moses commanded you, every bit of it. Don\u2019t get off track, either left or right, so as to make sure you get to where you\u2019re going. And don\u2019t for a minute let this Book of The Revelation be out of mind. Ponder and meditate on it day and night, making sure you practice everything written in it. Then you\u2019ll get where you\u2019re going; then you\u2019ll succeed<\/b>.\u201d (Joshua 1:2-8)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n


\nWe can learn some things about the concept of meditation from this passage. To meditate means to keep something in mind\u2013in fact, to keep it in the front of your mind. God tells Joshua that his success at leading the people into Canaan is tied to his meditation on the books of Moses (commonly understood to be Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).<\/p>\n

Meditation and practice are linked. \u201cPonder and meditate on it day and night, making sure you practice everything written in it.\u201d God doesn\u2019t want Joshua to merely think about his Word. He also wants Joshua to put it into practice. Meditating on God\u2019s Word and living God\u2019s Word are, God says to Joshua, inextricably tied together.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Pastor and theologian Eugene Peterson<\/a> translated The Message<\/a><\/i>, and he writes that the Hebrew word for meditate is hagah<\/i>, which can also be translated \u201cgrowl\u201d or \u201cchew.\u201d For instance, that\u2019s the word used in Isaiah\u2019s prophecy: \u201cLike a lion, king of the beasts, that gnaws and chews and worries its prey\u201d (Isaiah 31:4). The kind of meditation to which God calls Joshua, and the kind of meditation to which the psalmist calls all of us, is more like a dog chewing a bone, or a lion working over a carcass, than what we usually think of as meditation<\/b>. <\/p>\n

Peterson writes,<\/p>\n

\u201cMeditate\u201d is far too tame a word for what is being signified. \u201cMeditate\u201d seems more suited to what I do in a chapel on my knees with a candle burning on the altar. Or my wife sitting in a rose garden with the Bible open in her lap. But when Isaiah\u2019s lion and my dog meditated, they chewed and swallowed, using teeth and tongue, stomach and intestines. <\/p>\n

The opening of the first psalm is usually translated,<\/p>\n

Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 or take the path that sinners tread,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 or sit in the seat of scoffers;
but their delight is in the law of the LORD,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and on his law they meditate<\/i> day and night. (Psalm1:1-2, NRSV, emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In The Message, Peterson translates it as,<\/p>\n

How well God must like you\u2013
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 you don\u2019t hang out at Sin Saloon,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 you don\u2019t slink along Dead-End Road,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 you don\u2019t go to Smart-Mouth College.
Instead you thrill to GOD\u2019s Word,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 you chew<\/i> on Scripture day and night. (Psalm 1:1-2, emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you want to read more, I invite you to check out Divine Intervention: Encountering God through the Ancient Practice of Lectio Divina<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Image from Wikipedia Commons<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Praying the BibleIntro \u2013 lectio divina \u2013 reading \u2013 meditating \u2013 praying \u2013 contemplating Depending on what version of the Bible you use, the word meditate appears about fifteen times in the Old Testament. (It\u2019s not used at all in the New Testament.) Fourteen of the Old Testament uses are in the Psalms, six in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,28,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-prayer","category-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nPraying the Bible - The Meditation of Lectio Divina<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Praying the BibleIntro - lectio divina - reading - meditating - praying - contemplatingDepending on what version of the Bible you use, the word meditate\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2009\/05\/21\/praying-the-bible-the-meditation-of-lectio-divina\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Praying the Bible - 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