Is it Prescriptive, Proscriptive or Descriptive?

“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh.

Mark 10:5–8

Mankind has a long history of distorting the Bible to make it say whatever we want. So, when we read Scripture we need to make sure we're understanding it rightly. How do we do that? Here's a helpful question to ask yourself when you read a passage of Scripture. Is this passage prescriptive, proscriptive, or descriptive?

Some passages of Scripture are prescriptive. They tell us what we should do. “Honor your father and mother” (Ex. 20:12). That’s prescriptive. It tells us what God’s ideal or God’s best for us is.

Other passages are proscriptive. They tell us what NOT to do. They forbid or ban certain actions. “Thou shalt not murder” (Ex. 20:13). That’s proscriptive. These kinds of passages help us avoid worse sin but don’t necessarily reveal what God’s best for us is.

Lastly, some passages are nether prescriptive nor proscriptive but are merely descriptive. They simply tell what happened without offering any moral judgment on it. Genesis 4:19 for example says, “Lamech married two women.” That’s descriptive. It tells us what Lamech did without revealing how God felt about it.

Jesus suggests that Deuteronomy 24 is proscriptive not prescriptive or descriptive. It was written because of the hardness of our hearts to prevent us from committing even worse sins. It's job is to prevent the worst type of outcomes, not tell us what God's best for marriage is. Jesus essentially says, "If you want to see God’s best, His ideal for marriage, you don’t look at Deuteronomy 24, you look at Genesis 1 and 2." 

I‌‌'d love to talk to you more about God's ideal for marriage in Genesis 1 and 2, but that's beside our point today. Today's point is that to interpret and apply Scripture rightly to our lives, it's very important that we understand what kind of Scripture we are dealing with. Is the author prescribing something for us to follow? Is he proscribing something for us to avoid? Or is he merely describing something for us to know? Paying attention to this will go a long way towards helping us understand God's word better.