What does it mean to you? This, I believe, is the most destructive question that one can ask of the Scriptures. The implication is that the Scriptures can mean something to one person that it does not to another. “To me, it means that God is going to protect my children,” says one person. “Well, to me it means that God is going to help me get that new car,” says another. “Wonderful!” is the response to both. And so goes the conversation around the circle of well-meaning Bible studiers.
The problem with the “What-does-it-mean-to-you” approach is that it is purely subjective. It turns the Scripture into a wax nose that can be shaped into what ever our our current situation demands. The Bible becomes subjective magic book through which we serve as mediums to its message.
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The “what does it mean to you?” hermeneutic is called “Reader-response hermeneutics.” Hermeneutics is your method or rule book for interpretation. The reader-response hermeneutic, while common today in most Bible studies, produces a rule book that has no rules. The Scriptures can mean anything. Its no wonder we have so many interpretation. With a reader-response hermeneutic, the number of interpretations will equal the number of readers.
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Authorial intent hermeneutics, on the other hand, does not start with the reader, but with the writer and his audience. What did it mean to then? Here is a chart that helps visualize what I am going to be talking about. This is called the exegetical process. Notice, there are two vital steps that one must take before they can ask the question, How does it apply to me?
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