is meditation biblical

Yes, meditation is biblical. The word itself appears in the Scriptures, most tenderly in the Psalms, where the interior life of the soul is laid bare before God. “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord.” In another place we read of the one whose “delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” Meditation, in the biblical witness, is not foreign to faith but woven into it. It is described as something of the heart, something continuous, something turned toward God in quiet attentiveness.

Yet while Scripture speaks of meditation, it does not present a systematic teaching on meditation in the way modern readers might expect. There is no extended discourse explaining technique or posture, no step-by-step instruction under that name. Instead, what we find are invitations, gestures of the soul, and sayings that point inward. The Psalms reveal the movement of meditation; they show us a heart pondering, remembering, turning toward the Divine. But it is in the words of the Master Jesus that this inward turning becomes unmistakably clear as lived practice.

The Master’s Invitation to an Inward Way

When he says, “Abide in ME,” he is not speaking of mere belief but of an interior remaining. When he instructs, “enter into thy closet,” he directs the seeker away from outward display and into hidden communion. When he counsels, “take no thought,” he points beyond anxious mental striving toward a deeper trust and stillness in God. These sayings are not labeled as meditation, yet they describe the very posture that meditation embodies: a gathered heart, a quieted mind, a turning within to the indwelling Presence.

In this page, and throughout this series on Christian Meditation, I share with you the practice of meditation as it arises from these teachings of the Master Jesus. This is not an import from elsewhere, nor an addition to the faith, but an exploration of what has always been present in the biblical invitation: the call to abide, to enter within, and to live from conscious union with God.

Meditation in the Light of Scripture

What then does meditation look like in the light of Scripture? It begins not with technique, but with invitation. The Master Jesus does not present a method under the title of meditation, yet his words trace an unmistakable inward way. “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand” is not merely a moral correction but a turning of awareness, a reorientation of the heart toward a nearness already present. “Enter into thy closet” directs the seeker away from outward performance and into hidden communion. “Take no thought” loosens the restless grip of anxious reasoning and opens the space of trust. “Abide in ME” gathers all of this into a single, living reality: remain, dwell, continue in conscious union.

Taken together, these invitations reveal an inward path that, in our language today, may be called meditation and, within the Christian tradition, has long been known as Contemplation. It is not an addition to the gospel but a response to it. It is the lived movement of turning, entering, quieting, and remaining. In this series on Christian Meditation, we explore this fourfold invitation as a practical way of life grounded entirely in the teachings of the Master Jesus, discovering that what Scripture names and what the heart longs for meet in the simplicity of abiding in God’s Presence.

If this question has stirred something within you, I invite you to explore the fuller unfolding of this path in the series Christian Meditation. It begins with “Repent, for the Kingdom Is at Hand – Christian Meditation as Inner Re-orientation,” where we look more deeply at the first movement of this practice: the inward turning that opens awareness to the nearness of the Kingdom. From there, each step follows from the words of the Master, forming a way of meditation rooted entirely in the biblical invitation.