What is Biblical Meditation and is it different from other types of meditation?
The word meditation is a word with many meanings for many people, so it’s important to understand what is meant by anyone using this word. Meditation traditionally has had the meaning of thinking deeply, pondering, or active reflection or contemplation. This is what is meant by this word in the Old Testament. The word translated as meditation in several verses in the Psalms means to meditate in the sense of reflecting upon. In fact, the New Living Translation uses the word thought for meditation in several of these passages, such as in Ps. 19:14: “May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing to you.” Biblical meditation and thinking are very close; meditation is not separate from thought. We are to seek to understand God’s word with our minds, not to empty the mind, or to bypass the mind, for a supposed merging with God. We cannot do biblical meditation without thinking or pondering. However, due to the influx of Eastern religions and variations thereof in Western
