Meditation and Communion with God: Contemplating Scripture in an Age of Distraction by John Jefferson Davis

Meditation and Communion with God: Contemplating Scripture in an Age of Distraction Reviews

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  An Te

  A theological defense (and partly philosophical) of the biblical understanding of God, man and creation and how we are to devote and look forward to the indwelling kingdom that is here but not yet fully consummated (inaugurated eschatology). The later chapters introduce structured meditative practices such a lectio divina and the centering prayer.
  
  This book comes highly recommended for those who seek to get closer to God through quiet and reflective practise, a necessity for all Christians to negotiate the affairs of this world and the one to come. Its practical and will help, I feel, most Christian who wish to maintain better a focus on God in a distracting age. The odd mention of neuroscientific research was interesting but may serve as a hindrance for those not familiar with the area.
  
  I omit the fifth star as John seems to uphold different perspectives which emphasise the superiority of pre-modern thinking but then cites neuroscientific evidence supporting common neuronal activity following meditative practices... A hodgepodge of worldviews may confuse some people who may seek out meditative practices regardless of the worship's object... A slight danger but a danger nevertheless. Not worth taking. We do not meditate because it yields certain brains states but because we desire to seek and know our God as revealed in Jesus Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
  
  All in all, a thoroughly instructive read with a wealth of philosophical, theological and spiritual practices to sink one's teeth into, at one's own leisure.
• 
  Laura Clawson

  Probably the most important book theological text I've ever read. Highly recommended. Davis is readable and real, yet precise and pointed in his explainations of eschatology and bibliology.
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  John

  Though not a sexy subject, given the pressing challenge of technology to our spiritual habits, there’s perhaps never been a more appropriate time for a book on meditation. John Jefferson Davis’s Meditation and Communion with God first considers a theological framework for how we can read the Bible meditatively and then asks the practical questions for how that can be accomplished in our lives.
  
  Davis believes there is a crisis in the American church. Our current methods have been tried and found wanting. Meanwhile, there is one verifiable link to transformed behavior: time in the Word. Those who read the Bible at least four times a week are found to live in a significantly more Christ-like manner. Why would we not spend time in the Word? The answer, Davis says, is simple: the pull of technology. Cell phone usage hasn’t just crept into our lives, it has come in, in the immortal words of Miley Cyrus, “like a wrecking ball.” If we are going to find ourselves regularly in Scripture, we have to tame this monster.
  
  Davis’s foundational theological conviction is that “a believing, prayerful and receptive reading of Scripture is an act of communion with the triune God, who is really present to the reader through and with the biblical text.” At the heart of this is the reality of an active, triune God. The believer is not on his own, paving a path to God: the Spirit is present and active in his life. “Union with Christ is not just a metaphor,” Davis says, it is a transformative reality for the Christian. “The Holy Spirit is like an umbilical cord that unites us to Christ, and through which he imparts his life to us, like a vine to the branches.”
  
  And yet, all too often we run on the “natural energies of this age, rather than the supernatural energy loosed by the resurrection of Jesus…” The Christian life is not just lived on earth, but in heaven. In Davis’s words, “Our molecular selves are still very much located on earth, but since we are united with Christ, our spirits connected to Christ by the Holy Spirit.” What that means is that, “we are already, in some mysterious but very real sense, in heaven, that we have experiential access to the reality of the new creation.”
  
  When we read the Bible, we are not just consuming information: whether as stories about another time and place or helpful ethical advice. No, we hear truths about who God is and who we are. In the Word, we engage reality. And even better, we commune with our holy and intimate God.
  
  The key for experiencing the profound reality God has for us, then, is the Holy Spirit + the Word + our meditative engagement. How do we do that final piece of meditation? Davis works through different traditions of meditative prayer including Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox. Sifting through these traditions, Davis encourages us to move away from practices that move us inward, and toward practices that are rooted in the biblical vision of moving us upward. One such prayer Davis recommends is rooted in Psalm 103:1-5:
  Bless the Lord, O my soul, and bless God’s holy name;
  Bless the Lord, O my soul, who leads me into life.
  
  Building on cognitive psychological research, Davis says that our brains are most engaged when we process through both visual and auditory channels of the brain. Davis encourages us to pair propositional texts in scripture with narrative or pictorial texts (for instance, Matthew’s account of the baptism of Jesus can be paired with Pauline texts about sonship. This simple method for whole-brained meditation Davis believes will help us cut through the clutter and pull of modern life.
  What would it look like for us to reflect on the realities of heaven as described in Revelation 21-22? Or of our position with Christ as described in Ephesians 2:6? Or God’s delight in us as described in the Prodigal Son parable? Davis describes this method as “seeing into heaven now.”
  
  John Jefferson Davis’s Meditation and Communion with God is an invaluable contribution and has challenged my own capitulation with the technologized American Christianity. His practices are grounded in deep theological truths I believe but have barely skimmed the surface of in practice. My only minor critiques of Davis’s book is that Davis’s style tends to meander and there are sections and even chapters that, while very valuable, are difficult to make connections with his broader thesis (for instance, his chapter on hermeneutics). I would be delighted to see Davis work with an editor to put the book in a more accessible form for the public (along with a more attractive binding and printing).
  
  
  
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  Andrew Morgan Perschbacher

  would recommend this book to those who have some understanding of western thought and basic systematic theology, or to a layperson with a qualified mentor. Davis’s commentary of the world and reemphasizing the better reality of the spiritual realm in the alreadiness of inaugurated eschatology is invaluable. It flies in the face of materialism that has seeped its slimy goo into Christian thought and living. Also, his thoughts on identity (inaugurated ontology) would be extremely encouraging to the believer who is having doubts about their standing in Christ. Along with this, the believer who feels that God is far away would be encouraged in the way Davis reveals exactly how close God is to those who believe in him. I know that all who read this book will greatly be encouraged in their Christian walk, despite the book’s imperfections (i.e. I believe the book covers a large amount of content, and, therefore, I wish the book was longer with a more focused conclusion on how to meditate based off of the information Davis provides).
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  Bryan

  An excellent book which which could perhaps be summarized as a theological, apologetical, and practical guide to the nature of the real personal relationship with the Triune God. Davis is quite informed in many areas which make contributions to this end, including considerations as varied as critical realism, the fourfold sense of scripture, neuroscience, epistemology, meditation, and more.
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  Josh

  While a little academic on the front end, I found this book to be incredibly practical and insightful.
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  Kyle Grindberg

  I mixed bag, most of his comments on hermeneutics were fantastic. The stuff on contemplative prayer was abominable.
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  Bob

  There has been a remarkable growth of books around spiritual formation and spiritual practices that lead us into communion with God. The title and artwork of this book offer the promise of both deepening our relationship with God and doing so through an engagement with scripture.
  
  As one delves into this book, it appears that the author has taken on an important project. He acknowledges the plethora of meditation practices in the culture, some grounded in Eastern sources, some in ancient or more contemporary Catholic practice, and some grounded in neuroscience. What it seems that Davis is proposing is a theology of communion with God that grounds meditative practice in evangelical theological conviction. As such, this is an important project as some approaches to prayer and meditation seem to be thinly veneered adaptations of practices grounded in a very different worldview.
  
  Davis grounds the possibility of communion with God in the real presence of the Trinity through the work of the Holy Spirit, our union with Christ and the possibility of real intimacy with the Father. All this is because we are now in "the age to come" because of the work of Christ.
  
  Interestingly, Davis also argues for the rehabilitation of the ancient four-fold reading of scripture in light of these theological realities. We not only read in a literal sense. We read in a tropological or Christological sense, reading all scripture in the light of Christ. We read in a moral sense, and we read in an anagogical or heavenly sense, realizing that heaven and the rule of God is already breaking into our present reality because of Christ.
  
  He concludes with an outline of how this might inform our practices. This includes a four step process of meditative engagement with scripture that consists of (1) intention and invocation, (2) reading and reflection, (3) prayer, and (4) recollection at some later point in the day. He also proposes Five Practices of Right Comprehension that flow from his theological convictions:
  
  1. Right Comprehension of God (as the Triune God)
  2. Right Comprehension of Reality (that includes the heavenly, unseen world.
  3. Right Comprehension of Self (in union with the Triune God and the people of God)
  4. Right Comprehension of Purpose (to glorify and enjoy God forever)
  5. Right Comprehension of Worship (of the Holy, present God)
  
  He differentiates this from the kinds of meditation practiced in contemplative prayer that seem to focus on the wordless comprehension of the presence of God. His method is focused prayer centered around theological truth about the God who encounters us.
  
  While I strongly affirm the work Davis has done in theologically framing our communion with God including our uses of scripture in that communion, I had several difficulties with the work. One is the question of who Davis was writing for. It appeared from the cover and some of the things said in the introductory material that this was for a thoughtful general audience. Yet the language seems more for the theological guild in its assumptions that we will understand things like "ontology" and "realized eschatology" without explanation. Second is that it would have been helpful to provide some "guided practices" that fleshed out how one might enter into the kind of meditative
  communion with God he is proposing.
  
  My third difficulty is with an either/or approach that seems to deny the value of approaches that assume a theology of God "beyond words." He acknowledges that our knowledge of God transcends words but is not dissimilar from the words we use to articulate that understanding (p. 140). If this is so, is there not room to move from words to wordless contemplation of God in a sense that is still consistent with evangelical theological conviction? Where is it right to simply be still and know that God is God (cf.Psalm 46:10)?
  
  In sum, somewhere in the title of this book, I thought the word "toward" should be added. It raises important questions and proposes a theological framework often absent in spiritual formation circles. Yet I believe more work is needed to translate this into spiritual practice and to integrate this practice with contemplative practices grounded in the apophatic tradition (a tradition that does not always negate the use of words but recognizes that God transcends the words we use of Him and makes place for wordless adoration). I hope Davis will carry this work further.
  
  
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  Derek Winterburn

  This is a serious book but in the end it reads like a 'pet project', to see what could be said from an evangelical perspective about scriptural meditation. The author is an academic and is not writing a simple 'how to do it' book. Davis is concerned to demonstrate that we should pay more attention to scripture and not simply read it for it's surface (or literal) meaning. To advance the discussion he attempts to show philosophically that Christ can be present with the reader (akin to a Skype chat!) and how an awareness of the Trinity in relationship and inaugurated eschatology enable us to encounter God and the heavenly realm here and now. Although this interesting, for most of his potential readers it is non-controversial. The final chapter offers three ways of ruminating on the Bible, with acknowledge debts to Br Lawrence and Ignatius.
  
  So a book for the author to map out his thinking and experiences in a coherent way. But there are more immediate ways to get to grips with the subject (e.g. Tim Keller's book on prayer).
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  Clint Walker

  I love learning more about spiritual formation and transformation. There is a lot of good literature out there on the subject. This book, however, is a great read for a totally different reason. It is an academic book that offers a theological and philosophical framework for the practice of mediation of God through the Scriptures.
  
  Meditation and Communion with God is not for everyone. It is not a how to manual for meditation on Scripture, although it does offer some practical insights. It uses a lot of big words like "inaugurated eschatology" and "biblical epistemology". In the process, though, it deepens one's knowledge and understanding of the practice of meditation of Scripture.
  
  There were several points, as a pastor, in this book, where I blocked of a page or two and said, "preach this", or "study this more". The description and development, as well as the Scriptural references regarding a disciples "union with God" I though was especially helpful. Also helpful was the author's explanation of God's presence with us, and his relating that presence to modern cellular/wireless technology. Davis also takes several pages at different points in the book to differentiate Christian meditation from the meditation practices of other world religions, both in their worldview and in their ultimate goals.
  
  This is a book I will return to again and again. Each time, I think I will understand it a little better. It is a tremendous asset for those who want an academic understanding of spiritual practices, and will serve as a wonderful textbook for teachers and disciple-makers in the future.
• 
  Joe Holland

  A few notes on Davis's work.
  
  * It really was a pleasure to read. The reading level is pastor or scholar.
  * I've longed for a healthy treatment of biblical meditation that encompasses more than just the Puritan experience. Davis has done us a service by helpfully and critically reaching back into the Patristic, Monastic, and Medieval periods.
  * Books like "Emotionally Healthy Spirituality" (Scazzero) and "The Contemplative Pastor" (Peterson) are helpful on this topic but both tend toward a wholesale adoption of monastic practices without enough filtering through a Protestant lens. Davis does an excellent job in both his critique and commendation of historical devotional practices from church history while remaining centered on a robust Trinitarian Theology, our union with Christ, and the reality of the inaugurated kingdom as taught by Jesus and Paul.
  * Some will be turned off by his illustrations involving modern technology like broadband internet, facebook, skype, and wifi hotspots. But I actually appreciated his willingness to explore social, anthropological, and spiritual concepts with modern illustrations.
  
  I heartily recommend this book.
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  Brian

  Interesting blend of theology, philosophy, and neuroscience all geared toward meditation on Scripture as a means of communion with God. Perhaps a tad too academic in writing style, but the scope covered in this short book is impressive. Most importantly for me, the author drew fresh connections between meditation and the doctrines of the trinity, inaugurated eschatology, and union with Christ. The final chapter is most practical, positing three distinct forms of meditation. Well worth the time to read.
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  John

  A refreshing, robust, and thrilling read. Davis gives us the theological and spiritual foundation of our communion with God in the Scriptures based on our union with Christ and inaugurated eschatology. He gives us the biblical basis of why we can taste and see heaven today as we wait for it's coming. I loved this book. I'm so grateful for it.
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  Zachary Hanje

  Interesting. Reads more like a doctoral thesis than a common Christian Living book, and isn't therefore too friendly to the common reader. It's heavy philosophical discussions make for little practicality, but do serve as intriguing framework to think through meditating on Scripture.
  Throughout it all lies a subtle but constant call to indeed meditate. Read for that.
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  Jon Boyd

  A slim but weighty book, packed with foundational ideas that build up before finishing in practical how-tos — just the right approach.
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  Matt Mason

  Couldn't put it down. Read it in a single day. It was heavy sledding at times, but rewarding throughout.
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  Josh

  Really well written. Lots of good ways to think about reading/meditating as well as practical suggestions. Great for people like me who get easily distra