What does Psalm 119:99 mean? More insight than all my teachers

Day 18

"I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation" (Psalm 119:99).

My Prayer

Yahweh, my Heavenly Father, thank You for this scripture.^Y I praise You for the power that is in it and thank You for what You will do through it (Isaiah 55:11). Please reveal its meaning to our minds (Psalm 119:18). For all who read here, please lead them to pray this page with me...

My Heavenly Father, Psalm 119 is a psalm of Your servant David. By meditating on Your testimony, David had greater understanding than all of the priests and prophets who taught him. Yes, according to Psalm 119:99, we can have greater understanding than seminary graduates, Greek and Hebrew scholars and full time preachers. Great understanding can be ours through meditation on scripture and the prayers that accompany it. 

In this great psalm, Your servant David prayed nineteen prayers to You requesting insight into Your word before he expressed the amazing results of meditation in Psalm 119:99 "more understanding than all my teachers". 

You have shown me that prayer and meditation should occur simultaneously. We talk to You as we think about You. 

Prayer engages my heart with You, oh Lord. Meditation also involves my heart:

"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, Yahweh, my rock, and my redeemer" (Psalm 19:14). 

Lord, I have seen that the words analyze and memorize never occur in the World English Bible. The word "study" occurs only once. But the word meditate occurs twenty-three times. And seventeen of those twenty-three occurrences occur in conjunction with prayer. So I see that meditation on You should typically result in conversation with You. 

In my experience, if I meditate on scripture... and converse with You about Your words with praise and requests... the result is greater understanding. Your words grow deep roots into my heart. Then You bring Your words to my mind at opportune times (John 14:26). This is supernatural. It is superior to wrote memorization. 

This meditation which Your scripture speaks of is not meditation on nothing to provide an escape from the anxieties of life. This meditation is on You Yourself... to bring us into conversations with You and to receive Your power to overcome. And scripture tells us exactly what to meditate on.

What do we meditate on?

Your word, creation, glory, works, precepts, testimonies, majesty and Son..^1.5diii

My Lord, there are passages in the Old Testament which commend meditation on the law (Joshua 1:8, Psalm 1:1-3). But as Post-Pentecost Christians, our relationship to the law is very, very different from Pre-Pentecost believers. We are not under law (Romans 6:14). We may use the law but it doesn't speak to us (Romans 3:19). The Holy Spirit speaks to us.^A3

My Father, I pray for those who meditate on theological concepts instead of meditating directly on Your undiluted, non-paraphrased words. When we meditate on scripture, we meditate on Your perfect words. But meditation on theology is meditation on man's words... meditation on error. How arrogant to say that the conclusions we draw from scripture are inerrant! If we do, then we are essentially claiming to be a prophet or a Pope. Conclusions of man have errors. Your words are inerrant. If we meditate on man deduced theological concepts instead of Your scripture, we are meditating on error.

Lord, draw us into deep meditation on Your words in the Bible. Grant us greater understanding than all of our teachers.

In this passage, Psalm 119:99, You revealed just one of the conditions for understanding the Bible... meditation! Thank you for revealing this in Your word! For, how can we walk by the Spirit, if we don't know how to meditate on scripture?

Heavenly Father, for those who read here, I pray that You show them how to meditate on scripture. Please lead them to click this link: "Learning to Read: Five Paths"

Heavenly Father, teach us how to understand scripture. By Your Spirit, lead Your children to click this link: "Conditions for Understanding the Word"

You deserve all praise!

Amen.

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You are reading the Walk by the Spirit Daily Devotional Series, which is subchapter 3.7 of the free, online book Fellowship with God in the Sixth Path.  In the Walk by the Spirit Daily Devotional, readers learn how to how to walk by the Spirit. Walking by the Spirit is one way the New Testament describes fellowship with God, the subject of this online book. 

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