Prescriptive vs. Descriptive: Reading the Bible with Clarity

In this episode of Q&A with Pastor Charlie, we tackle an important question for anyone serious about studying the Bible: how do you know if a passage is a command for us today or simply describing what happened in history?

Pastor Charlie walks through practical and spiritual tools for interpreting Scripture with clarity, including the role of prayer, the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the importance of context. He also explores real examples from the Bible, like the Ten Commandments, the book of Acts, and the life of Jesus, to help listeners better understand how to discern God’s heart through His Word.

Whether you’re new to Bible reading or growing deeper in your faith, this episode will help you approach Scripture with confidence and wisdom.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_01 0:00

All right, welcome back to another episode of the QA with Pastor Charlie Podcast. Thanks for tuning in again. This week we had a question sent it to us from one of the members of our church, and I'm just gonna read it. And it says, As I read through the Bible this year, I'm trying to focus on really knowing God's heart. I want to make sure I'm interpreting scripture accurately. Could you share some patterns to look for when I'm deciding if a text is a specific command or prescriptive for us today versus a historical account or descriptive of what took place? I'd love to be able to explain the distinction clearly to friends when we study together.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

That's a great question, and it makes me happy as a pastor to know that we have people in our church who are seriously trying to understand the Bible and wanting to know the heart of God. And I think those are really two things that we want for our church family, we want for every believer is one, you want the heart of God, because there are people who will study the Bible as a history book. They'll study the Bible to have knowledge, to maybe answer questions correctly or to prove people wrong. And none of those are the reason why we want to study the Bible. We want to study the Bible because it's revealing God to us, and in that we see God, we know God, we find God's heart, we know how to live, we know how to know Him. And as a pastor, I can assure you it makes my heart very happy to have members of our church who are committed to studying the Bible, reading the Bible, learning about the Bible, but wanting to know the heart of God through the Bible. And he poses some really good questions because the Bible is not an easy book to study. I mean, you know, 25 years into pastoral ministry, you know, most of my life being raised in the church, I still continue to learn, find new things, correct myself on some theology or thoughts that maybe I had. And one of the hard things is, you know, the Bible was written a long time ago in a different culture, in a different time and place on the planet. And if we're not careful, we read into it with our Western modern way of thinking and then try to interpret passages accordingly. Now, the beauty of the Bible is it speaks to all places at all times in every location. And so the truth that's connected in and about God is relevant of all times. But to interpret it correctly, we need to have some discernment. We need to be able to do what he's talking about. Now, before I answer his question specifically, let me just encourage everyone who's reading the Bible to do a couple of things. And one of them is spiritual, one of them is practical. The first thing that I would encourage every believer to do as they sit down to read the Bible is to pray before they read it. And just simply say, it doesn't have to be long, it doesn't have to be drawn out, but God, I want to know your heart. I want to know what you say. You've given us your spirit that's that to lead us in all truth. God, will you help me to discern truth in this? And that seems cliche, but I do really believe that the Spirit of God that lives in us, who is given to us by Jesus Himself to lead us in all truth, is instrumental in us understanding the Bible. We need that Spirit of God to renew our minds, to give us a clear, godly way of thinking in order to understand what God's revealing in the Bible. The second thing, which is practical, is fortunately, we live in a day and time where there is information available to us like never before. Commentary, study Bibles. Uh, and so I would encourage every believer, if possible, to find a good recommended from conservative biblical scholarship, study Bible, or commentary. And it doesn't have to be, you know, a commentary for every like individual book of the Bible, but there's volumes that include the whole Bible that's gonna hit the high points. But in the beginning of those, you're gonna have a synopsis of what this book of the Bible is, why it was written, who it was written to, and it's gonna give you some of the high points as you study, and it's gonna help keep you from a lot of error. Not that they're all perfect, but it's gonna help you to be able to go to, because even as a guy who studied the Bible for a long time, there are moments that I'll come across a passage and I'll be like, I have no idea what that means. Now, with some study, uh with some great help from historians and theologians and people who help you understand the context of when it was written and who it was written to, you're like, oh, well, now I have a better understanding. But void of that, you can get yourself into a lot of poor Bible interpretation because you just don't know who it was written to. And an example that I would give you is if you just walked up in the middle of a conversation between two people, not understanding their relationship, not understanding what they've been talking about, and pulled two sentences out, you could accuse them a lot of a lot of things. You could have some beliefs about them that weren't true, and we've all been guilty of that at some time, like overhearing or just eavesdropping, thinking we know what went on, that abs and we have absolutely no idea. And we can do that with the Bible. And I think a lot of poor Bible interpretation has happened, not because of bad hearts or or wanting to, that's that can be true, but just we're void of context. So those two simple things, praying, seeking the Spirit of God, while also getting our hands on some helps, which are praise God, we live in a day and time where they're available. Now, while you can just go Google it, I would always caution you just in Googling it, because you can find some good information, but you can also find some poor information. And so uh there are those some some groups of people, for instance, like the Gospel Coalition, that's just one that comes to the top of my mind. And and when I think about these people, that doesn't mean that I agree with everything they put out, but like they're they're committed to trying to do a good job of helping people understand the scriptures. So so there are some things out there that you can look into, but but a good commentary or study Bible is going to be very helpful. That being said, to the original question, prescriptive versus descriptive. So by prescriptive, what we're saying is it's telling us what to do. It's a command. And so we see prescriptions in the Bible, for instance, in the Ten Commandments. Those are prescriptive words that God has given. He is saying, Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal. There are commands that he expects us to follow. Descriptive would be, well, how did we get the Ten Commandments? And so, for instance, the Bible is describing for us, telling us how these things came about. One of the biggest conundrums I kind of have as a Bible reader, student, all of these things is, for instance, like the book of Acts. Acts, by and large, is descriptive in the fact that it's telling us what God was doing. Yet there are things in there that I want to treat as prescriptive as far as what he was doing in the life of his church. Just because he was doing it doesn't mean we're not supposed to imitate it and follow it. And so when I look at, for instance, the book of Acts, there are some supernatural, non-normative events that are taking place that I have to say, well, that's descriptive. I don't expect God necessarily to be doing all of these things all the time because he hasn't historically done those things all the time. Yet when I look at like the church and what God was doing in the church, there's a lot of that that I believe, while is descriptive, it's also prescriptive. It's telling us how the church should function, and we need to pay very close attention. Jesus' life is another example of some difficulty. There's a lot of Jesus' life that was descriptive. The gospel narratives are describing for us what Jesus did. When he taught, though, he was prescriptive. He's telling his believers what to do. Yet also in Jesus' life, while it's descriptive, I think we're getting examples of how we're to live, which can be a form of prescription. Because how did Jesus handle these situations? Well, as his follower, I want to do that. So when he forgave people, he's not just describing how he forgave people, that's part of it. But I think there's a prescription for me as his follower to say, but I need to do that as well. So that's where I think the Spirit of God comes into play. Your historical books, a lot of your Old Testament narratives, there's going to be a lot of description in there. And I think we always got to be careful when it's describing that we don't automatically assume, well, we're supposed to do everything this character did in the way that he did it. Partly because of the situation of his life, partly because this same character did some things we shouldn't do. For instance, Solomon had a lot of wives. That's not prescriptive, it's descriptive. It was not good for Solomon. It wasn't good for a lot of these men. You know, God never says polygamy is great, even though they do it. So we don't need to read into a descriptive moment and say, well, that's what God wants for me. However, when we take a look at Jesus' life, for example, and even a life of in our New Testament uh, you know, writers, there are things that we can emulate from them that we're like, you know what, that's an example of how to live. The bulk of your epistles are prescriptive, they're telling us what to do. And so the best way to go about it is to begin to see the patterns, understand the definition, need the Spirit of God to help guide you in those moments, and then uh at the same time rely on good helps that are gonna help you in a in a passage that's not very clear how do we interpret this. As a guy who's a pretty conservative uh Bible reader, teacher, I tend to always rely seeing that God's word's authoritative. So when in doubt, I'm gonna treat it as prescriptive, unless it's clear that it's not, meaning that God's telling me something to do in my life through this passage. Now, again, there's some passages that clearly are not prescriptive, and I don't want to read in or infer anything, but I'm gonna look at the Bible as a source of truth and say, God, I want to model my life after you. So how you're revealing yourself into me in these in these moments that are very clear, this is your will, your heart, I want to follow after those. And so I hope that helps anybody and everybody in our church who's who's getting serious about the word. I hope there's a lot of people out there like that that are that are seeking God's heart through the Bible.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Yeah, I think for me also, like the more I read the Bible, the more I understand what God's saying, and the more I learn about his character and what he wants. And that helps with interpreting too.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

It does. It's a long journey. I mean, you know, there's plenty of things in the Bible that at one time I believed that I don't necessarily believe now. I I think, oh, that interpretation of that passage wasn't right. It wasn't because I didn't love the Lord and wasn't seeking his heart then. It's like with knowledge and information and growth, I now see things differently. But I think the key to his question is I want to know the heart of God.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

And if you want to know the heart of God, he's not gonna lead you astray.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Right, you're on a good path, all right.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

You are for sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

All right. Well, thanks for joining us for another episode of the QA with Pastor Charlie Podcast. Feel free to send any more questions like these ROA by email at questions at firstwar dot com, and we'll see you next Friday.