Delightful Meditation on Christ

With the new year in mind I recently preached a sermon on Psalm 1. The intention was to draw people this year to delight in, study, and meditate on their Bibles with the intention that they might know their God better. The mind and soul were created to have God as their main object of affection, and the Scriptures are central in pursuing that goal.

I have been helped in thinking through this topic by Kyle Strobel in his work Formed For the Glory of God. In this work Strobel instructs his readers on spiritual formation through the life and theology of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards has a great deal to teach us in this area of meditation on Scripture. He asserts in his sermon on John 13:23, “the business of a Christian ought to be very much [in] contemplation and the improvement of the faculties of his mind in divine things.” This is why the Word of God is so crucial to the Christian life, for there it is that we see the beauty and glory of our God. One more extended quote by Edwards reminds us of the reward of this journey into Scripture, namely, knowing God.

“In Christ you shall have glorious objects for the eye of your soul to behold in which you shall find rest. You shall have glorious objects of your understanding and contemplation. The glories of God and the beauty of Christ shall be the objects of your view and the way of salvation by Christ will be like a green pasture for your soul to feed on. And the glorious gospel with its various excellent doctrines and divine truths shall be as a garden to your soul set with a variety of pleasant plants, flowers, and fruits that are ravishing to the eye. In the pleasure that you will have in beholding these lovely objects, your soul shall have sweet rest. . . . The beauty and glory that is seen is sweet enough you will never desire to see anything more beautiful.”

Jeremy Kimble (PhD, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) is Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Cedarville University. He is an editor for Credo Magazine as well as the author of That His Spirit May Be Saved: Church Discipline as a Means to Repentance and Perseverance and numerous book reviews. He is married to Rachel and has two children, Hannah and Jonathan.