Biblical Meditation

Puritans on Biblical Meditation

What is Meditation?

One hindrance to growth among Christians today is our failure to cultivate spiritual knowledge. We fail to give enough time to prayer and Bible-reading, and we have abandoned the practice of meditation

Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 889.

The Puritans never tired of saying that biblical meditation involves thinking upon the triune God and His Word. By anchoring meditation in the living Word, Jesus Christ, and God’s written Word, the Bible, the Puritans distanced themselves from the kind of bogus spirituality or mysticism that stresses contemplation at the expense of action and flights of the imagination at the expense of biblical content.

For the Puritans, meditation exercised both the mind and the heart; he who meditates approaches a subject with his intellect as well as his affections. Thomas Watson (c. 1620–1686) defined meditation as “a holy exercise of the mind whereby we bring the truths of God to remembrance, and do seriously ponder upon them and apply them to ourselves.”

Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 890.

Scriptural Precedence - All taken from David Saxton’s book.

Old Testament

Joshua 1:8“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

Psalm 1:2“but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.”

It can be translated as “moan,” “growl,” “roar,” “utter,” “muse,” “mutter,” “meditate,” “devise,” “plot,” “speak,” or “imagine.”

Thomas Watson aptly expressed, “He who delights in God’s law is often thinking on it. What a man delights in, his thoughts are running upon. He who delights in money finds his mind taken up with it; therefore the covetous man is said to ‘mind earthly things’ (Phil. 3:19).

New Testament

Dwelling or Thinking. Philippians 4:8“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Considering. Hebrews 10:24–25“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

— “to direct one’s whole mind to an object, also from a higher standpoint to immerse oneself in it and hence to apprehend it in its whole compass.”

Pondering. Luke 2:19“But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.”

Setting One’s Affections. Colossians 3:20“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.”

Remembering. “Remember” is the word mnamoneuo, which means “to recall information from memory.”

Puritan Definitions

Thomas Hooker: “Meditation is a serious intention of the mind whereby we come to search out the truth, and settle it upon the heart.”18

• William Fenner: “Meditation is a settled exercise of the mind for a further inquiry of the truth, and so affecting the heart therewith, and therefore there be four things in meditation…. 1) An exercise of the mind…. 2) A settled exercise…. It dwells upon a truth…. 3) To make further inquiry…. Meditation pulls the latch of the truth and looks into every closet, and every cupboard, and every angle of it…. 4) It labors to affect the heart.”19

• William Bates: “Meditation is the serious exercise of the understanding, whereby our thoughts are fixed on the observation of spiritual things in order to practice.”20

• Thomas White: “Divine meditation…is a serious, solemn thinking and considering of the things of God, to the end we might understand how much they concern us, and that our hearts thereby may be raised to some holy affections and resolutions.”21 He later explains the three parts of meditation: consideration, affections, and resolutions.22

• Thomas Watson: “Meditation…is a holy exercise of the mind whereby we bring the truths of God to remembrance, and do seriously ponder upon them and apply them to ourselves.”23 “Meditation is the soul’s retiring of itself so that, by a serious and solemn thinking upon God, the heart may be raised up to heavenly affections.”24

• John Ball: “Meditation is a serious, earnest and purposed musing upon some point of Christian instruction, tending to lead us forward toward the Kingdom of Heaven, and serving our daily strengthening against the flesh, the world, and the devil.”25

Meditation is Filling One’s Mind with Scriptural and Heavenly Thoughts.

Scripture is the focus

Affecting One’s Heart with the Goal of Personal Application

Never divorced from practical living.

Puritans on its Importance

Deliberate Meditation and Occasional Meditation.

Occasional - The Puritans described occasional meditation with adjectives like extemporaneous, sudden, spontaneous, or short. Occasional meditation is spontaneously using any occasion of life to lift one’s thoughts Godward to consider His greatness, glory, and truth. As William Bates wrote, “Occasional meditation brings this advantage to us, the world, which is the house of man, is made the temple of God.”

It Can Be Accomplished at Any Time and in Any Place The Puritans used occasional meditation to bridge the gap between a warm heart for the Lord and the busyness of life.

It Provides a Plan for Daily Spiritual Growth and Godly Thinking

It Uses Common Occasions of Life to Consider Spiritual Truth The Puritans believed that God intended life to be viewed as a series of spiritual lessons to be gleaned for spiritual edification—if one only had eyes to see.

Deliberate - self-explantory.

Thomas Gouge counseled that “a set and deliberate meditation is a serious applying of the mind to some spiritual subject, discoursing thereof with thyself to the end thine heart may be warmed, thine affections quickened, and thy resolutions heightened to a greater love of God [and] hatred of sin.”

Swinnock wrote similarly that “solemn meditation is a serious applying the mind to some sacred subject, till the affections be warmed and quickened, and the resolution heightened and strengthened thereby, against what is evil, and for that which is good.”

How to Meditate

Absolute concentration and freedom from distractions are necessary for effective Scripture meditation. Scripture proves this commitment to solitude.

Place to do it - Hall, “Solitariness of place is fittest for meditation. Retire thyself from others if thou wouldst talk profitably with thyself.”

William Bates provided principles to determine the length of time to devote to regular daily meditation. It should continue “so long ordinarily till thou dost find some sensible benefit conveyed… As it is in the kindling of a fire in wet wood,…when you blow at first, there is a little smoke arises, by holding on you raise sparks, but he that goes forward at last brings it to a flame. So it is in the duty of meditation.”

Amount of time.

Swinnock illustrated this point: “The milk must be set some time, before it turns to cream. The longer physic remains within me, the more operative it will be…. As the hen, by sitting on her eggs some weeks, warmeth and hatcheth young ones; so may I, by applying savoury subjects home to my soul, and brooding some considerable time on them, bring forth new affections and new actions.”

Manton summed up the guiding principle when he wrote: “Come not off from holy thoughts till you find profit by them, either sweet tastes and relishes of the love of God, or…strong resolutions begotten in yourselves.”34

Consistency.

Richard Baxter, 1) Because seldom conversing with him will breed a strangeness betwixt thy soul and God…. 2) Seldomness will make thee unskillful in the work…. 3) Thou wilt lose that heat and light by long intermissions, which with much ado thou didst obtain in duty…. When thou hast been long rolling thy stony heart towards the top of the hill, it should go faster down when thou dost slack thy diligence.

Other types of meditation.

Topical meditation.

Meditating on Sin in Order to Overcome It

The Puritans spent much time meditating on sin. John Ball, Thomas Manton, and Thomas Hooker provided the greatest detailed instructions for meditating on sin. The Puritans in general advised the believer to consider in his meditations various aspects of the nature of sin itself.

Meditate on the horrible and heinous nature of sin. Haggai 1:5 declares, “Now therefore, thus saith the LORD of hosts, ‘Consider your ways!’” Psalm 119:59 testifies, “I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.”

Meditate on the foolishness and consequences of sin. A second way to overcome sin is to meditate on the folly, tragedy, stupidity, and eternal consequences of sin. As Manton taught, “Men are the more bold in adventuring upon sin because they do not know the danger.”

Meditate on subjects designed to conquer a particular temptation to sin.

— Ranew, “It will be wisdom to consider that sin or corruption which troubles me most, which out of this spring of self and sinful interest is more apt to ooze out of my heart, and make a breach in the banks that Christ by his grace had made there…. I must particularly consider this daily, that it get not at any time ground of me, but that I gain upon it more, that I watch it, fight it, look that this gangrene spread not, run not up to my heart, but that I stop and kill it. Minding it duly will provoke to endeavor a right course for the just cure and sound healing of it.”

Meditate on God’s glorious nature. Psalm 145:5 instructs God’s children to ponder both the person and works of the Lord: “I will speak [or meditate] of the glorious honor of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works.”

Meditate on God’s attributes. The majority of Puritan instruction about meditating on God directed the believer to dwell upon God’s specific perfections, characteristics, or attributes.

Meditate on God’s works and providential dealings. —>

Meditating on Eternity

— Many Christians struggle with carnal perspectives on life because they disobey the Spirit’s command: “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).

Meditate on the certainty of death.

— Watson presented four aspects of death on which to meditate: (1) death’s certainty (Heb. 9:27); (2) its proximity or nearness (Ps. 39:5); (3) life’s uncertainty, stating that “today we may lie upon a pillow of down; tomorrow we may be laid upon a pillow of dust”; and (4) the aftermath being eternally fixed (Eccl. 9:10).

Meditate on God’s sure judgment. Hebrews 9:27 laid out the clear truth that “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”

— Watson taught that meditation on the day of judgment would not only “make us evaluate our actions,” but it would focus our attention on God’s opinion of them, rather than upon man’s approval.

Meditate on the sobering reality of hell.

— Thomas Watson, “Meditation on hell would cause rejoicing in a child of God…. Christ himself has felt the pains of hell for you. The Lamb of God being roasted in the fire of God’s wrath, by this burnt-offering the Lord is now appeased toward His people. Oh, how may the godly rejoice!”

Practical Example

Praying for the Spirit’s Help for Fervency

Choosing a Scriptural Thought by Bible Reading

Questioning, Considering, and Examining Oneself

Concluding with Personal Application, Resolution, and Prayer