In this episode, I share more about how this truth has played out in my own life — and the steps you can take to make it real in yours.
Truth: The Bible is Both Prescriptive and Descriptive
👉🏻 I didn’t learn what I’m about to share with you until a few years into my walk with God. When I realized what this meant, and the power it gave me, I wished I’d learned it sooner. It would have removed a lot of confusion when reading the Bible. And it gave me a filter to judge whether what someone was telling me was actually what God wanted.
You may come from a church or religion where the entire Bible is treated as if it's prescriptive - which isn’t the case at all.
What Do I Mean by Prescriptive?
The dictionary defines prescriptive as: “relating to the imposition or enforcement of a rule or method.”
📝 To simplify it further, think of the word prescription. When you’re sick, your doctor might prescribe something for you to take. She’ll recommend a specific drug and treatment. In other words, she’s saying, “This is what you need to do. This is how it should be.” She also likely check-up on you to ensure that you’re following the prescribed treatment.
It’s the same concept when thinking about the term prescriptive.
✅ It speaks to how something should be or, to be more specific regarding the Bible, how God wants it to be.
And it’s true that there are parts of the Bible that are truly prescriptive; where God is telling us how to live. Not to be a harsh ruler; but because He loves us and knows what is best for us more than we do.
For example, in the Garden of Eden, God prescribed there being one man and one woman in marriage.
Genesis 2:24 (NLT) says, “This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.”
Please note that nowhere in the Bible does God say that it’s required for every man and woman to marry. However, if we do marry, it should be the joining of one woman and one man.
The Bible is Also Descriptive
🗣️ These parts of the Bible are merely describing what happened.
They’re not necessarily items that God is prescribing to us or even approves of.
In fact, often they are things that break God’s heart or cause Him to enact justice in this life or the next.
For example, let’s go back to the Garden of Eden where God prescribed there being one man and one woman in marriage.
After the fall, when sin entered the world, we begin to read descriptive accounts of men having multiple wives. In fact, only two chapters later in Genesis, soon after the account of Cabel murdering his brother Abel (which was the first murder in history), we read the first biblical account of multiple wives:
Genesis 4:19 (NLT) says, “Lamech married two women. The first was named Adah, and the second was Zillah.”
What Lamech did went against God’s prescribed order of things. Just like the murder of Abel. God is not prescribing - or saying “I approve of” – murder or multiple wives.
These men had free will (as well all do) and blatantly chose to sin. They turned away from God and towards something that wasn’t aligned with His character or desires.
And the Bible recorded that to teach us. The practice of taking multiple wives - which continues throughout other chapters of the Bible - isn’t God’s stamp of approval. It’s a record meant to show us how quickly the world started to change due to sin - and how much we need Him.
It’s a reminder that we’re all born naturally bent towards sin.
We find another stark example in Genesis 34. There, we read how Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob, is raped by Shechem the Hivite.
This is a purely descriptive account. God does not approve or desire rape (aka prescribe it).
