Lesson 2) Differentiate Between Descriptive and Prescriptive

Welcome back to lesson two in our quick introductory level

study into harmonetics.

This is a week -long class.

We're going to deal with five different topics.

We already looked at the importance of context, and if you don't have that one right, wow, that is

the most important thing.

However, this next thing that we want to address, this next point, is very

important as well because it is one that most people make a mistake with, and it is the understanding the

difference between descriptive and prescriptive.

So let me start by giving a definition of those two terms.

So descriptive means having a quality of describing,

characterizing by description.

It is the idea of noting something, of characterizing something, so it is giving you

background, shall we say, when you're.

When we look at the Bible, what we mean by descriptive

is that it says what did happen, not necessarily what should happen.

Prescriptive is what should happen.

Prescriptive is defined as that which prescribes, giving

directions or instructions or commands, injunctions, things like this.

So the difference that you have between these two is that descriptive means it's

describing the events that actually happened, where prescriptive is telling

you what should happen.

So prescriptive type of things are commands.

When we have a command from Jesus and he says to

repent and be baptized, that would be prescriptive.

Why?

It's a command, it's an order, it's something that's an instruction for you to follow.

When you have something that's descriptive, Solomon had a thousand women, that doesn't mean you should follow

that.

Just look at Ecclesiastes and you'll realize the mess that got him into.

Let's take a look at an example of this that made help.

Many people look at the woman at the well in John chapter 4 and they see that after

her encounter with Jesus, he basically tells her things about herself

that no man could know and we end up seeing this where

the disciples end up coming and then in verse 29 she goes away and she said, and this is what we have

in verse 28 actually, so the woman left her water jar and went into town and said to

the people, come see a man who told me all things I ever did.

Can this be the Christ?

And they went out to town and came to see him.

Now many people look at this and say, well this woman is preaching.

Well first off, yeah it does seem that way.

Preaching is the idea of speaking in the open air.

Now it doesn't use the word preaching, but is she preaching?

Yes she is.

Now should women preach to men everywhere?

Well let's back up and ask, should she have preached to the men there?

You see, this is descriptive.

This is telling you exactly what the woman did do and the Bible is accurate in saying

what she did do.

But if she's even a convert, she's a new convert, would you expect her to understand everything that the Bible

teaches?

No.

She came out of a false religion, the Samaritan religion, and so she wouldn't understand everything.

So what you see is that the Bible is recording what she did do.

Should we then say that women should go out and do this?

Well you can't make that case from here.

Could you make the case from other places?

Maybe.

But this is not the verse to use.

Why?

Because this is a descriptive passage.

What you would want is a passage that explains that specific thing

like women teaching, such as say 1st Timothy 2, 12 and following.

That's prescriptive and that would then give us an understanding of this specific

issue.

And so when you come to these passages you have to ask, is this describing what actually

happened or is this a command for me to follow?

That becomes very important when we're going to interpret the scripture.

Now what I want to deal with in tomorrow's class is that when we come to text the scripture we

must understand the more difficult passages to understand by the easier

passages to understand because that makes a huge difference when it comes to interpreting scripture.