How to Meditate on God’s Word

January 28, 2025 / by Pastor Scott Boerckel

NOTE: The bulk of the content for this article comes from a delightful but long out of print booklet by Walter Trobisch entitled, “Martin Luther’s Quiet Time.”

Martin Luther had a barber. His name was Peter Beskendorf. One day, Peter asked Luther a question about how to pray and meditate upon God’s Word. Luther replied with a rather lengthy letter entitled, “A Simple Way to Pray, for a Good Friend.”

The letter is kind and pastoral. More importantly, it gives us some insight into Luther’s personal spiritual life as well as how to offer kind, spiritual counsel to a friend. Luther’s suggestions are not the only way to meditate upon scripture, but they are one very good way. So, allow me to share some of the counsel that Luther offered to his barber regarding how to meditate on God’s Word.

When we think about meditation upon God’s Word, we must think about it as an active engagement with God in prayer. This is how Luther regards it. In fact, he simply calls it “prayer.” Luther suggested that our meditation begin with the ten commandments. This does not mean to rattle them off rapid fire (something Luther called “zerklappern,” meaning to rattle something to pieces). Rather, Luther suggests taking one commandment at a time, “in order that my mind becomes as uncluttered as possible for prayer.”

Luther wrote Peter, “Out of each commandment I make a garland of four twisted strands. That is, I take each commandment first as a teaching, which is what it actually is, and I reflect upon what our Lord God so earnestly requires of me here. Secondly, I make out of it a reason for thanksgiving. Thirdly, a confession and fourthly, a prayer petition.”

Luther then takes the time to go through all ten commandments in this letter to his barber, writing out “a garland of four twisted strands” for each commandment, thus providing an example for the barber to follow. For example, in the seventh commandment, “You shall not steal,” Luther writes, “First I learn here that I shall not take my neighbor’s property nor possess it against his will, neither secretly nor openly; that I shall not be unfaithful or false in my bargaining, my service and work lest what I gain should belong to me only as a thief; but I shall earn my food with the sweat of my brow and shall eat my own bread with all those who are faithful. At the same time I shall help my neighbor so that his property is not taken away from him through such actions mentioned above.”

Luther continues, “Secondly, I thank God for His faithfulness and goodness in that He has given me and all the world such a good teaching and through it protection and shelter. For unless He protects us, not one penny nor one bite of bread would remain in the house. Thirdly, I confess my sin and ungratefulness, there where I have wronged someone and cheated him or where during my life, I was unfaithful in keeping my word. Fourthly, I ask that God may give grace so that I and all the world might learn His commandment and think about it and improve. I pray that there may be less stealing, robbing, exploiting, embezzling, and injustice. I also pray that such evils may soon end when the day of judgment comes. This is the goal to which the prayers of all Christians and of all creation are directed (Rom. 8:22).”

This is how Martin Luther counseled his barber to meditate upon scripture. It is not just reading, reciting, or speaking. It is learning, meditating, searching so that the perspective of the eternal might be acquired.

Luther advised his barber, then, to do such meditation daily on all ten of the commandments. But he wasn’t finished there. When you are through with the ten commandments, Luther advised, take the Lord’s Prayer and do the same thing with this four strand twisted garland of a teaching, a thanksgiving, a confession, and a prayer. Luther called the Lord’s Prayer, “the greatest martyr on earth, tortured and abused by everyone.” But when engaged in this four stranded garland way, he writes, “I suck on it like a nursing baby, and I drink and eat it like an aged man and can never become satisfied.”

Luther is wise enough to advise his barber that this process should not be rigidly followed. For example, he advises, “It often happens that I lose myself in such rich thoughts in one petition of the Lord’s Prayer and then I let all other six petitions go. When such rich good thoughts come, one should let the other prayers go and give room to these thoughts, listen to them in silence and by no means suppress them. For here the Holy Spirit Himself is preaching and one word of His sermon is better than thousands of our own prayers.”

Luther advises his barber to do this mediation with pen and paper in hand. He writes, “If the Holy Spirit should come when these thoughts are in your mind and begin to preach to your heart, giving you rich and enlightened thoughts, then give Him honor, let your preconceived thoughts go, be quiet and listen to Him who can talk better than you; and note what He proclaims and write it down, so you will experience miracles as David says, ‘Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law (Psalm 119:18).’”

In case you are thinking, “Wow. This looks like too much to do!”, Luther also advises his barber, “Don’t take too much upon yourself lest the spirit should get tired . . . It is sufficient to grasp one part of a Bible verse or even half a part from which you can strike a spark in your heart . . . for the soul, if it is directed towards one single thing, may it be good or bad, and if it is really serious about it, can think more in one moment than the tongue can speak in ten hours and the pen can write in ten days. Such a dexterous, exquisite and mighty instrument is the soul or spirit.”

The point here is that the suggested direction of the ten commandments or the Lord’s Prayer and making the four strands of teaching, thanksgiving, confession, and petition form a pattern from which the heart is opened to the operation of the Holy Spirit. Once the Spirit speaks, we dare not quench Him by feeling the need to keep up our “system.” The system of meditation serves the Spirit, not the other way around.

Why don’t you give Martin Luther’s advice to his barber a try? I think that God may have more riches in store for us than you might imagine!

Blessings,
Pastor Scott

P.S. Walter Trobisch’s widow kindly granted permission for his article to be placed on the internet for free.

If you would like to read the entire booklet, you can find it here.

Scott loves being a pastor and teaching God’s Word. Before he was a pastor, he worked as a ceramic engineer (and bonus points for anyone who actually knows what that is). He sometimes uses the training that he received at the University of Illinois (Go Illini!), Grace Theological Seminary, and Jerusalem University College. Scott’s wife, Carol, is an awesome watercolor artist who really knows how to think Christianly about the arts. Scott likes cycling with friends, enjoying his ever growing family, and learning from the community of God’s people at East White Oak.