How should people read the Bible? I suppose that’s an age old question. I am not here to claim that I know exactly the right way to read the Bible – a fool proof way of reading every passage of Scripture to understand exactly the right meaning of every verse (as if there is only one way), but I am certain of some wrong ways to read the Bible.
Anyone who has devoted substantial attention to the reading of Scripture and how to interpret it well has heard the terms “descriptive” and “prescriptive.” The difference between the two is deceptively simple: descriptive passages tell us what happened, and prescriptive passages tell us what ought to happen.
The Bible does not signal to us when a passage is descriptive or prescriptive. Some passages can both be descriptive and prescriptive at the same time. Some passages are prescriptive, but we need to have the wisdom to ask, “Prescriptive for who?” For the people in the narrative? For all people at all times? If we don’t ask these questions, we can make some bad assumptions and reach some bad conclusions.
My reading today gets me thinking about these things. Genesis 46:2-4 says that God spoke to Israel (a/k/a Jacob) in a vision one night, and this is how the dialogue went:
“Jacob! Jacob!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
“I am God, the God of your father,” he said. “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. I will go down to Egypt with you, and I will surely bring you back again. And Joseph’s own hand will close your eyes.”
This passage is descriptive. It is telling us only what happened. At the same tine, God speaks to Jacob and clearly tells him what he ought to do. Thus, the passage is also prescriptive – at least for Jacob. What God said to Jacob is clearly not a statement of what 21st Century readers ought to do. It wasn’t even a statement that other Ancient Near Eastern people of God ought to do in their own times.
Interestingly, we can see a pattern in the Bible of people going to Egypt. Abraham went to Egypt almost immediately after he arrived in the Promised Land (the land God said He would show Abraham when he was still Abram). There was a famine in the land of Canaan (the promised land), just as there was a famine in the land when Jacob and his family made their way to Egypt.
Mary and Joseph also went to Egypt. They were warned by an angel of the Lord to flee and go to Egypt to escape the plans of Herod to kill the Christ child. Going to Egypt is embedded in the story of Jesus, the Messiah, who was God incarnate. It doesn’t get more holy or sanctified than that! Right?
Going to Egypt seems to be an established and accepted thing for God’s people to do. Both Jacob and Mary and Joseph were told in no uncertain terms by God or His angel to go to Egypt. Though Abraham wasn’t told to go to Egypt, God blessed him with sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels while he was there (Gen. 12:16), and he became very wealthy. (Gen. 13:2)
If we read these passages prescriptively, we might logically conclude that anytime a famine occurs, we ought go to Egypt. We might also think that going to Egypt is always the right thing for God’s people to do.
We intuitively know, though, that going to Egypt whenever a famine occurs is not likely the right way to read these passages together. That is because they are descriptive (describing only what happened) and not likely meant to be read prescriptively – at least for us. God was being prescriptive to Jacob and to Mary and Joseph, but he wasn’t laying down a rule for everyone in all times and places to follow.
God told Jacob and God told Mary and Joseph they ought to go to Egypt, but we know that the instructions were given to these particular people in their particular contexts that are not likely applicable to us in our times and circumstances. That doesn’t mean that these stories and God’s instructions might not have some application or particular relevance for particular people in their own particular circumstance in their own times, but there is no generally applicable, prescriptive value to be gleaned about going to Egypt.
In fact, we don’t have to look very far to find some very different instructions from God about going to Egypt. It wasn’t long after Moses led the Israelites through the Red Sea to escape captivity in Egypt when they started complaining that they had it better in Egypt. (Exodus 16:2-3) As time went on, they complained often about the abundance they remembered in Egypt (Numbers, 11:5; 16:3), and they rebelled against Moses, asking for a leader to be appointed to lead them back to Egypt. (Numb. 14:2-4) Years later, as Moses was preparing the people to enter the Promised Land, God (speaking through Moses) warned the people about Egypt, saying, “You are not to go back that way again.” (Deut. 17:16)
The Prophet Isaiah warned people about going to Egypt and seeking Pharaoh’s protection. (Is. 30:1) The prophet Jeremiah said, “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you are determined to go to Egypt and you do go to settle there, then the sword you fear will overtake you there, and the famine you dread will follow you into Egypt, and there you will die.” (Jer. 42:15-16) The Prophet Ezekiel also told the people not to remember Egypt anymore. (Ez. 23:27)
Moses and the Prophets gave some clear and stern warnings about going to Egypt, yet Mary and Joseph were told years later to flee to Egypt with the baby Jesus. These things are confusing if we try to read every passage in the Bible prescriptively – even the ones with clear commands from God.
So how should modern Christians read scripture? Do we go or not go to Egypt?
Some people read the Bible like a complex Magic 8-Ball searching for a “word of direction” from God in random, isolated passages of the Bible. Doing that is more like divination than theology, and it is not recommended.
Most of us know that. We learn pretty quickly that the Bible is not to be used like a Magic 8-Ball, but we often treat it like a book full of prescriptions.
If it is a book full of prescriptions, then there are many contrary and opposite prescriptions – as we can see about going to Egypt. If you read one passage, you might conclude that going to Egypt is always the right thing to do. If you read another passage, you might conclude that going to Egypt is always the wrong thing to do. We need to be wiser and more discerning than that.
Part of the solution to this dilemma is realizing that our God is a living God. Jesus died on the cross, but he rose again. Jesus lives, and he left us the Holy Spirit. God wants us to lean on Him, to seek Him, to take our plans to Him and recognize His plans in our lives and times.
God wants us to trust Him. He wants us to live in relationship with Him. He doesn’t give us a road map for our lives because he wants us to learn to depend on Him.
God gave the Israelites manna in the desert that was only good for one day (except on the Sabbath). Jesus said we should pray for our “daily bread”, and he warned us that though the end times are coming, “No one will know the day or the hour.”
God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. God is sovereign and has a plan that he has been working since Eve plucked that apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden and ate it. What God was doing with Abraham in Abraham’s time was one segment of that plan. What God was doing with Jacob in Jacob’s time was different than what God was doing with Moses and the Israelites in their time.
The law was written down for Moses. But the law of Moses was only a tutor. (Galatians 3:24) It was given for a period of period of time. When God became the Word incarnate and entered the history of His creation in human form, he fulfilled the Law and reintroduced the grace by which faith was attributed to Abraham as righteousness.
At that time, God was doing a “new thing.” the old was passing away and the new was coming. Jesus announced the kingdom of God, which he said was right in the midst of the people; but at the same time, it was yet to come. (It is still in our midst and still yet to come.)
Jesus didn’t abolish the law; he fulfilled it. He completed it and turned the page to the next chapter in God’s divine plan that was initiated from before the foundations of the earth.
The “manual” of the Law was set in place for a given time to teach people to trust, rely on, and honor God and His word, but the prophets foretold that God would write the law on peoples’ hearts in times to come. Indeed, that time has come with Jesus who left behind the Holy Spirit to guide us when he ascended to the right hand of the Father.
The law of God written on the hearts of men is not like ten commandments etched in stone. The word of God is living and active. The Holy Spirit works through the revelation of of God’s Word that has been preserved for us in the Bible to guide us in various times and circumstances.
The Law was once prescriptive for God’s people, but it is no longer prescriptive for us. That doesn’t mean the Law was of no value. The Law was a tutor – a teacher – and it pointed toward a fuller and more complete reality, which is in Christ. The Law was only a shadow of the things to come, and the prescriptions of the Law no longer apply because Jesus – who was the exact representation of God in the flesh – has come.
What God is doing in the world changes over time as He works out His plans. We are in a different stage in this progression than Abraham and Jacob, Moses and the nation of Israel, and Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. Jesus summed the Law up in two statements that now guide us – Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love you neighbor as yourself. That is the prescription to us now in place of the Law.
Perhaps, this is what it means to have the Law written on our hearts. We each have the Holy Spirit to guide us – if indeed we are His sheep who hear His voice.
A major reason why Moses warned the people about going (or wanting to go) back to Egypt is because God had a specific plan for them, and they were grumbling and complaining about it. They wanted to go back to Egypt because God’s way was difficult. They wanted comfort and security, and they didn’t want the uncertainty of having to trust God for their provision.
We have the same tendencies. Our “Egypt” is not a place. Frankly, theirs wasn’t either. It boiled down to whether they were willing to trust and submit to God’s plan. It wasn’t Egypt, the country, that was their problem; it was the “Egypt” in them – the desire to control their own destiny, to have the security and comforts the world can provide, and not to have to depend on and trust God – that was their problem.
For Abraham, Jacob, and Mary and Joseph, going to Egypt was a good thing. It was part of God’s plan for them at that time. They were trusting in God and depending on Him in going to Egypt. That is how God wants us to live our lives.
We need to live our lives in relationship with God. We need ever to be sensitive to hear his voice and be humble to trust him. There is nothing wrong with making our plans, but we need to yield to God as he directs our steps. When Isaiah warned the people about going down to Egypt, he added the qualifier, “Without consulting me.” (Is. 30:2)
Whether we should go to Egypt or not go to Egypt may have something to do with our heart attitude. It may have something to do with the why. It may have something to do with what God is doing in the world and in our lives at the time. It may have something to do with whether we are going to Egypt for our own purposes and our own benefit or yielding to God and seeking His purposes and the benefit of His plans.
It may be right for one person to go to Egypt and wrong for another person to go to Egypt. It may be right to go to Egypt for one reason at one time and wrong to go to Egypt for another reason at another time.
We need to be careful about making everything we read in the Bible a prescription when much of it is actually a description of how the events unfolded. We need discernment. We need to remain humble and open to correction and direction. We need to lean into trusting God and not think that we can understand everything like a mathematical formula of 2 + 2 = 4, because that’s not how God works.
If God wanted us to rely on our own ability to add up the numbers and arrive at a conclusion, the Bible would be a much shorter book. We would not need to rely on God’s Holy Spirit or even have a relationship with him if we had a book for of prescriptions.
Even so, many of us read the Bible that way. We want a 2 + 2 = 4 formula. It was that desire for certainty that influenced the Pharisees to tithe to grams of herbs and to add dozens of rules to Sabbath keeping that put them in conflict with Jesus when he healed on the Sabbath and his disciples picked grain on the Sabbath. Jesus criticized this human desire for prescription when he said:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.” (Matthew 23:23)
The “more important matters of the Law” are the relational ones. The ones that often lack certainty. The ones that are messy with complications of sin, emotion, and moral nuance. These are matters that require us to lean on God, seek Him, and trust Him for direction.
Justice, mercy, and faithfulness require us to order ourselves under the two greatest commands: love God and love your neighbor. They require us to remember the Sermon on the Mount, to remember that the last shall be first, and the first shall be last, and to honor the example of Jesus – that the greatest among us is the servant of all. the 2 + 2 = 4 equation of the law written on our hearts is loving God and loving neighbors – because anyone who claims to love God and hates his neighbor is a liar. (1 John 4:20)
God has purpose in allowing us to struggle with direction and uncertainty in our lives. He wants us to make our plans, but He expects us to allow Him to direct our steps. He desires that we live in relationship to Him, depend on Him, and trust Him.
The human heart is always wanting to eat the apple, to acquire the knowledge that allows us to make our own decisions, and to go our own way without needing to rely on God. The human heart is always pulling in its own direction and desiring to be the captain of its own soul. This is often true even as we tip out hats to God.
Our religious instincts, themselves, often put as at odds with God because those instincts flow from the natural man – from the flesh. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” (Prov. 14:12) Paul said:
“Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!’? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.” (Colossians 2:20-23)
We live with a certain amount of uncertainty. And we always will until the day that we no longer see through a glass darkly, meet our Lord face-to-face, and the Son rises before us in all of His glory, bidding us to come into His kingdom.
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Postscript
“Then Jacob left Beersheba, and Israel’s sons took their father Jacob and their children and their wives in the carts that Pharaoh had sent to transport him. So Jacob and all his offspring went to Egypt, taking with them their livestock and the possessions they had acquired in Canaan. Jacob brought with him to Egypt his sons and grandsons and his daughters and granddaughters—all his offspring.” (Genesis 46:5-7 NIV)
Think about Jacob leaving behind the promised land that his father, Isaac, and grandfather, Abraham, told him about – a sacred land that God said, would be inhabited by their descendants like the sands on the sea and the stars in the sky. Think about the uncertainty and temptation to doubt that might have gone through Jacob’s mind as he was packing all his possessions and livestock and getting ready to travel with all his living descendants to Egypt. Consider how torn and uncertain Jacob might have been, yet he left he trusted that God was directing them.
He may have had times in the night or moments during the day where the cloud of doubt came in, wondering if it was the right thing to do. After all, they were leaving behind the promise that God gave them. Were they doing the right thing? Or were they becoming apostate and turning their backs on the God of his father and grandfather? Jacob was human like you and me.
Jacob remembered his encounters with God and trusted Him even in the uncertainty. He would die in Egypt, but he was still thinking about God’s promise and the descendants that would inhabit the land in his dying breath because he had a relationship with God.
Navigating by Faith 