Dr. John MacArthur – Elements of Productive Bible Study: Meditate

As we examine and evaluate the spiritual formation movement, we’ve been considering a key question about how the Lord works in our lives: “If God’s Word is the foundation of our faith and the source of our spiritual growth, how do we get the most out of it?”

Last week we looked at the importance of reading and accurately interpreting God’s Word. This week I want to highlight a couple more key elements of productive Bible study—the first is meditation.

Many spiritual formation gurus would agree that meditating plays an important role in Bible study and spiritual growth. But their concept of meditation is far broader and more introspective than what the Bible calls for, and it has very little to do with actually studying Scripture. Many of them encourage believers to meditate on creation, their own imaginations, and their own subjective interpretations of verses—or excerpts of verses—regardless of their biblical context.

Instead of dwelling on fixed, eternal truth, modern forms of meditation focus on what a verse or passage means to the individual, and what kind of application he can come up with on his own. It’s an exegetical free-for-all, where the relevance of Scripture is determined by the reader.