Importance: 10%
The Big Idea: Used as OS📃Epistle in series Mediation on Scripture, November 2021.
Reading Scripture can sometimes be confusing. There are words you don’t normally see or hear. Sentences are written in ways that may sound strange. Not to mention the life of people in the Bible can feel very different and far away from our own. Being confused by what we read in the Bible is okay. Only when we can acknowledge that something does not make sense can we begin to let the words of Scripture become more than a textbook, or words on a page. The Scriptures have important, life changing, things to tell us; no matter how old we are or if we know a little or a lot about the Bible.
One of the foundational words used to describe reading Scripture is to meditate or in hebrew הָגָה (hagah). This kind of meditation is unique to our biblical heritage. It denotes the practice of quietly speaking out loud the words of Scripture to oneself. This quiet muttering is meant to be a full bodied engagement with the words Scripture offers us. Both the mind and body engaged in reading the very words of God himself.
Moses spoke of this kind of immersive encounter with God’s words to us in Deuteronomy 11:19 - “You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” The words of Scripture are meant to permeate our entire lives soaking us in the stories and promises of God and His people.
This continual encounter with the word of God is even written into the style of poetry found throughout books like the Psalms and in narrative stories found in places like Exodus. To an English reader, the repetition may seem boring or cumbersome, but is actually there to help facilitate the practice of hagah. As one speaks the words over and over a funny thing begins to happen. These foreigh, strange, words slowly become a part of us. The longer we soak in Scripture the more it changes us. The more it changes us, the more the story of Scripture becomes our story.**