In Week 3 of our class, we spent the first few minutes reviewing the interpretation stage from Week 2--including that you should never take a 'snickers' bar from Pastor Jason! Before getting into principles, we learned the difference between a 'contradiction' and a 'paradox'. A contradiction is something that cannot be rectified--they are opposite and will always be opposite--there will never be agreement between to thing that are contradictory. A 'paradox' however, is 'an apparent' contradiction, but isn't really. There can be agreement between two thing that are paradoxical. Scripture can often be overwhelming to people who either don't have the skillset or a plan to study. They are often discouraged when they see something in scripture that does not match up (paradox)--but they quickly get frustrated and conclude that it is contradictory and either move on without an understanding of the issue--or quit studying altogether. We studied a few specific examples of this in the presentation for Week 3. It is very important that we understand the difference between a contradiction and a paradox, because there is no error in scripture. It is seems to be contradictory, we must study with diligence to discover the paradox, because Scripture is and will never be contradictory to itself! We must enter our time of study from the position that scripture is inerrant in order to establish a principle that we can trust!

Next we discussed that there is always an 'intent' of scripture. It was written not to study, but to change our lives--that is why we study it! It helps me to think of a love letter as an example. There is always an intent with a love letter--it is designed and written to communicate something specific, to stir the heart of the recipient. When someone is writing a romantic letter to their significant other--they would not write it with the intent to confuse. Everything would be contextual--even in the event that artistic liberties were taken in it's composition--there would be meaning and clues in the context that were meant to promote understanding. This is also the purpose of scripture, and I would assert that scripture is the most beautiful and effective love letter ever written.

Next, we discussed what to do with all of the information that we have generated in the previous steps of observation, bombarding, and interpreting. Sometimes we just get too much information to use and we must narrow down the scope of our focus in order to reach a principle. I presented a graphic that I created to help communicate the way this methods should flow. (pictured below)