May 26, 2026 • 27 mins
Most of us were trained to read the Bible the way we were trained to lead — move fast, cover ground, extract what's useful, and get back to work. But what if that approach, by itself, is keeping you from the very transformation you're trying to produce in others?
In this episode, I want to share a practice that has shaped my life for almost thirty years. A practice I cannot live without. It's called Lectio Divina — holy reading — and I believe it may be the single most important shift a Christian leader can make in their relationship with Scripture and with God.
I'll take you through the history of this practice, the ancient monastic stream of reading that treated the Bible not as a text to be mastered but as a sacrament — a place of encounter with the living God. I'll share the four movements that structure it, and exactly what it looked like in my own devotional life this past week.
This isn't theory. I'll be honest with you about the years I spent reading the Bible the way I approached leadership: achieve, produce, get it done. What that approach cost me — in my prayer life, my preaching, my soul — is something I wish someone had told me at 30.
Lectio Divina interrupts the cycle of leading from information rather than formation. It doesn't just inform your sermons — it transforms the person preaching them. And it begins with something shockingly simple: slowing down long enough to let the Word read you.
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September 30 – October 1, 2026
14th St. Salvation Army, NYC
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Register Now: https://ehd.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/3421612
Learn more about the EH Global Leader Conference 2026: http://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/conference
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SPEAKER_00 (01:12):
Hi everyone, my name is Pete Scazaro, and again I
want to welcome you to theEmotionally Healthy Leader
Podcast.
Our topic today is LectioDivina, a slower, truer way for
hearing God, a slower, truer wayof hearing God.
Basically, it's about communion,about letting scripture read
you.
Now, I want to introduce you toa or reintroduce you to an
(01:33):
ancient tool or practice thathas shaped my life for almost
over 30 years, actually.
And it's a practice I can't evenimagine living without.
It's called Lectio Divina.
Literally, it means holyreading.
It's the slow, deliberate,life-giving work of letting
(01:53):
scripture actually read youinstead of you reading it.
It's completely changed myrelationship with God.
And once you learn it and tasteit, you actually can't live
without it.
It's just, it's a way of life.
And I don't think I'd befollowing Jesus the way I am
today if it if it had not beenfor the integration of this
practice so core into my dailylife.
(02:14):
So whether you're a beginner inthis journey we call emotionally
healthy discipleship, or you'rea pastor leader who's been
preaching for 25 or 30 years,uh, this uh this topic today is
just so rich, so broad, somultifaceted, it has
life-transforming implicationsfor you and me.
So now Lectio Divina forcenturies was the ordinary way
(02:39):
uh that people read scripture.
Uh it was just, it wasunderstood.
This is how you read scripture.
Uh, and uh it was understood itwas a sacrament.
What that means is it was it wasGod was making visible something
invisible, his love throughscripture.
Uh, it wasn't something heady,it wasn't intellectual, it
wasn't rational, conqueringfocus first.
(03:02):
It was very much of not so muchyou reading scripture, but
letting scripture read you.
And uh so it holy reading, lectodivina means holy reading.
In other words, scripture is setapart.
It's different than any otherbook the world's ever produced.
It's been around for 2,000years, this practice, uh, but
(03:22):
about a thousand years into it,about the year 1050, there was a
French Carthusian monk priornamed Guigo II, uh, again,
living in the French Alps, andhe actually codified what we
call Lectio Divina today.
Um, and uh it's basically it hasto do with soaking in a passage
(03:42):
of scripture, a small portion ofscripture, allowing that word to
do something inside of you, uh,to wash over your heart, to
spread through your bones andyour bloodstream, and actually
it becomes a part of you, asEzekiel and John the apostle do
and did in Revelation, youactually eat the scripture, it
becomes you.
Now, Lectio Divina consists offour movements.
(04:04):
I'll explain them more fullylater in the podcast.
But the four movements are thisit's reading the scripture, that
is reading a passage severaltimes slowly and asking, you
know, what is it saying?
After reading, it's meditating,it's reflecting on the text, a
phrase or two in particular, andyou're asking, what is it saying
to me as you're meditating onit?
(04:25):
And then thirdly, you actuallypray it back to God as a
response, either loudly orsilently.
And then fourthly, you youcontemplate the love of God.
You allow God's love throughthat text to wash over you
because it's the living God whois speaking and moving through
the text of scripture.
(04:45):
So it's praying, reading, I'msorry, it's reading, meditating,
praying, and then contemplating.
So more on that later.
So scripture was given notmerely to inform us, uh, but to
transform us.
And so Lectio Divina is notmerely you reading the
scriptures.
Uh, it's allowing scripture,it's slowing it down so the
(05:07):
scriptures read you.
And that one shift of lettingscripture read you versus you
reading scripture changeseverything about how you walk
with God.
So now again, let me just make anote here.
Um I am the last person who'santi-intellectual.
We need good Bible study, weneed careful theology, we need
(05:28):
exegesis and hermeneutics, anduh, I'm all for it.
I'm all for study.
And many of us, however, havelost that formational way of
reading scripture entirely.
And so we've not become atransformed people from the
inside out.
And so listen, I taught surveyof the Bible and I still teach
it.
I love Bible surveys.
I think they're important to getan understanding of how all of
(05:50):
scripture fits together.
Uh in fact, I if I had, I could,I'd say every church needs to
have that kind of a core sopeople, we can grasp how all of
scripture fits together.
But there's a big differencebetween informational reading
and formational reading.
So let me let me try to uhcompare the two to help you kind
(06:11):
of see it more clearly.
So informational reading, I'mtrying to cover a lot of ground,
as much ground as possible.
In formational reading, I'mgoing deeper.
In informational reading, I'mtrying to master a text.
In formational reading, I'mallowing myself to be mastered
by a text.
(06:32):
In informational reading, I'manalyzing.
In formational reading, I'mreceiving.
In informational reading, I'mproblem solving, trying to
figure this thing out.
In formational reading, I'mcommuning with God.
In informational reading, I'mI'm in a sense in control as I'm
studying.
(06:53):
In formational reading, I amsurrendering.
And then finally, ininformational reading, I'm
reading for content, trying toget the content of what's this
thing saying?
In formational reading, I'mreading for an encounter with
God.
And so Jean Leclerc was a uh agreat scholar, and he wrote a
book called The Love of Learningand the Desire for God.
(07:14):
And he talked about how in theMiddle Ages uh there were two
major streams of biblicalreading.
The first he called it thescholastics.
These were folks that did it inuniversities.
Uh they came to a page ofscripture to study it, to
question it, to master it, to itwas it was knowledge, it was
information.
And then there were themonastics.
Uh they came to the same page tobe transformed by it, to be
(07:38):
shaped by it, to encounter Godwho speaks through scripture.
Uh, that was the ancient way ofwisdom and appreciation and
formation.
So now here's the uncomfortabletruth.
Uh most Bible study today hasmore in common with what they
did in the Middle Ages inuniversities than it does with
the formational reading ofscripture, which is how early it
(07:59):
was done for, you know, for 1300years prior to the Middle Ages.
We're trained to bring questionsto the text, again, not a bad
thing, um, but we weren't somuch trained to let the text ask
questions of us.
So again, informational readingis good.
There's a place for it, it'snecessary.
I would never tell anyone tostop studying scripture.
(08:20):
Um, but informational reading byitself is not enough.
It produces uh heady people whoknow a lot of stuff in their
heads but aren't necessarilyliving it, uh, immature leaders,
actually, disconnectedspirituality, folks without a
firsthand experience of Jesusand living and speaking out of
that.
It's missing the goal, therichness of God speaking through
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through scripture.
So, again, many of us know a lotof scripture, uh, but we weren't
being not being transformed byit deeply.
So, again, for those of us whoselife is teaching uh and
preaching scripture, mygoodness, uh, I guess it could
apply even to your family.
Uh it's not speaking about God.
We want to be speaking with God.
(09:03):
And out of that overflow, wegive over to other people.
So now before I go into the fourmovements, and I want to go
through them in a little bit ofdetail, and then I want to give
you some examples of how itlooks in my own life and what
this could look like in yours.
So uh, but we resist it for anumber of reasons, and um we
don't usually articulate it.
I I think first of all, I I knowI was raised much more in the
(09:26):
environment of uh read throughthe Bible in a year, get the
content into you, and that focuson reading through the Bible in
a year, which is all good, um,it it almost like it ensures
blessing if you do that.
That's kind of the subconsciousmessage I thought I received.
I'm like a magic thing.
We're moving fast.
Uh, we want productivity, wewant the thing to, we want, you
(09:48):
know, to be effective.
We value efficiency.
Uh, we don't have a lot ofspaciousness or time.
And so we have the next goal,the next meeting, the next thing
on our agenda.
And uh very often we're readingscripture, not so much to hear
God speak to us, but what Godwants to say to other people.
And uh and so it happens, we wemiss the communion with with God
(10:10):
in Scripture.
In fact, my own story, when Icame to Christ, I was so hungry
for the Bible.
I was a starving human being,uh, and I wanted the whole of
it.
And I remember digging intoinductive Bible study, which I
love.
Um, and I began to read theBible, you know, book after
book, cover to cover.
I memorized whole books of theNew Testament and I was moving
(10:33):
fast.
I was very much focused oncontent.
And I'm gonna say it honestly, Iapproached the Bible kind of the
way I approached leadership.
Achieve, produce, get it done.
Um, but I didn't have, I didagain, I didn't, I was wanting
to expand the work of Jesus.
I was thinking much more, youknow, external, get the work
done.
I want people to know Jesus.
And it was my entrance into whatwe call today emotionally
(10:54):
healthy discipleship over 30years ago that got me on this
journey of let me, there's a lotto learn from the history of the
church of how people havefollowed Jesus, church formation
through history.
And that's when I discoveredLectio Divina.
And I was like, oh Lord.
And the ancient church churchhanded me a practice called
(11:15):
Lectio Divina, uh, and that I'dnever been taught in in seminary
or leadership conferences.
And it was transformative forme, and I've been with it ever
since.
So so here's what happened.
I I stopped trying to conquerscripture, and I began allowing
the scripture to conquer me.
That was a switch.
And that sentence sounds small,but it's not.
(11:38):
That changed everything.
And so it changed my prayerlife.
Uh, of course, it changed mypreaching.
I began to preach uh out of aplace of communion.
I would do lectio divina on anytext I was preaching from.
Now, again, not that I didn'tstudy and do exegesis.
I did heat Greek and Hebrew andall the inductive Bible study, I
did the word studies, thecontext.
(11:59):
But I would primarily throughoutthe week meditate on that
scripture I was preaching from,let it wash over me.
I do lectio divina so much sothat I almost had it memorized
by the time I got up on aweekend to speak.
Lectio Divina changed my pace oflife.
Uh, it just slowed me down.
It changed my relationshipsbecause I was always pondering
these texts in my in my brain.
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Uh, and it changed the way I ledothers.
Uh and I became newly aware.
I think probably that one of thegreatest fruits for me was I
became so newly aware of thelove of God, the grace of God,
the mercy of God, the kindnessof God.
I rediscovered the gospel ofgrace uh in scripture.
So let me go through the fourmovements with you in a little
(12:43):
bit more detail, and then I'lllet me take you through a couple
of examples.
Now, again, you want to begin byyou want to make sure the
atmosphere is conducive whereveryou're sitting.
Uh, you know, you're sittingstill, you're you're straight,
you're comfortable, and then youyou choose a passage and you
begin with the first movement,which is reading.
So the reading is slow, it'squiet, and it's deep.
(13:06):
So you'll read a passage slowlyand repeatedly, three, four
times, maybe 10 times or 15times even, whatever seems right
to you.
You and you let the words asyou're reading it sink in.
You're reading it maybe aloud orsilently.
And if your mind wanders, youdon't beat yourself up, but it,
you know, it happens toeveryone.
(13:27):
And then you you focus onphrases or or words.
It's going to be a short passageof scripture.
Uh, sentences, you'll look atsentences that speak to the
depths of your heart, and you'rewilling to linger with a portion
of the text that seems to speakto you in a special way.
And through repetition, asyou're reading it, you're gently
allowing uh the words to sinkinto your memory deeply, and
(13:50):
you're listening quietly to thatword, which is hopefully slowly
going into your heart.
That's the first movement,reading.
Then you move into meditating,and that's the word for chewing.
You know, you're you're uhmeditate actually means to keep
something in in mind.
Uh and the Hebrew word formeditation comes from the image
of a dog chewing a bone.
(14:11):
Just think of a dog just chewingthat bone or of a of a cow
chewing cud, and cows have fourstomachs, and they're just
chewing and it's going throughtheir different stomachs, or
it's it's the image in Hebrew ofa lion chewing on a carcass.
Uh so it's this very thismulling over of a text,
meditating on it.
You're it's like chewing.
You're not swallowing it, you'reactually tasting it.
(14:34):
And certain phrases or words,now as you're meditating, begin
to stand out to you, and theyrise above the other words.
And God begins to speak to youpersonally in scripture.
Uh and so you stop kind ofreading even the rest of it, and
you ponder those words orphrases, and you repeat that
word or phrase over and overagain before the Lord.
(14:55):
And you're paying attention towhat emotions or reactions are
evoked inside of you, uh, andyou're not moving so quickly or
rushing.
So you've reading or meditating.
And then the third movement ispraying.
You're this is your conversationwith God, and God, why did you
give me this word today?
What do you want to say to me?
And uh, what do you want to dowith what I've gotten today?
(15:17):
And so that gentle repetition ofthe text begins to, you're
listening to God and you beginto pray it back to Him.
You're giving the prayer enoughtime to develop, and then
finally you move intocontemplation.
So it's reading, you're uhmeditating, then you pray it
back to God, and then youcontemplate it before the Lord.
And what you're doing is incontemplation, you're sitting
(15:40):
quietly in the love of God, inthe presence of God.
You're you're letting it washover you, and and it's this
quietness and stillness.
You're like sitting on theFather's lap and you're letting
him hug you.
You're letting him love you,you're letting the Father enjoy
you.
This is the enjoyment ofsweetness of communion with the
Father.
It ends with this, it's likeMary sitting at the feet of
(16:03):
Jesus in uh Luke chapter 10.
Um and listen, there's fourmovements.
However, and I and I like tosometimes follow the four
movements just as it is, butit's it's not, it's been called
the the methodless method.
In other words, it's not atechnique.
Um sometimes you end up in youknow in contemplation before
(16:26):
prayer.
It's it's all good.
Uh I like the structure can bereally helpful.
Uh and there's flexibility toit.
So don't get don't getlegalistic with the with the
four movements.
They're movements, not steps.
Uh so let me let's let me justgive you some examples.
What this actually looks like,all right.
So um I just recently, I mean,recently, I I have been
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meditating on Paul's prayer inEphesians chapter one, where he
prays that we might know theglorious riches of our
inheritance.
Uh and that word inheritance,uh, it's his final prayer.
It's in it's uh uh in Ephesiansone.
And I just sat with him prayingthat we might know the riches of
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our glorious and the gloriousinheritance of the saints.
And I just began to just, I justI was so struck by it.
I meditate on it and stay withit.
What does it mean to have aninheritance?
And and I just I I ended up justmy left Odvina on a text uh
takes me places and I began toread it.
(17:34):
I began to meditate on what'sthis inheritance in the Holy
Spirit is my down payment forit.
And uh and he's talking aboutthat you know, the earth will be
filled with the glory of theLord as the waters cover the
sea, and and this idea of thewhole earth is the Lord's, and I
began to just meditate on thetook going to Habakkuk 2.14,
where the nations, Habakkuk saysthe nations exhaust themselves
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for nothing, for the earth willbe filled with the glory of the
Lord as the waters cover thesea.
Oh, and I just I I I spent youknow more than a couple of days
on just letting this text watchover me and imagining I the
ocean and that the glory of theLord will wash over every inch
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of this earth.
There'll be a new heavens and anew earth, and the glory of the
Lord will fill the earth as thewaters cover the sea.
That's our inheritance.
Every square inch belongs toGod.
And what am I worried about?
God's got the whole world in hishands.
And that I, of course, I read onthe side, I read the whole book
of Habakkuk, it's only threechapters.
And Habakkuk's struggling withthe suffering, and the
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Babylonians are coming to wipeout Israel.
And he's like, God, where areyou?
Why are you allowing this evil?
And God gives him thisrevelation about his inheritance
that uh, you know, the nations,he writes, that the nations are
wasting their time.
For the glory of the Lord willfill the earth as the oceans, uh
the water covers the seas.
And I'm like, oh, and I just, Ijust let it, I can't tell you.
(19:00):
It just washed over, he filledme with such hope and joy.
And I, like you, I can read thenewspapers and get so
discouraged by the news and theevil in the world and the
suffering and the and the uh thebirth pangs and the divisions
and the and the fighting andit's oh, wait a second.
God, there's gonna be a newheaven and a new earth.
(19:20):
There's an inheritance of theglory of the Lord who's gonna
fill the earth, and that's mine.
May I know that and be filledwith the hope, Paul writes, of
our inheritance.
And I just be like, oh, God, andtalk about being filled and
flooded with optimism.
So anyway, I I read it,Ephesians 1.
I meditated on the inheritance,and then I prayed it back to the
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Lord and say, oh, God, fill mewith this kind of a hope.
God, and I began to think aboutareas I'm praying for that have
been, uh, God's been delaying orwaiting, and I get discouraged
and say, oh, yes, Lord, youknow, the hope to which you've
called me.
And then I just rested in thelove of God that that he knows
me and I know him and how herescued me, he raised me from
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the dead, and oh my Lord, and itwas just glorious.
So anyway, that's was one textuh that I so enjoy.
And then there was another, um,and again, I've been in the book
of Ephesians for a while, and itwas from Ephesians 4 7, where uh
Paul writes to each one, gracehas been given as Christ
apportioned it.
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And that word, you know, God hasgiven to each one of us grace.
He apportions grace to us, andthat that he's been given to me
grace.
I just began to again read onthat again, the context of
Ephesians 4.
But uh as I meditated on, God'sgiven me grace.
I read it, I meditated on it.
God, you've given me grace forthis day in this season to give
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to other people for the buildingup of the body of Christ.
And I began to just reflect onGod, what's my task to do and
what's other people's task todo?
And that you're not inviting meto do their task, but what's my
unique one at this season of mylife?
Um, and what's thedifferentiation work I need to
be doing?
And I've just been, you know,letting that sit in me and
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again, letting scripture readme, and I began to pray it back
to God, say, God, help me be uhfocused on what you've given me
grace to do and not somebodyelse, again, in this season of
my life.
And uh again, just then ended upcontemplating, again, reading,
meditating, praying, and thencontemplating the fourth
movement, the love of God, andthen just sitting in the God's
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love for me that he wouldactually apportion grace to me.
Uh, I'm one of those, and andfor the sake of for something
that he's given me to do inlife, uh, and I want to be
faithful to that.
I want to discern it clearly,and I want to be faithful to it.
And I just let his love washover me.
Just so, so rich.
Uh his love is better than life.
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That's Psalm 63.
Uh contemplation, just restingin him.
His love is better than lifeitself.
God's not a transactional God.
He doesn't like love us based onuh paying us, paying us for
doing certain acts.
He's just he's the God andFather of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is love.
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His He loves us.
Boy, just sit on His love beingbetter than life and let that
wash over you.
So I carry these thoughtsthrough my days.
Uh, they inform my morningprayer, midday prayer, evening
prayer, they inform myconversations, my work, uh
meetings I have, podcasts I do.
Uh that's what I mean that whenI say lectio divina begins to
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inform our whole lives, days,weeks, months, years.
So listen, if you're if you'rehere today and you're a leader,
for example, maybe you're aministry leader, a a worker in
your in your ministry or church,or a maybe an elder or pastor,
uh, I want you to hear Jesus'invitation today in this
podcast.
Slow down, receive, listen, uh,return.
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The people around us, uh, theydon't need you to know more
about God.
They need you and they need meto actually know God.
An experience of this living,eternal God of the universe who
loves them and loves the worldwe live in.
And this requires a certainslowness, a certain way of
approaching scripture, lectiodivina.
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Again, it's it's reading, slowlysavoring, it's meditating,
chewing on it, eating it like alion on a carcass or a dog
chewing a bone, like a coweating its cudge.
We're just chewing on it,letting phrases or words leap up
to us.
And then we let it evoke aprayer back to the Father, let
it just come naturally, and thenwe just rest in the love of God
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who loves you and loves me.
And so let me, again, this isnot for uh advanced Christians.
Lectio Divina is for hungryChristians.
Whether you are a beginner oragain, whether you've been in
this for decades, uh, you're inthe right place to begin to
integrate this great classicspiritual practice that's
actually been around for 2,000years called Lectio Divina.
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So here's some practicalthoughts for today.
I want to encourage you to startwith, say, 10 minutes and to
pick one short passage ofscripture.
For example, maybe it's Psalm23, and it may be, you know, one
segment of that, you know, theLord is my shepherd.
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Uh, I lack nothing.
And maybe that's enough.
The Lord is my shepherd, myshepherd, my shepherd.
The Lord is my shepherd.
You know, he makes me lie downin green pastures, he leads me
beside quiet waters, uh, herestores my soul, he leads me in
paths of righteousness for hisnamesake.
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But any one of those lines, andyou just begin to meditate on
it.
Or maybe it's Psalm 131, it's avery short psalm about uh being,
you know, coming to the Lordlike weaning like a at a
mother's breast.
It's just a fantastic image.
Or maybe you take something likeMatthew 11, 28 to 30.
Uh Jesus says, My uh come to me,all you who are weary and
(25:15):
burdened, and I will give yourest.
I mean, we take my yoke upon youand I will, you know, my yoke is
easy, my burden is light.
And just, ah, just take but thatit's Matthew 11, 28 to 30 is is
so rich.
Or maybe you want to do a textlike Romans 8, uh, 31 to 39, all
about the love of God.
Uh, nothing can separate us inthe love of God.
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What a fantastic passage.
Or even Isaiah 49, uh, 14 to 16,about being engraved in the palm
of his hand.
Just a few scriptures to helpyou get started.
Take something that's you knowthat's palatable to begin, and
uh read it aloud multiple times,meditate on it, pray it back to
the Father, and then contemplateit, let his love wash over you.
Again, we don't masterscripture.
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Scripture masters us.
Love that.
Listen, I'm still learning and Iwill be learning the rest of my
life.
Uh, I trust you will as well,because the point is meeting the
living God, an encounter withGod in Christ.
So that's your challenge thisweek.
Okay, five days, 10 to 15minutes, one short passage at a
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time.
I gave you some text toconsider.
The four movements, keep them inmind.
Read, meditate, pray,contemplate.
Maybe you'll write out thescripture on a note card or a
piece of paper.
Carry it with you in yourwallet.
I often do.
Uh, let it follow you into yourmeetings, your activities of the
day, and then notice what Goddoes in you over that time.
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Don't try to control it.
You want to simply receive.
Listen, as Psalm 19 says, uh,God's word is more desirable
than gold, yes, than much finegold.
It's greater than all the richesof the world could ever offer
you.
So my prayer for you is thateven though our society keeps us
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in a fog, and we often can findourselves in a prison of wrong
thoughts in a small, shrunkenworld.
I like what C.S.
Lewis wrote uh in one of hisletters and screw tape letters.
He said, the devil doesn't somuch put ideas into our head,
but he keeps God's ideas out.
Thus, Lectio Divina.
(27:26):
So may the Lord bless you, maythe Lord keep you, may the Lord
meet you uh in Scripture throughthe meditation of his word,
which is unlike any other bookor word in the universe.
Blessings to you.
Have a wonderful day, and mayyour soul be filled with him.
(27:47):
Blessings.
Hi everyone, my name is Pete Scazaro, and again I
want to welcome you to theEmotionally Healthy Leader
Podcast.
Our topic today is LectioDivina, a slower, truer way for
hearing God, a slower, truer wayof hearing God.
Basically, it's about communion,about letting scripture read
you.
Now, I want to introduce you toa or reintroduce you to an
(01:33):
ancient tool or practice thathas shaped my life for almost
over 30 years, actually.
And it's a practice I can't evenimagine living without.
It's called Lectio Divina.
Literally, it means holyreading.
It's the slow, deliberate,life-giving work of letting
(01:53):
scripture actually read youinstead of you reading it.
It's completely changed myrelationship with God.
And once you learn it and tasteit, you actually can't live
without it.
It's just, it's a way of life.
And I don't think I'd befollowing Jesus the way I am
today if it if it had not beenfor the integration of this
practice so core into my dailylife.
(02:14):
So whether you're a beginner inthis journey we call emotionally
healthy discipleship, or you'rea pastor leader who's been
preaching for 25 or 30 years,uh, this uh this topic today is
just so rich, so broad, somultifaceted, it has
life-transforming implicationsfor you and me.
So now Lectio Divina forcenturies was the ordinary way
(02:39):
uh that people read scripture.
Uh it was just, it wasunderstood.
This is how you read scripture.
Uh, and uh it was understood itwas a sacrament.
What that means is it was it wasGod was making visible something
invisible, his love throughscripture.
Uh, it wasn't something heady,it wasn't intellectual, it
wasn't rational, conqueringfocus first.
(03:02):
It was very much of not so muchyou reading scripture, but
letting scripture read you.
And uh so it holy reading, lectodivina means holy reading.
In other words, scripture is setapart.
It's different than any otherbook the world's ever produced.
It's been around for 2,000years, this practice, uh, but
(03:22):
about a thousand years into it,about the year 1050, there was a
French Carthusian monk priornamed Guigo II, uh, again,
living in the French Alps, andhe actually codified what we
call Lectio Divina today.
Um, and uh it's basically it hasto do with soaking in a passage
(03:42):
of scripture, a small portion ofscripture, allowing that word to
do something inside of you, uh,to wash over your heart, to
spread through your bones andyour bloodstream, and actually
it becomes a part of you, asEzekiel and John the apostle do
and did in Revelation, youactually eat the scripture, it
becomes you.
Now, Lectio Divina consists offour movements.
(04:04):
I'll explain them more fullylater in the podcast.
But the four movements are thisit's reading the scripture, that
is reading a passage severaltimes slowly and asking, you
know, what is it saying?
After reading, it's meditating,it's reflecting on the text, a
phrase or two in particular, andyou're asking, what is it saying
to me as you're meditating onit?
(04:25):
And then thirdly, you actuallypray it back to God as a
response, either loudly orsilently.
And then fourthly, you youcontemplate the love of God.
You allow God's love throughthat text to wash over you
because it's the living God whois speaking and moving through
the text of scripture.
(04:45):
So it's praying, reading, I'msorry, it's reading, meditating,
praying, and then contemplating.
So more on that later.
So scripture was given notmerely to inform us, uh, but to
transform us.
And so Lectio Divina is notmerely you reading the
scriptures.
Uh, it's allowing scripture,it's slowing it down so the
(05:07):
scriptures read you.
And that one shift of lettingscripture read you versus you
reading scripture changeseverything about how you walk
with God.
So now again, let me just make anote here.
Um I am the last person who'santi-intellectual.
We need good Bible study, weneed careful theology, we need
(05:28):
exegesis and hermeneutics, anduh, I'm all for it.
I'm all for study.
And many of us, however, havelost that formational way of
reading scripture entirely.
And so we've not become atransformed people from the
inside out.
And so listen, I taught surveyof the Bible and I still teach
it.
I love Bible surveys.
I think they're important to getan understanding of how all of
(05:50):
scripture fits together.
Uh in fact, I if I had, I could,I'd say every church needs to
have that kind of a core sopeople, we can grasp how all of
scripture fits together.
But there's a big differencebetween informational reading
and formational reading.
So let me let me try to uhcompare the two to help you kind
(06:11):
of see it more clearly.
So informational reading, I'mtrying to cover a lot of ground,
as much ground as possible.
In formational reading, I'mgoing deeper.
In informational reading, I'mtrying to master a text.
In formational reading, I'mallowing myself to be mastered
by a text.
(06:32):
In informational reading, I'manalyzing.
In formational reading, I'mreceiving.
In informational reading, I'mproblem solving, trying to
figure this thing out.
In formational reading, I'mcommuning with God.
In informational reading, I'mI'm in a sense in control as I'm
studying.
(06:53):
In formational reading, I amsurrendering.
And then finally, ininformational reading, I'm
reading for content, trying toget the content of what's this
thing saying?
In formational reading, I'mreading for an encounter with
God.
And so Jean Leclerc was a uh agreat scholar, and he wrote a
book called The Love of Learningand the Desire for God.
(07:14):
And he talked about how in theMiddle Ages uh there were two
major streams of biblicalreading.
The first he called it thescholastics.
These were folks that did it inuniversities.
Uh they came to a page ofscripture to study it, to
question it, to master it, to itwas it was knowledge, it was
information.
And then there were themonastics.
Uh they came to the same page tobe transformed by it, to be
(07:38):
shaped by it, to encounter Godwho speaks through scripture.
Uh, that was the ancient way ofwisdom and appreciation and
formation.
So now here's the uncomfortabletruth.
Uh most Bible study today hasmore in common with what they
did in the Middle Ages inuniversities than it does with
the formational reading ofscripture, which is how early it
(07:59):
was done for, you know, for 1300years prior to the Middle Ages.
We're trained to bring questionsto the text, again, not a bad
thing, um, but we weren't somuch trained to let the text ask
questions of us.
So again, informational readingis good.
There's a place for it, it'snecessary.
I would never tell anyone tostop studying scripture.
(08:20):
Um, but informational reading byitself is not enough.
It produces uh heady people whoknow a lot of stuff in their
heads but aren't necessarilyliving it, uh, immature leaders,
actually, disconnectedspirituality, folks without a
firsthand experience of Jesusand living and speaking out of
that.
It's missing the goal, therichness of God speaking through
(08:42):
through scripture.
So, again, many of us know a lotof scripture, uh, but we weren't
being not being transformed byit deeply.
So, again, for those of us whoselife is teaching uh and
preaching scripture, mygoodness, uh, I guess it could
apply even to your family.
Uh it's not speaking about God.
We want to be speaking with God.
(09:03):
And out of that overflow, wegive over to other people.
So now before I go into the fourmovements, and I want to go
through them in a little bit ofdetail, and then I want to give
you some examples of how itlooks in my own life and what
this could look like in yours.
So uh, but we resist it for anumber of reasons, and um we
don't usually articulate it.
I I think first of all, I I knowI was raised much more in the
(09:26):
environment of uh read throughthe Bible in a year, get the
content into you, and that focuson reading through the Bible in
a year, which is all good, um,it it almost like it ensures
blessing if you do that.
That's kind of the subconsciousmessage I thought I received.
I'm like a magic thing.
We're moving fast.
Uh, we want productivity, wewant the thing to, we want, you
(09:48):
know, to be effective.
We value efficiency.
Uh, we don't have a lot ofspaciousness or time.
And so we have the next goal,the next meeting, the next thing
on our agenda.
And uh very often we're readingscripture, not so much to hear
God speak to us, but what Godwants to say to other people.
And uh and so it happens, we wemiss the communion with with God
(10:10):
in Scripture.
In fact, my own story, when Icame to Christ, I was so hungry
for the Bible.
I was a starving human being,uh, and I wanted the whole of
it.
And I remember digging intoinductive Bible study, which I
love.
Um, and I began to read theBible, you know, book after
book, cover to cover.
I memorized whole books of theNew Testament and I was moving
(10:33):
fast.
I was very much focused oncontent.
And I'm gonna say it honestly, Iapproached the Bible kind of the
way I approached leadership.
Achieve, produce, get it done.
Um, but I didn't have, I didagain, I didn't, I was wanting
to expand the work of Jesus.
I was thinking much more, youknow, external, get the work
done.
I want people to know Jesus.
And it was my entrance into whatwe call today emotionally
(10:54):
healthy discipleship over 30years ago that got me on this
journey of let me, there's a lotto learn from the history of the
church of how people havefollowed Jesus, church formation
through history.
And that's when I discoveredLectio Divina.
And I was like, oh Lord.
And the ancient church churchhanded me a practice called
(11:15):
Lectio Divina, uh, and that I'dnever been taught in in seminary
or leadership conferences.
And it was transformative forme, and I've been with it ever
since.
So so here's what happened.
I I stopped trying to conquerscripture, and I began allowing
the scripture to conquer me.
That was a switch.
And that sentence sounds small,but it's not.
(11:38):
That changed everything.
And so it changed my prayerlife.
Uh, of course, it changed mypreaching.
I began to preach uh out of aplace of communion.
I would do lectio divina on anytext I was preaching from.
Now, again, not that I didn'tstudy and do exegesis.
I did heat Greek and Hebrew andall the inductive Bible study, I
did the word studies, thecontext.
(11:59):
But I would primarily throughoutthe week meditate on that
scripture I was preaching from,let it wash over me.
I do lectio divina so much sothat I almost had it memorized
by the time I got up on aweekend to speak.
Lectio Divina changed my pace oflife.
Uh, it just slowed me down.
It changed my relationshipsbecause I was always pondering
these texts in my in my brain.
(12:21):
Uh, and it changed the way I ledothers.
Uh and I became newly aware.
I think probably that one of thegreatest fruits for me was I
became so newly aware of thelove of God, the grace of God,
the mercy of God, the kindnessof God.
I rediscovered the gospel ofgrace uh in scripture.
So let me go through the fourmovements with you in a little
(12:43):
bit more detail, and then I'lllet me take you through a couple
of examples.
Now, again, you want to begin byyou want to make sure the
atmosphere is conducive whereveryou're sitting.
Uh, you know, you're sittingstill, you're you're straight,
you're comfortable, and then youyou choose a passage and you
begin with the first movement,which is reading.
So the reading is slow, it'squiet, and it's deep.
(13:06):
So you'll read a passage slowlyand repeatedly, three, four
times, maybe 10 times or 15times even, whatever seems right
to you.
You and you let the words asyou're reading it sink in.
You're reading it maybe aloud orsilently.
And if your mind wanders, youdon't beat yourself up, but it,
you know, it happens toeveryone.
(13:27):
And then you you focus onphrases or or words.
It's going to be a short passageof scripture.
Uh, sentences, you'll look atsentences that speak to the
depths of your heart, and you'rewilling to linger with a portion
of the text that seems to speakto you in a special way.
And through repetition, asyou're reading it, you're gently
allowing uh the words to sinkinto your memory deeply, and
(13:50):
you're listening quietly to thatword, which is hopefully slowly
going into your heart.
That's the first movement,reading.
Then you move into meditating,and that's the word for chewing.
You know, you're you're uhmeditate actually means to keep
something in in mind.
Uh and the Hebrew word formeditation comes from the image
of a dog chewing a bone.
(14:11):
Just think of a dog just chewingthat bone or of a of a cow
chewing cud, and cows have fourstomachs, and they're just
chewing and it's going throughtheir different stomachs, or
it's it's the image in Hebrew ofa lion chewing on a carcass.
Uh so it's this very thismulling over of a text,
meditating on it.
You're it's like chewing.
You're not swallowing it, you'reactually tasting it.
(14:34):
And certain phrases or words,now as you're meditating, begin
to stand out to you, and theyrise above the other words.
And God begins to speak to youpersonally in scripture.
Uh and so you stop kind ofreading even the rest of it, and
you ponder those words orphrases, and you repeat that
word or phrase over and overagain before the Lord.
(14:55):
And you're paying attention towhat emotions or reactions are
evoked inside of you, uh, andyou're not moving so quickly or
rushing.
So you've reading or meditating.
And then the third movement ispraying.
You're this is your conversationwith God, and God, why did you
give me this word today?
What do you want to say to me?
And uh, what do you want to dowith what I've gotten today?
(15:17):
And so that gentle repetition ofthe text begins to, you're
listening to God and you beginto pray it back to Him.
You're giving the prayer enoughtime to develop, and then
finally you move intocontemplation.
So it's reading, you're uhmeditating, then you pray it
back to God, and then youcontemplate it before the Lord.
And what you're doing is incontemplation, you're sitting
(15:40):
quietly in the love of God, inthe presence of God.
You're you're letting it washover you, and and it's this
quietness and stillness.
You're like sitting on theFather's lap and you're letting
him hug you.
You're letting him love you,you're letting the Father enjoy
you.
This is the enjoyment ofsweetness of communion with the
Father.
It ends with this, it's likeMary sitting at the feet of
(16:03):
Jesus in uh Luke chapter 10.
Um and listen, there's fourmovements.
However, and I and I like tosometimes follow the four
movements just as it is, butit's it's not, it's been called
the the methodless method.
In other words, it's not atechnique.
Um sometimes you end up in youknow in contemplation before
(16:26):
prayer.
It's it's all good.
Uh I like the structure can bereally helpful.
Uh and there's flexibility toit.
So don't get don't getlegalistic with the with the
four movements.
They're movements, not steps.
Uh so let me let's let me justgive you some examples.
What this actually looks like,all right.
So um I just recently, I mean,recently, I I have been
(16:50):
meditating on Paul's prayer inEphesians chapter one, where he
prays that we might know theglorious riches of our
inheritance.
Uh and that word inheritance,uh, it's his final prayer.
It's in it's uh uh in Ephesiansone.
And I just sat with him prayingthat we might know the riches of
(17:13):
our glorious and the gloriousinheritance of the saints.
And I just began to just, I justI was so struck by it.
I meditate on it and stay withit.
What does it mean to have aninheritance?
And and I just I I ended up justmy left Odvina on a text uh
takes me places and I began toread it.
(17:34):
I began to meditate on what'sthis inheritance in the Holy
Spirit is my down payment forit.
And uh and he's talking aboutthat you know, the earth will be
filled with the glory of theLord as the waters cover the
sea, and and this idea of thewhole earth is the Lord's, and I
began to just meditate on thetook going to Habakkuk 2.14,
where the nations, Habakkuk saysthe nations exhaust themselves
(17:56):
for nothing, for the earth willbe filled with the glory of the
Lord as the waters cover thesea.
Oh, and I just I I I spent youknow more than a couple of days
on just letting this text watchover me and imagining I the
ocean and that the glory of theLord will wash over every inch
(18:18):
of this earth.
There'll be a new heavens and anew earth, and the glory of the
Lord will fill the earth as thewaters cover the sea.
That's our inheritance.
Every square inch belongs toGod.
And what am I worried about?
God's got the whole world in hishands.
And that I, of course, I read onthe side, I read the whole book
of Habakkuk, it's only threechapters.
And Habakkuk's struggling withthe suffering, and the
(18:38):
Babylonians are coming to wipeout Israel.
And he's like, God, where areyou?
Why are you allowing this evil?
And God gives him thisrevelation about his inheritance
that uh, you know, the nations,he writes, that the nations are
wasting their time.
For the glory of the Lord willfill the earth as the oceans, uh
the water covers the seas.
And I'm like, oh, and I just, Ijust let it, I can't tell you.
(19:00):
It just washed over, he filledme with such hope and joy.
And I, like you, I can read thenewspapers and get so
discouraged by the news and theevil in the world and the
suffering and the and the uh thebirth pangs and the divisions
and the and the fighting andit's oh, wait a second.
God, there's gonna be a newheaven and a new earth.
(19:20):
There's an inheritance of theglory of the Lord who's gonna
fill the earth, and that's mine.
May I know that and be filledwith the hope, Paul writes, of
our inheritance.
And I just be like, oh, God, andtalk about being filled and
flooded with optimism.
So anyway, I I read it,Ephesians 1.
I meditated on the inheritance,and then I prayed it back to the
(19:44):
Lord and say, oh, God, fill mewith this kind of a hope.
God, and I began to think aboutareas I'm praying for that have
been, uh, God's been delaying orwaiting, and I get discouraged
and say, oh, yes, Lord, youknow, the hope to which you've
called me.
And then I just rested in thelove of God that that he knows
me and I know him and how herescued me, he raised me from
(20:07):
the dead, and oh my Lord, and itwas just glorious.
So anyway, that's was one textuh that I so enjoy.
And then there was another, um,and again, I've been in the book
of Ephesians for a while, and itwas from Ephesians 4 7, where uh
Paul writes to each one, gracehas been given as Christ
apportioned it.
(20:28):
And that word, you know, God hasgiven to each one of us grace.
He apportions grace to us, andthat that he's been given to me
grace.
I just began to again read onthat again, the context of
Ephesians 4.
But uh as I meditated on, God'sgiven me grace.
I read it, I meditated on it.
God, you've given me grace forthis day in this season to give
(20:52):
to other people for the buildingup of the body of Christ.
And I began to just reflect onGod, what's my task to do and
what's other people's task todo?
And that you're not inviting meto do their task, but what's my
unique one at this season of mylife?
Um, and what's thedifferentiation work I need to
be doing?
And I've just been, you know,letting that sit in me and
(21:13):
again, letting scripture readme, and I began to pray it back
to God, say, God, help me be uhfocused on what you've given me
grace to do and not somebodyelse, again, in this season of
my life.
And uh again, just then ended upcontemplating, again, reading,
meditating, praying, and thencontemplating the fourth
movement, the love of God, andthen just sitting in the God's
(21:34):
love for me that he wouldactually apportion grace to me.
Uh, I'm one of those, and andfor the sake of for something
that he's given me to do inlife, uh, and I want to be
faithful to that.
I want to discern it clearly,and I want to be faithful to it.
And I just let his love washover me.
Just so, so rich.
Uh his love is better than life.
(21:55):
That's Psalm 63.
Uh contemplation, just restingin him.
His love is better than lifeitself.
God's not a transactional God.
He doesn't like love us based onuh paying us, paying us for
doing certain acts.
He's just he's the God andFather of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is love.
(22:16):
His He loves us.
Boy, just sit on His love beingbetter than life and let that
wash over you.
So I carry these thoughtsthrough my days.
Uh, they inform my morningprayer, midday prayer, evening
prayer, they inform myconversations, my work, uh
meetings I have, podcasts I do.
Uh that's what I mean that whenI say lectio divina begins to
(22:37):
inform our whole lives, days,weeks, months, years.
So listen, if you're if you'rehere today and you're a leader,
for example, maybe you're aministry leader, a a worker in
your in your ministry or church,or a maybe an elder or pastor,
uh, I want you to hear Jesus'invitation today in this
podcast.
Slow down, receive, listen, uh,return.
(23:02):
The people around us, uh, theydon't need you to know more
about God.
They need you and they need meto actually know God.
An experience of this living,eternal God of the universe who
loves them and loves the worldwe live in.
And this requires a certainslowness, a certain way of
approaching scripture, lectiodivina.
(23:25):
Again, it's it's reading, slowlysavoring, it's meditating,
chewing on it, eating it like alion on a carcass or a dog
chewing a bone, like a coweating its cudge.
We're just chewing on it,letting phrases or words leap up
to us.
And then we let it evoke aprayer back to the Father, let
it just come naturally, and thenwe just rest in the love of God
(23:47):
who loves you and loves me.
And so let me, again, this isnot for uh advanced Christians.
Lectio Divina is for hungryChristians.
Whether you are a beginner oragain, whether you've been in
this for decades, uh, you're inthe right place to begin to
integrate this great classicspiritual practice that's
actually been around for 2,000years called Lectio Divina.
(24:11):
So here's some practicalthoughts for today.
I want to encourage you to startwith, say, 10 minutes and to
pick one short passage ofscripture.
For example, maybe it's Psalm23, and it may be, you know, one
segment of that, you know, theLord is my shepherd.
(24:33):
Uh, I lack nothing.
And maybe that's enough.
The Lord is my shepherd, myshepherd, my shepherd.
The Lord is my shepherd.
You know, he makes me lie downin green pastures, he leads me
beside quiet waters, uh, herestores my soul, he leads me in
paths of righteousness for hisnamesake.
(24:53):
But any one of those lines, andyou just begin to meditate on
it.
Or maybe it's Psalm 131, it's avery short psalm about uh being,
you know, coming to the Lordlike weaning like a at a
mother's breast.
It's just a fantastic image.
Or maybe you take something likeMatthew 11, 28 to 30.
Uh Jesus says, My uh come to me,all you who are weary and
(25:15):
burdened, and I will give yourest.
I mean, we take my yoke upon youand I will, you know, my yoke is
easy, my burden is light.
And just, ah, just take but thatit's Matthew 11, 28 to 30 is is
so rich.
Or maybe you want to do a textlike Romans 8, uh, 31 to 39, all
about the love of God.
Uh, nothing can separate us inthe love of God.
(25:36):
What a fantastic passage.
Or even Isaiah 49, uh, 14 to 16,about being engraved in the palm
of his hand.
Just a few scriptures to helpyou get started.
Take something that's you knowthat's palatable to begin, and
uh read it aloud multiple times,meditate on it, pray it back to
the Father, and then contemplateit, let his love wash over you.
Again, we don't masterscripture.
(25:59):
Scripture masters us.
Love that.
Listen, I'm still learning and Iwill be learning the rest of my
life.
Uh, I trust you will as well,because the point is meeting the
living God, an encounter withGod in Christ.
So that's your challenge thisweek.
Okay, five days, 10 to 15minutes, one short passage at a
(26:22):
time.
I gave you some text toconsider.
The four movements, keep them inmind.
Read, meditate, pray,contemplate.
Maybe you'll write out thescripture on a note card or a
piece of paper.
Carry it with you in yourwallet.
I often do.
Uh, let it follow you into yourmeetings, your activities of the
day, and then notice what Goddoes in you over that time.
(26:43):
Don't try to control it.
You want to simply receive.
Listen, as Psalm 19 says, uh,God's word is more desirable
than gold, yes, than much finegold.
It's greater than all the richesof the world could ever offer
you.
So my prayer for you is thateven though our society keeps us
(27:04):
in a fog, and we often can findourselves in a prison of wrong
thoughts in a small, shrunkenworld.
I like what C.S.
Lewis wrote uh in one of hisletters and screw tape letters.
He said, the devil doesn't somuch put ideas into our head,
but he keeps God's ideas out.
Thus, Lectio Divina.
(27:26):
So may the Lord bless you, maythe Lord keep you, may the Lord
meet you uh in Scripture throughthe meditation of his word,
which is unlike any other bookor word in the universe.
Blessings to you.
Have a wonderful day, and mayyour soul be filled with him.
(27:47):
Blessings.
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