What does the passage say?

What does it mean?

What does it mean to me?

I read these in an article in my Today's Christian Women magazine called Back to the Bible. It's an article about Priscilla Shirer, Tony Evan's daughter. She was asked: any practical tips for making the most of limited Bbile study time? and responded:

I learned a great method from Anne Graham Lotz. I ask three questions of each verse: First, What does the passage say? I paraphrase the verse in one line and then ask, What does it mean? I pull out the spiritual principle from that verse and finally ask, based on that principle, What does it mean to me? For example, if the spiritual principle is "you need to have patience," I ask myslef if I'm exercising patience in this season of life. This is often when a biblical truth smacks me over the head, and I realize I need to share it with other women.

This got me thinking about all the times I've heard ppl talk about how 5 people can read a verse and think it means 5 different things. When really we should always read a passage/verse with these questions in mind. I think too many times ppl skip to the third question and view the answer to question 3 as the answer to question 1 also. They don't ask themselves what does the passage say, what was the author saying. The what does it mean, what principle was the author trying to convey, and lastly applying it to themselves.

Hope that makes sense, just got me thinking when I read that.