Quote:
Originally Posted by Drake
What scriptural basis is used in this teaching that we can dismiss the descriptive in favor of the prescriptive? Anyone could make up a prescriptive to replace the text of the Bible!!
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It's not a teaching. It's common sense. One example,
2 Timothy 4:13 The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.
Is this verse prescriptive or descriptive? Actually, it's just a personal request from Paul to Timothy.
Another one: Mark 16:18
They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
There is a group who took this verse as a prescriptive and formed a religion of "snake handlers".
But you are right. Anyone could make a prescriptive and WL DID repeatedly made up prescriptives when observing what the Bible described in the New Testament, and made a religion out of it...especially related to his locality doctrine.
This was not my bright idea. The first time I heard about prescriptive v. descriptive was in a conversation with Bill Mallon. If you Google "prescriptive v. descriptive" you will see that without determining how text is used, it would be easy to come up with "prescriptions" that were never intended to be anything other than a description. Seminary students are familiar with this tool used to study the Bible, as are students of linguistics. WL boasted that he had no degree from a seminary and he knew the Bible better than.....on and on. Maybe he should have taken a class or two.
Regardless, I'm not dismissing anything. Rather, I'm suggesting that the context in which a statement was made be studied to determine its intent...before we go running off to Troas to see if we can find Paul's cloak and the parchments.
Nell
PS: Do you eat bacon?