Our focus over the last few weeks has been how we might bring to awareness the Christ who promised that he would always be with those the put their trust in him (Mat. 28:20).
Perhaps you’re wondered what part the Bible plays in all of this. After all, Christians always held that God speaks to us through the scriptures. So this week we’re going to look at an ancient technique which is all about seeking to become aware of what God is staying to us through the bible.
It’s a practice known as “Lectio Divina” — Latin for “holy reading” – and has a long and venerable history.
It’s somewhat different than the “historical-critical method.” This is the approach favoured within modern academic circles. It’s so common that most people might simply think of it as the only way to read the bible. Its great advantage is that it at least tries to be objective. Its great flaw is that it can be way too rational—making bible reading an intellectual rather than spiritual pursuit.
Lectio Divina, by contrast, deliberately tries to personalise our reading of the bible. It doesn’t dismiss the findings of the academic study of scripture, but it does recognise that knowing the objective meaning of a text isn’t the same thing as knowing what that text means for the individual. For example, the historical-critical method might cast light on why the Roman authorities crucified Jesus of Nazareth, but it can tell me nothing about how I should respond to his death. I have to discover for myself what his death means for me.
Lectio Divina is a four part approach which is intended to help me answer this most personal of questions. These four parts are: Lectio (reading/listening), Meditatio (reflecting/meditating), Oratio (praying/responding), and Contemplatio (resting in God’s presence). For simplicity’s sake, we’ll call these reading, reflection, response, and rest.
The Lectio Divina begins by stilling yourself in God’s presence. This is partly why we’ve left it until now to address this method: we wanted to have some sense of what it means to “be still and know that I am God” – to sit in a posture of openness ready to hear what God has to say to us through the Holy Spirit.
In this spirit of awareness, READ the passage. For this a short passage is enough – usually only six to ten verses are needed. It’s not about how much you read, but how much attention you pay. And so your reading should be slow paying full attention to what the Spirit might be saying.
Read the passage twice. On the second reading, listen for a single word or phrase that catches your attention. Not the most theologically significant word. Not what we think ought to stand out. Simply — what lands on you? This requires a different posture than we usually bring to the Bible. We are not mining the text for information; we are receiving it, as we might receive a piece of music, alert to whatever moves us.
Next comes REFLECTION as you hold the word or phrase that caught you. Sit with it quietly. The question at this stage is not “What does this mean?” but “Why this? Why now?”
This is not an invitation to switch off the mind. It is an invitation to a different kind of thinking — slower, more receptive, more attentive to what is happening in you as you read, rather than simply what the text is saying in the abstract. Often what catches us in a passage reveals something about where we are, what we need, or what God may be drawing our attention to.
This leads us to RESPONSE in prayer — but prayer of a particular kind. Rather than bringing your own agenda to God, you are responding to what you have just received. If a word or image or feeling has surfaced during your reflection, bring it to God directly. Talk to him about it. Ask him about it.
This is prayer as conversation rather than monologue — a response to something already said, rather than a speech delivered into silence. It grows naturally out of attentive reading, and it has a different quality from prayers that begin entirely from our own needs and concerns—as important as they might be.
Finally, REST. Often when we finish prayer we’re up and off, but not in Lectio Divina where we enter into a fundamentally important part of the practice—a time of silent rest in the presence of the One who has been speaking to us, and to whom we have been speaking.
This is the moment simply to enjoy the company of God without needing to do or say anything — the contemplative equivalent of sitting quietly with a dear friend, at ease in the silence.
It would be easy to mistake Lectio Divina for a self-improvement technique — a method for getting more out of your Bible reading. It is better understood as a posture: a way of coming to Scripture with an open heart ready to receive what God has to give.