Learn With the Heart

Virtue is not a passive avoidance of what is bad.  It has moral  power.  A virtuous person has goodness.  "Virtue," says one professor, "needs to be learned with the heart as well as the head."  Cultivating virtue, then, entails more than a thorough acquaintance with God's Word.  It calls for meditation on what is written there so that our hearts get filled with gratitude for Jehovah and we are moved to apply Scriptural principles in our lives.

"How do I love your law!"  Exclaimed the psalmist.  "All day long it is my concern."  (Psalm 119:97) And King David wrote:  "I have remembered days of long ago; I have meditated on all your [God's] activity; I willingly kept myself concerned with the work of your own prayerful meditation an integral part of our study of the Bible and Bible-based publications.

True, making time for diligent study accompanied by meditation can be a challenge.  But the pursuit of virtue requires that we buy out the time from other activities.  (Ephesians 5:15, 16) Aaron, age  24, buys out such time every day by waking up 30 minutes earlier than he once did.  He relates:   "At first, I just read the Bible for the entire half hour.  Only recently have I come to realize the importance of meditation.  So now I use about half of that time  to dwell upon what I have just read.  This has been truly rewarding."  Meditation can be done at other times.  In a melody to Jehovah, David sang:  "During the night watches I meditate on you."  (Psalm 63:6)  And the Bible relates: "Isaac was out walking in order to meditate in the field at about the falling of the evening." -Genesis 24:63.

Meditation is invaluable in cultivating virtue, for it helps us to feel the way Jehovah feels and to make his views our views.  Maria, for example, knew that God prohibits fornication.  But to 'abhor what is wicked and cling to what is good,,' she needed to meditate on key Bible texts.  (Romans 12:9) She was helped to see the need to make changes after reading Colossians 3:5, which urges us to 'deaden our body members as respects  fornication, uncleanness, sexual appetite, hurtful desire, and covetousness.'  Maria had to ask herself:  'What kind of sexual appetite must I deaden?  What should I avoid that might arouse unclean desires?  Are there changes I need to make in the way I treat those of the opposite sex?'


Meditation includes  considering the result of an action.  Paul urges Christians to abstain from fornication and to exercise self-control so that "no one go to the point of harming and encroach upon the rights of his brother."  (1 Thessalonians 4:3-7) Good questions to ponder are:  "What damage would I do to myself, my family, or others by committing this act?  How would I be affected spiritually, emotionally, and physically?  How have things turned out for others who have violated God's law in the past?'  Such contemplation made Maria stronger at heart, and it can do the same for us. 

Next time: Learn From Examples

The Watchtower, 2001