Gaining insight

“I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on Your statutes. I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey Your precepts.” Psalm 119:99-100
We can learn a lot from Bible teachers, both those teaching in our own churches and those in other churches and wider ministries. Especially today, we can access more and more teaching through mp3’s on the internet, live streaming of services, podcasts, Christian radio, etc. from around the world.
But it doesn’t stop there. We can learn even more – by meditating on God’s word for ourselves. Meditation in this sense isn’t reaching some trance-like, out-of-body state. In the Biblical sense of the word, it means ‘to re-think’ and carries a similar idea to that of a cow chewing the cud. The cow eats grass, and it enters the stomach. After a while, it regurgitates the food, chews it a bit more, and swallows it again. This continues until the food is completely digested. It’s the same with God’s word. We need to be reading the Bible, and digging into it, but we also need to be letting it sit inside our hearts, bringing it back to mind and thinking about all the different facets of meaning and how we can apply it in our lives.
Here’s the key. The Bible tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge (Prov. 1:7, 9:10). If we fear God, we will obey His commands. It’s all very well to read the Bible, but if we don’t put it into practice, we aren’t learning anything. It’s as we obey the Word, that it becomes part of us, and we gain insight and knowledge from God.