- Begin with prayer that God will bless his Word through the Spirit.
- Read through the day’s passage prayerfully, asking God to help you understand as you read.
- You should always follow a plan of reading that takes you right through a book, starting each day where you left off the previous day.
- Never plan to read too much, or there will not be time for the meditation. Ten to fifteen verses is usually ideal, depending on the kind of book. In the Epistles it may be less because there is so much content; but in narratives such as in the Old Testament it may be more.
- Try to find the natural breaks in the book, and stick to these.
- Title: Having read the passage at least once, take out a notebook or journal kept specially for this purpose. Note down at the top of the page the passage reference, the date, and in as few words as possible a title that you can think of for the passage.
- List four or five events or facts, in order, from the passage. This is one of the most important parts. The very act of having to recognize and note these down is a great help in understanding what has been read. What’s more, it makes you stop and think.
- Context: Now look back at yesterday’s passage. Can you see any connection? The Bible is not a random collection of “precious truths”, but is organized so that the ideas in one passage relate to those before and after it, and to the flow of the whole book. Much richness can often be gained by relating these ideas together. If you can see a connection with the previous passage or with the theme of the book then jot it down. If you can’t, then don’t feel that you have to.
- Message: Ask yourself what the writer was trying to accomplish with this passage? “What was the message of the passage for those who originally read it?” As you can see, these questions are designed to get you meditating on the Word. The message may have been some specific teaching in an Epistle; something to learn about Christ in a Gospel; something in the Old Testament about how God relates to men and women, etc.
- Me: Finally we come to the most important question: “How does this message relate to my life?” Write down how the message should make a difference to my thoughts or actions. You may find that the Spirit continues to speak to you from the passage throughout the rest of the day.
