Do you struggle to connect with God in Scripture?

It's easy to get bogged down in the linguistic, cultural and historical details and to lose sight of the whole point: hearing the voice of Jesus speaking to us here and now. Lectio divina is a traditional Benedictine practice of Scripture reading that treats the Bible not as a text to be dissected, but as the living Word of God spoken anew to us.

Experienced Bible teacher Jan Johnson has led lectio divina workshops for many years. Here she presents forty scriptural meditations, organized topically, with a view toward giving us the tools we need to practice lectio divina on our own. Each meditation can be used both individually and in group settings, and includes

an introductory space of silence to help us relax and refocus, along with an optional preparatory question or exercise;
the full text of a passage from Scripture with explanations of unusual or important words, and with cultural and historical background as needed;
questions and cues to help us enter the text (and in narrative passages, prompts to help us vividly imagine how the action would have unfolded);
space to contemplate the passage and to respond to God in prayer;
space to simply rest in what God has said to us; and
an exercise to "try on" one of the main ideas of the passage in our daily lives.

Meeting God in Scripture moves us beyond merely understanding what the text meant in its original context to a direct spiritual encounter with Christ as he speaks to us in each passage. The method of Scripture reading modeled here offers to revitalize our understanding of Scripture permanently—even long after we've finished these particular meditations.