How Exactly Do I Meditate?

ABSTRACT: Historically, Protestants have prized the biblical practice of meditation as one of God’s chief means of grace. Unlike Roman Catholics, however, the Reformers, Puritans, and their spiritual descendants have rarely offered detailed instructions for exactly how to meditate. The two approaches represent differing convictions about Scripture and tradition, and differing understandings of meditation itself. The Protestant practice, which is less directive than the Catholic approach, esteems the primacy of Scripture, treats meditation as a path for the whole Christian pilgrimage, and far better serves real communion with God.

One of the more encouraging trends in evangelical Christianity in recent years has been a renewed emphasis on the biblical practice of meditation. Authors like Tom Schwanda, David Saxton, and David Mathis have helped reintroduce this often neglected practice to evangelical readers.¹ According to David Mathis, meditation is “perhaps the most misunderstood, and most underrated, of the disciplines in the church today.” My own evangelical upbringing certainly accords with this assessment. Despite frequent exhortations to read the Bible and to pray, I don’t remember any mention of meditation. And yet, as Mathis rightly notes, meditation “is the high point of receiving God’s word.”²

Unlike the secular concept of meditation that has become incredibly popular in recent years, meditation in the biblical sense has nothing to do with breathing techniques, bodily postures, and clearing the mind. Rather, when we speak of Christian meditation — the sort practiced by biblical saints and commended in the Psalter — we mean a focused reflection on God and the things of God. Meditation is a deliberate, sanctified contemplation of who God is, what he has done, and what he promises to do in the future. We see it modeled by Mary in Luke’s Gospel when, after hearing the shepherds’ report of God’s promises concerning the baby Jesus, she “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). The Bible consistently portrays this activity as both a duty and a delight. In Psalm 63, for example, David satisfies the deepest longings of his soul through a self-conscious reflection on the faithfulness and goodness of God:

My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,
      and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
when I remember you upon my bed,
      and meditate on you in the watches of the night. (Psalm 63:5–6)

Here, as elsewhere in Scripture, meditation is the key means through which we appropriate and benefit from God’s truth. It is the vital conduit through which the knowledge of God flows from head to heart.

Reformation Legacy

While meditation has often been less frequently discussed among modern evangelicals, historically the practice has been highly prized among Reformation-minded Protestants, who have consistently placed it alongside Scripture intake and prayer as one of the three core disciplines that together constitute the means through which we enjoy personal communion with the living God.³ So when, for example, the founders of Princeton Theological Seminary established guidelines for student conduct in 1812, they listed meditation as a foundational requirement for all seminarians:

It is expected that every student in the Theological Seminary will spend a portion of time every morning and evening in devout meditation, and self-recollection and examination; in reading the holy Scriptures solely with a view to a personal and practical application of the passage read, to his own heart, character, and circumstances, and in humble fervent prayer, and praise to God in secret.⁴

In commending meditation like this, the leadership of old Princeton was simply following the broader Reformed tradition, throughout which we find a constant commitment to meditation as a key means God has chosen to build us up in faith.

The English Puritans in particular insisted that meditation was essential to personal piety. For example, the minister John Ball (1585–1640) argued that without meditation “a Christian life cannot stand.” Likewise, Thomas Watson (1620–1686) affirmed that meditation is “a duty wherein the very heart and lifeblood of religion lies.”⁵ For these pastor-theologians, meditation was plainly commanded in Scripture and vital for spiritual flourishing. They understood that the “blessed” man of Psalm 1 was one whose “delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:1–2).

Protestant Generality, Roman Catholic Specificity

While the importance of meditation was clearly stated by these authors, precisely what the practice should entail has been less clear. It’s not that Puritan authors didn’t write at length about meditation; they certainly did, as evidenced by treatises such as Nathanael Ranew’s lengthy work Solitude Improved by Divine Meditation (1670). In their descriptions of meditation, however, they conspicuously avoid providing the reader with detailed directions for how one is to go about meditating. As the historian Alec Ryrie observes, these authors “scrupulously avoided being prescriptive.”⁶ So, while one finds page upon page commending meditation and unpacking its spiritual benefits, one does not find much by way of a concrete how-to guide.

This lack of specificity can be frustrating to readers who are convinced of meditation’s significance but unsure how to proceed. As one scholar notes, in Puritan devotional literature the word “meditation” is often used without “very much precision of meaning,” sometimes seeming to suggest “little more than ‘thoughts about.’”⁷

Moreover, the Puritan reticence to elaborate on the nuts and bolts of meditation stands in stark contrast with Roman Catholic writing on the subject. Many Roman Catholic works on meditation are much more specific and prescriptive than their Protestant counterparts, often featuring numerous stages, steps, and levels that must be attained in sequence.

Take, for example, the influential spiritual writings of the Spanish Benedictine abbot García de Cisneros (1455–1510). His Book of Spiritual Exercises (1500), which would go on to profoundly influence the work of Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), describes a three-week process in which a method for meditation is spelled out in considerable detail. Specific words, following a specific sequence and accompanied by movements and gestures, are prescribed. The three-week program divides into three main parts — the Way of Purity, the Way of Enlightenment, and the Way of Union. Each of these three parts is subdivided further. The Way of Union, for instance, admits of “six degrees of unitive love . . . terminating in rapture.”⁸ One Catholic author describes Cisneros’s exercises as forming “a sort of scientific manual, for leading the soul onward in the way of God, not at haphazard, but by those steps which . . . form the usual path to be trodden.”⁹ Those reading the Book of Spiritual Exercises and taking it seriously could move step by step through the program and never feel at a loss for exactly what to do next.

Among Puritan authors, you do not find anything so specific. Thomas Manton (1620–1677) is more representative of the Reformation approach to meditation when he cautions against any tendency to “bridle up the free spirit by the rules of method.” Like other Reformed authors, Manton eschews “arbitrary directions” and prescriptions: “We do not prescribe, but advise.”¹⁰ This seemingly stubborn refusal to provide the sort of specific instruction that readers might want raises a number of questions. First, why is this the case? Is this just the way things happened to work out, or is there something intrinsic to the logic of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism that would make these two approaches fitting and natural for each? And then, second, if one believes, as I do, that the Protestant approach is more biblically faithful, why might we have reason to celebrate, rather than lament, the prescriptive silence of our Reformation forebears?

To understand the difference between the Catholic and Protestant approaches to meditation, we can consider two distinct but interrelated points: first, each tradition’s approach to Scripture, and second, the way in which each tradition has understood the larger purpose of meditation itself.

Principle of Sola Scriptura

First and most clearly, the Protestant commitment to sola Scriptura affects Protestant commentary on meditation by placing clear limits on what pastor-theologians can prescribe. By affirming, as the Westminster Confession (1646) puts it, that “the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life” is found in God’s word and that “nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men,” Protestant theologians self-consciously restricted their authority to extend only so far as the Scriptures themselves.¹¹ A pastor thus cannot bind the conscience by requiring Christians to engage in any activity or spiritual practice beyond what is clearly taught in the Bible. To do so would be legalism and tantamount to committing the sin of the Pharisees in Jesus’s day, when they would “tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders” (Matthew 23:4).

The history of the Reformation provides many examples of this logic in action. For instance, the Reformers often complained about the medieval church’s imposition of mandatory fast days. Their argument was not against fasting per se, but rather against the practice of church officers who, acting in their official capacity, extended their authority beyond biblical boundaries and required people to obey commands not found in Scripture.

Similarly, the historian Peter Marshall reports that a common complaint against late-medieval priests in England was, quoting an early modern source, their penchant for “moving men’s wives to folly.” Marshall explains that this phrase probably referred to “the practice of exhorting wives to refuse to sleep with their husbands at certain holy times and seasons, principally during Lent.”¹² So again, the Reformation objection here was not to the idea of married couples taking a period of voluntary abstinence per se (Paul suggests something like this in 1 Corinthians 7:5). Rather, the problem was that church officers were binding consciences with respect to concrete particulars, specifying days and durations during which a married couple might “deprive one another” (1 Corinthians 7:5).

Committed to the principle of sola Scriptura, the Reformers maintained that church officers have been given what is often described as “a ministerial and declarative” authority.¹³ This means that pastors and teachers are only ministers or stewards of an authority that has been entrusted to them; their rightful authority extends only to declare what God has already said in his word.

“Meditation is the key means through which we appropriate and benefit from God’s truth.”

Applying this logic to the practice of meditation, we can see more clearly why Puritan and Reformed writers were so hesitant to give detailed descriptions of precisely how to meditate. Their concern was to avoid inappropriately binding the consciences of their hearers and readers, and to do that with respect to meditation meant that they must avoid implying that an extrabiblical set of rules is required for real faithfulness. To elaborate a sequence of steps risks suggesting that said sequence must be followed for meditation to be effective and beneficial.

Roman Catholic writers, by contrast, are not similarly constrained. For them, Scripture’s authority stands alongside the unwritten tradition of the church. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God.”¹⁴ In light of this, one can begin to understand why Catholic theologians putting forward elaborate systems of meditation would not feel the same hesitancy that has historically constrained Puritan and Reformed authors.

Purpose of Meditation

A commitment to sola Scriptura likely explains most Reformed authors’ unwillingness to be as specific and prescriptive as their Roman Catholic counterparts. A second reason is found in the way that the two traditions conceptualize the role and purpose of meditation.

For many Catholic authors, meditation of the sort commended by the Puritans was presented as an initial or preliminary stage for those in the beginning of their spiritual journey. If meditation is carried out successfully, it should lead the practitioner to something called “contemplation,” which is a deeper, more mystical experience of God’s presence that, unlike meditation, is typically wordless. The Roman Catholic theologian and spiritual writer Louis Bouyer (1913–2004) explains the distinction as follows:

The majority of modern spiritual writers . . . make a radical distinction between contemplation and the meditation that precedes it. Meditation, laborious by nature, is the activity of beginners in the spiritual life, or of those who have not yet progressed very far in it. But normally, one ought to attain a phase of spiritual progress in which meditation no longer adds anything, or even becomes psychologically impossible to carry out. Then, it would seem, contemplation will flower of its own accord.¹⁵

By characterizing meditation as an introductory phase to be passed through on the way to the higher heights of contemplation, Catholic authors had a rationale for providing detailed, step-by-step instructions, namely, to help their readers progress to a higher level of spiritual activity. Absent such detailed prescriptions, how could one be sure that such progress was actually taking place?

For Reformed authors, by contrast, meditation was a God-given end in itself and meant to be practiced and enjoyed by Christians at every stage of life. The regenerate heart delights in meditation and grows in that sense of delight the more it meditates. But the Christian never moves beyond it to something better. Indeed, the very idea that one might move “beyond” word-centered meditation is inconceivable because on this side of glory meditating on God and the promises of God constitutes, in a real sense, communion with God himself. “The all-encompassing goal and objective of meditation,” writes the Dutch pastor-theologian Wilhelmus à Brakel (1635–1711), is “to acquaint ourselves with God and to have communion with Him, since that constitutes the felicity of the soul.”¹⁶ Throughout his explanation of meditation, à Brakel never suggests that it is a preliminary stage on the road to deeper spiritual experience. Instead, he describes “spiritual meditation” as “the activity of a godly person who has spiritual light and life” and is growing ever closer to his Creator:

He knows God and has a desire after God; this is the reason why his heart is repeatedly drawn to God. It was so sweet and delightful to him to have seen and tasted something of God that he could not forget it. Time and again it comes to mind and he desires to experience this again in a greater measure. Such meditation gives this experience a new sense of sweetness and stirs up his desires.¹⁷

That is not a description of something that one could move beyond, nor would one want to. If the goal of meditation is mastery of the practice so that I can graduate to a higher plane of spiritual experience, then a detailed how-to guide makes more sense. But if biblical meditation is not “the activity of beginners in the spiritual life,” as Bouyer put it, but rather of the essence of the Christian spiritual life throughout its entire duration, then the idea of providing a detailed set of instructions on how to do it “correctly” is neither possible nor desirable. This abiding sense that meditation — along with Scripture reading and prayer — is, in fact, our communion with God and the substance of the spiritual life restrained Reformed devotional writers and checked any impulse to provide an overly detailed set of instructions.

No Roadmap to Holiness

Evangelical Christians who convert to Roman Catholicism often describe their journey to Rome in terms of discovering a bigger, richer, more elaborate world of religious practice and experience. In his recent memoir, From Calvinist to Catholic, the Roman Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft strikes this note: “Evangelicalism is necessary but not sufficient. It is the foundation but not the whole building.”¹⁸ This sentiment that evangelicalism is good but incomplete and underdeveloped is often expressed by those who turn to Rome and are excited by, among other things, the Catholic spiritual tradition’s penchant for elaborate programs and methods of meditation. Such converts are not wrong to observe that Catholic spirituality provides more elaborate roadmaps for meditation, but does such specificity really entail a better way?

A bedrock principle for Reformation-minded Christians is that God has given us in his word all we could ever need to live the Christian life. As one wonderful hymn puts it, “What more can He say than to you He hath said?”¹⁹ Though we sometimes want more — more detail, more explanation, more specificity — our lives are controlled and guided by the promise that God’s word is enough. By it and through it, he will lead us through all the trials and difficulties we will encounter in this life. If meditation is the God-ordained means through which we apply that word to the particulars of our life — or, as the Puritan Richard Greenham (1535–1594) put it, how we “mak[e] that which we have read to be our own” — then how could the practice ever admit of an elaborate, fully spelled-out method?²⁰

The Puritans didn’t prescribe steps for meditation for the same reason one can’t prescribe specific steps for falling more deeply in love with one’s spouse: It’s simply not the sort of activity that admits such instruction. You can talk about it, celebrate its beauties, warn of its challenges, and give general guidelines, but, ultimately, you cannot tell another person exactly how to do it because a relational dynamic unfolds gradually across a lifetime and is shaped at every turn by the particularities of the individuals involved. Listen to how a group of Puritan ministers encourages us to take up the promises of God and meditate upon them:

If thou wouldest have thy understanding enlightened with the knowledge of God, thy affections inflamed with the love of God, thy heart established with the promises of God, thy solitariness cheared up with the company of God, thy afflictions mitigated with the comforts of God; and if thou wouldest have thy thoughts, words, and works regulated by the command of God, pray and consider, pray and meditate.²¹

That is not a prescription of a technique or a method for achieving a certain kind of spiritual experience. Rather, it is a description of our entire Christian pilgrimage, a description of the lived-out reality of a person united to Christ, dependent on the Spirit and striving to glorify God in everything. Meditation, then, represents the slow, steady, highly personal assimilation of God’s truth through which we are daily shaped and conformed into the image of Christ. Such an activity is not easily codified and condensed into steps and rules, and that reality is God-given and for our good.