"What does this mean to you?"

That's possibly my least favorite sentence in the English language.

It's also one that I hear way to often in church settings.

Have you ever sat around a table when this question was asked?  Chances are, if you're reading this, that everybody at the table had a Bible sitting in front of them.  A worn out King James across the table.  A brand new NLT Life Application Study Bible next to you.  A slightly wrinkled and faded NIV Thompson Chain at the end of the table.  And a dinged up hard-cover Gideon Bible two chairs down.

What does this collection of books have in common?  They are all the divinely inspired word of God, and no matter the choice of translation, binding, or reference commentary, they all say the same thing!

That's right.  They all contain the same message, no matter slight variations in word choice.

So then, if they all say the same thing, why did the guy at the end of the table just read a verse and then promptly pose the question to the assembled crowd "What does this mean to you?"

It has no special meaning only to me.  It simply has a meaning.

Let me give you a real-world example.

I'm an engineer by trade and training.  Part of my job is to take special customer requests and come up with a concept and price and send it back to the customer for approval.  I get these request, invariably, in writing.  Now, I can look at what the customer wrote and say "well, to me this means he wants a widget in front", but if I send that back and what he really wanted was a gadget in back, then my work was useless.  The customer request doesn't have a meaning that varies from person to person reading it.  The request simply has a meaning.

Now, that's not to say the meaning is always straight forward and easy to understand, quite the contrary, it usually takes some digging to figure out what the customer really wants, but ultimately if I want to get it right, I have to find the actual meaning of the text.

The same principle applies to Bible study.  Do you think that the Apostles had multiple meanings in mind when they wrote epistles to churches they had founded?  No, of course not.  They were dealing with the everyday problems those churches were having almost 2,000 years ago.  Now, there are many, many timeless, absolute truths that can be found in studying those letters, but we have to do it correctly. 

We have to change our perspective. 
Start by determining what the author meant instead of what we want it to mean.  Then figure out the timeless truth contained in that passage.  Only as a final stage determine how that truth applies to your life.

Skipping straight to how the passage applies to your life is like my assuming I know what my customers want without doing the background work… an exercise in futility, because most likely I'm going to get it wrong.

So next time you're sitting at a table doing Bible study, simplify your question.  There is only one meaning, so just ask "What does this mean?".