How To Read The Bible And Encounter God

How we can read, receive, understand and respond to the Bible

Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash

It wasn’t until recently in life that I understood what I had been doing when it came to reading my Bible. In fact, I didn’t realize how old of a practice it was and that it had deep spiritual roots. While this may seem technical or old using Latin terms, this practice is the best way to receive, understand, and apply scripture in our lives.

What is Lectio Divina?

In order to understand where we are going with this, we must focus on a few different things. Especially as this phrase can conjure up many thoughts about what this practice can actually be about. However, we can better understand the practice of Lectio Divina first by understanding what the words mean.

This phrase is Latin. It comes from a practice started first by monks around the year 200. The Latin meaning for each word is as follows:

• Lectio: Reading
• Divina: Divine or God-like

So, with the understanding of these Latin words, we can come to understand that Lectio Divina is ‘reading in a diving or God-like’ manner. Which makes sense when it comes to reading the Bible. In order to receive, understand, and apply the things we read in the Bible, we…