Here is a phrase-cum-question you often hear knocking about in discussions about the biblical text: is it descriptive or prescriptive? What they mean to ask by that is something like this: is this passage simply describing a thing that happened and isn’t binding on us or is it showing us something that we ought to copy and emulate? Is it merely describing an event (descriptive) or is it giving us some instruction (prescriptive)?

You are most likely to hear this descriptive/prescriptive chat when it comes to the book of Acts. But there’s plenty of Old Testament and gospel examples of the same kind of discussion. Sometimes, though people will use different words to say effectively the same thing, this question is behind any comment anyone ever makes along the lines, ‘that was just cultural’. In other words, it’s just describing the culture of the day and its practices, not binding us into doing exactly as they were doing.

Now, before I go on, it bears saying this is a legitimate question to ask. Not everything, in exactly the form it is described in the Bible, is binding on us. Just go and read the book of Judges, for example. Particularly any of the latter half. Almost nobody reckons just about any part of what is described there – in the form it happened – is stuff for us to emulate and copy today. Most of us are pretty clear it is describing what happened, not prescribing a pattern for us to follow.

Similarly, some stuff in the Bible is evidently binding on us and everybody reckons they are clear and obvious commands to follow. Turn to Matthew 5:21 or Romans 13:9 or James 2:11. It’s hard to argue that these things are merely descriptions of events that took place, not least because they aren’t describing any particular events! Nobody to my knowledge argues anything other than these are binding commands of Jesus. They are not describing any happenings, they are prescribing how we must behave as believers.

So far, so obvious, right? But what do we do with narrative passages of scripture? Most narratives don’t have any obvious binding commands in them directed at us. Whether stuff in Judges and Kings or New Testament narrative like Acts. Most of these narrative are describing events and don’t have commands from God directed to us the reader.

The problem with saying they’re prescriptive is they’re often full of mad stuff that really doesn’t seem like the sort of thing Jesus would have us do. Which of us, for example, reads 2 Samuel 11 and thinks that is just what Jesus wants his followers to do? So, we may say, these things are obviously just descriptive. But the problem here is that they are in the Bible and 2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us pretty clearly all scripture is God-breathed and given to us for a reason, specifically so that we might be learn from it and be trained in righteousness. If the danger of saying narratives are prescriptive is that we might be led to prescribe all kinds of mad things, the danger of saying they’re descriptive is we think they prescribe (and therefore say) nothing at all!

But the story of the Levite cutting up his concubine and sending her body parts all over Israel is in our Bible for a reason, isn’t it? It might well not be prescribed – it isn’t something we are to emulate – but the purpose of the story surely exists to tell us something about God, his character, his people and how they ought to respond to him. And whatever that is, the authorial intent behind why the story is included surely is prescriptive for us, is it not? The form of the story may not be prescriptive, but the reason for its inclusion almost certainly is!

All too often we seem content to stop at is this descriptive or prescriptive? But the fact of the matter is, nothing in scripture is only ever just descriptive. Everything is there for a reason. We can’t just say the passage is prescriptive in its entirety, form and all, lest we run into obvious contradictions between the prescriptive events of a murder and the command to not murder, to take just one patently obvious example. At the same time, we can’t just say the passage is descriptive in its entirety otherwise, like a drunk man on a horse, we fall off the other side with a handwaving suggestion that this passage basically doesn’t apply to us at all. In a sense, every bit of scripture is both descriptive and prescriptive; it is all describing something (even if just an argument or direct command) and all prescribing something.

If we recognise that every bit of scripture is both describing and prescribing something, the question is this descriptive or prescriptive? becomes unhelpful and not a little limiting. If we always answer both, we are forced to ask how do we tell which is which? It can be more helpful to reframe our original question into two, and add a third question between them, to get to the heart of the passage. The more accurate and helpful set of questions are: (1) what is this describing? (2) why is this here? and, (3) what, therefore, is this prescribing? Let me explain.

If every passage is describing something, it pays to ask what is being described? Is this a narrative, an argument, a command, etc. If it’s a narrative, what is broadly happening? This will orient you to what is going on. What, exactly, it is you are looking at.

Second, you want to ask why is this here? So, if you come across Samson being described as an A-grade weirdo, ask yourself why did the author include this story? If it’s obvious we’re not being asked to rip the gates off the local town walls (assuming you live in Chester or York), what is the author intending to convey to us through this story? Is it a positive or negative example to us? We’ll know that by how it interacts with other clearer passages of scripture. How does it relate to the themes of the book we’re in? Is this book a series of heroic, godly examples to follow or troubling, ungodly examples to be avoided? What does it tell us about God and his work in and through his people? Just by asking why the author included this story, we can get a sense of what is and is not supposed to be copied.

Finally, we can then turn to our question of what is prescribed. The reason I framed it as what, therefore, is being prescribed? is because the prescription is going to be closely tied to authorial intent. If the author included this story as a clear and evident example for us to follow, then what is being prescribed is the specific example itself. The author might be including the story, not as an example to emulate, but one to avoid. So, what is being prescribed is the opposite of what this person did. The author might be including the story with no intention of it being an example to us in either direction at all. Rather, the story might be more concerned with showing something God does on behalf of his people and the prescription for us is to respond rightly to God as he is. There may be a number of other reasons narrative are included and an author may even have more than one purpose in mind.

So, as a final example, let’s think about the really well known story of David and Goliath. What is being described is God’s people in battle against the Philistines. There are no direct commands to us anywhere in the narrative. Why does the author include this narrative? It seems apparent that God’s people are fearful of God’s enemies whom they cannot defeat. Only God’s anointed is able to defeat God’s enemies on behalf of God’s people. It is pointing towards David as a type of Christ. So what is being prescribed? (1) A proper response to Jesus, God’s anointed, who alone is able to defeat our enemies; (2) A reframing of our thinking. We do not need to fear God’s enemies in Christ because Jesus has defeated them on our behalf. What is prescribed, fundamentally, is a proper trust in Christ as God’s anointed.

The point is that what is described is included for a reason. Why the author included it helps us understand the role the narrative is playing. When we understand why the author included what is described we are in a position to think about what the scriptures intend to prescribe. All of it describes stuff and all of it prescribes stuff, but we only really know what when we’ve properly understood why the author included it at all. Once we know that, we can figure out what the author is intending us to deduce and, therefore, what he is intended us to say, think, do, believe or feel as a result.