Don’t be in a hurry when you study God’s Word. Deuteronomy 6:6–7 says, “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” In other words, you ought to have God’s Word running around in your mind all the time. Do you want to know a secret? If you’re reading through the Old Testament, and if you’re reading a book of the New Testament through thirty times in a row, all the time, then you’re going to have it running around in your mind. Meditation is what takes all of those parts and begins to mold them together into a cohesive comprehension of biblical truth. God also says in Deuteronomy 6:8–9, “nd thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” God says He wants His Word everywhere. But we live in a culture where we drive down the street, and our eyes are literally assaulted with garbage—whiskey ads, beer ads, girlie shows, rotten movies—and the garbage just pours into our heads. God said that we should take His Word and let it be a billboard in front of our eyes, let it be filling our mind, our voice, wherever we go. That’s the way it ought to be.

A man was asked one time, “When you can’t sleep, do you count sheep?” He said, “No. I talk to the Shepherd.” That’s what God wants His people to do, talk to the Shepherd—meditate. Psalm 1:1–2 says, “Blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” Like the cow chewing its cud, just going over it and over it and over it, so too should we meditate on the Word, going over it and over it and over it.

So, we are to read the Bible, interpret the Bible, meditate on the Bible,
MacArthur, J., Jr. (1996). How to study the Bible. John MacArthur’s Bible Studies. Chicago: Moody Press.

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