Without meditation the truths which we know will never affect our hearts… As a hammer drives a nail to the head, so mediation drives a truth to the heart… Read before you meditate. “Give attendance to readings” (1 Tim. 4:13). Then it follows, “meditate upon these things” (vs. 15). Reading doth furnish with matter; it is the oil that feeds the lamp of meditation. Be sure your mediations are founded upon Scripture. Reading without meditation is unfruitful; meditation without reading is dangerous.

Thomas Watson (1620–1686), Puritanischer Prediger

Related Bible passage: 1TI.4.13

Topics: The Bible & the Word of God, Prayer & Silence, Growth & Character

Occasions: For Reflection

Thomas Watson

Thomas Watson war ein englischer puritanischer Geistlicher des 17. Jahrhunderts, der in London wirkte und nach dem Erlass der Uniformitätsakte von 1662 als Nonkonformist predigte. Er steht für eine praxisorientierte reformierte Theologie, die er in bildhafter Sprache und pastoralen Schriften zu Themen wie Buße und Katechismuslehre entfaltete. Heutigen Bibellesern bietet sein Werk pointierte, alltagsnahe Auslegungen zur christlichen Lebensführung und zum Trost in Anfechtungen.

All quotes by Thomas Watson (114)

More on this topic

[The Bible is] shallow enough for a child not to drown, yet deep enough for an elephant to swim.

Augustine of Hippo

A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.

Unknown

The Bible in the pulpit must never supersede the Bible at home.

John Charles Ryle

The Bible is almost bursting with good news for bad people.

Corrie ten Boom

I read the Bible the way I harvest my apple tree: I shake it, and what falls down and is ripe, I take. The rest I leave hanging for now.

Martin Luther

The Bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid.

Martin Luther

The law is divine and holy. Let the law have its glory, but yet no law, be it never so divine and holy, ought to teach me that I am justified, and shall live through it. I grant it may teach me that I ought to love God and my neighbor; also to live in love, soberness, patience, etc., but it ought not to show me how I should be delivered from sin, the devil, death, and hell. Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, which teaches me, not what I ought to do but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me: that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel wills me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.

Martin Luther

Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.

Madeleine L'Engle

All quotes · lumen.bible

lumen.bible