This is my third and final post in this Study Techniques series. The last study technique I use - last (in this chain of discussion) but not the least! - is prayer and meditation.
Meditate
What is there to say? It seems pretty straight forward. Our Father is the Author of the passages that you are reading in the Bible; who better to ask than Him? Jesus said in Matthew 7:9 (the Sermon on the Mount), "What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?" Meaning, "If you ask Me about My Word (which sustains life), I'm not going to give you a rock (which is cold, hard, dead and will break your teeth)." He's going to give you what He wants you to have - and that is life.
I trust this promise so much in fact that I don't read books on Christianity that "help me to understand" the Bible. Not that I don't believe that the authors love God, or that they are knowledgeable, or that they have learned a lot about our Father and use that knowledge to help others. It's just that as I read the Word, the more I see passages that encourage one to rely solely on the Word, and allow our Father to teach what it means through His Spirit.
1 John 2:26-27 says, "These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you [or them that teach falsely for their own benefit]. But the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath tought you, ye shall abide in Him."
Jesus said in Matthew 23:8, "But be not ye called Rabbi [or "teacher"]: for One is your Master [or "guide"], even Christ; and all ye are brethren."
David said in Psalm 118:8-9, "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes."
And many other places can you find these types of statements. Sometimes they are words of encouragement and sometimes of warning. Those are the promises that I cling to so that God may guide me where He will.
But what does it mean to meditate? What does it mean to pray? They can be one and the same. God can hear your thoughts - this is stated many times in the Bible. Jesus says in Revelation 2:23, "I am He which searcheth the reins and hearts." The reins are one's innermost thoughts, so whenever you are directing your thoughts towards God, you are talking with Him.
One of the Hebrew words translated as "meditate" is (H1897) hagah, which is very close to (H1625) gerah, which is to "chew cud". And that, conceptually, is what one does when they meditate. They regurgitate something that they had already thought about, and work it over some more in the mind until they swallow it back down again, solved or ready to be brought back up again later.
Prayer also allows you to bring your unsolved issues to God. A very good example of persistence in bringing an unsolved issue to God was Daniel, who prayed for 21 days straight for God to help him understand a vision that he was given (see Daniel chapter 10). And after 21 days, the archangel Gabriel arrived to tell Daniel the interpretation of the vision.
So pray, be persistent with your questions, and you will get answers.
Those are my three favourite study techniques: Read, Interpret, Meditate. God has blessed my understanding of His Word through these techniques, and may He bless yours also.
God bless.
