Lectio Divina

Lectio divina is nothing out of the ordinary. It is simply what happens naturally when Christians wrestle with the biblical text. The Latin term may intimidate us into thinking that it is something different from what we typically do in reading the Bible. But the Latin term divina does not mean esoteric; it is more akin to our term holy. The Scriptures are holy—set aside for a unique purpose. Scripture is divine in the sense that it has a special place within the church. Lectio divina simply means reading the Bible the way it’s supposed to be read—as divine Scripture.

Reading ought never to be a purely subjective enterprise, arbitrarily choosing a word and letting the feelings wash over you. Good reading invariably involves an encounter, with meaning occurring within the encounter. Lectio divina, too, aims at encounter. To read the Scriptures without asking how they call us to Christ is to ignore their fundamental purpose. If perhaps we had the impression of lectio being an excuse to leave behind one’s critical faculties and to embark upon a sentimental psychologizing of the gospel, I would like to disabuse you of such a notion, for this is not at all what earlier generations of spiritual writers had in mind when they proposed the practice of lectio divina. They thought of it as a robust—indeed, often piercing and painful—process that demands a careful and deliberate reading of Scripture.

Lectio divina’s four traditional steps of lectio (reading), meditatio (meditation), oratio (prayer), and contemplatio (contemplation) form the frame of the practice. Repetitious reading, thoughtful and extended reflection on individual words or phrases, prayerful reflection upon our own lives in the light of our meditation, and finally silent resting in the love of God are the four basic elements.

This introduction is mostly taken from Hans Boersma, Pierced by Love: Divine Reading with the Christian Tradition (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2023).