There is a profound connection between medieval Christian mysticism and the traditions of biblical exegesis that grew up over the course of the Middle Ages; lectio divina, the prayerful study of scripture, lies in the middle. This system of meditation on passages in the Bible, sometimes extended to texts based on biblical passages and redolent of biblical language, is rooted in ancient ascetic discipline and is still practiced by Christians today, but it had its most important and formative period in the monastic world of the Middle Ages, when prayerful study and recitation of parts of the Bible was part of the everyday experience of monks and nuns.

It is important to understand what sort of Bible inspired the lectio divina. First of all, in the monastery, the Bible was mostly known through liturgy and devotional practices. As the great scholar of medieval monasticism Jean LeClercq pointed out, medieval monastics needed to know how to read so that they could participate in the lectio divina, and this lectio was primarily engaged through reading out loud. Later, in the world of the medieval schools and incipient universities, lectio divina came to be understood as part of sacra pagina, the study of the Bible for its own sake and for the sake of knowledge of the text, as well as texts that were directly inspired by the Bible, such as devotional treatises and homilies. But in the monastic world, lectio divina is centered on spiritual experience, especially the arousal of compunction, the desire for heaven.