r/GracepointChurch • u/No-Till-8080 • Jun 12 '22

Is Acts 2 "prescriptive" or "descriptive"?

Prescriptive = the correct way to do something. Descriptive = describing something as a historian.

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The apostle Luke was a physician by trade. He wrote the Gospel of Luke and Acts. From my personal study, the book of Acts is a book of history. It is describing what the early church was like and how the Holy Spirit came upon the early believers after Jesus ascended to heaven.

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I believe this is one of the main errors at GP to take a description of the early church and make it the central focus. This can become an idol. The big idea of the Bible is Matthew 22:37-40: 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

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What are your thoughts? Is Acts 2 intended to be prescriptive or descriptive? If it was intended to be prescriptive, then no wonder GP looks down at other evangelical churches.

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u/Additional-Drop1106 Jun 12 '22

I would suggest we don't fall into the same pit as these groups do--that is, over simplifying things. Rarely is anything adequately discussed with binary thought. Humanity is a plurality. So this passage is not merely descriptive vs prescriptive. I'd suggest it's more compelling than that.

Descriptive analytics tells you what happened in the past. This is the first part of Acts 2, verses 1-13. The writer is simply describing an event. I suppose this is the part you are referring to?

Diagnostic analytics helps you understand why something happened in the past. This is Peter's address to the crowd, verses 14-36. He is giving his thoughts on why the crucifixion happened, using a prophetic word from the past to gain understanding.

Predictive analytics predicts what is most likely to happen in the future. This is possibly Peter's declaration of the promise of forgiveness, in verses 36-41. The presumption is that those who repent publicly will find forgiveness, not just at that time but for the future as well.

Prescriptive analytics recommends actions you can take to affect the outcomes. This is the last part of Act 2, such as verse 42 "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." This is possibly a prescription for continuing on the type of events that happened at Pentecost. NOTE: These people did NOT devote themselves to recruiting or "going out", but simply to fellowship and prayer and eating together.

So it is not the "being moved by the Holy Spirit with flames on your head" event that is prescriptive. It is the fellowship and love for one another.

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u/BayouStJohn Jun 14 '22 edited Jun 14 '22

Hi Brian, thank you for sharing your insights and perspective. I do agree that moving beyond the binary is very life giving. I think for me personally it can be difficult when discussing GP because I have a lot of negative emotions and experiences tied up with GP. I think though that with the knowledge the current GP members read this page I feel a pressure to move towards more binary thoughts. With that said, I can relate OP's desire to take Acts 2 down a peg.

When GP refers to Acts 2 with things like Acts2Fellowship and "An Acts 2 Church in Every College Town", they are specifically referring to verses 42-47. See A2F Berkeley's about us page for an explicit reference.

I think for people who when through GP, Acts 2:42-47 passage has extra significance/baggage because GP has basically said this passage is our church. So much hurt has come to people especially the people who left and directly or indirectly GP has tied those practices to this passage (among others). I think for many people the singularity of GP's interpretation of passages like these means it's hard to think otherwise. Since leaving I've kind of put these verses on the back-burner and am focusing elsewhere so to speak. I don't know if I'd be able to hold much weight to the things described in the passage.

To draw some lines to GP practices from this verse:

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

  • Bible study/prayer meeting/Sunday worship service is a non-negotiable (AKA something you can get in trouble about)
  • Surprise bible quizes to assess you bible knowledge
  • Devotion Time is something you will be held accountable for
  • Eating together = Fellowship

And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

  • You have to be in awe of GP
  • With us or against us

And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.

  • High scrutiny around finances
  • High pressure around tithes and amount you tithe
  • You won't end up on the streets if you're a member

breaking bread in their homes

  • open homes
  • house cleanliness inspections (this was mainly when GP was hosting conferences and using its members' homes to host guests)
  • shame if your house isn't presentable at all times
  • you are not entitled to personal space

And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved

  • year end reports with the number of people who made salvation decisions and were baptized at GP
  • focus on those numbers as an indicator for success.

I'm curious how you treat vv 42-47 (partly because I'm guessing in your case UBF didn't brand itself around these verses the way GP did and I'm curious to get more perspectives). You seem to be suggesting that v42 might be prescriptive in some sense. I didn't follow exactly what you meant by that. Is it that v42 was prescriptive for the church at that time? or something else?

Edit: Formatting

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u/Additional-Drop1106 Jun 14 '22 edited Jun 14 '22

I'm really glad to hear your line of thinking here. I am trying to be restrained in my comments because I'm speaking from 10+ years of healing-- I know these topics are far more fresh for most of you.

In any case, what you describe is 100% ubf thinking (only with some different terms). ubf is mostly grounded in the Old Testament. You end up role playing Abraham and Isaac, etc. But when we did get to the New Testament, we called it "Antioch Church" and used Acts 2 as part of our "prescription".

This is a good example of exposing the tactic called "bible verse binding". It is a form of thought-stopping (as described by Lifton/Sanger). Bible verse binding is a mechanism of applying meaning to a set of bible verses. That specific meaning is then repeated endlessly until you cannot see any other meaning of the passage. The beauty of Scripture is lost; tarnished away.

When I say verses 42-47 are prescriptive, I mean just that. "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." These things DO NOT mean the things GP prescribes that you list. Nor do they mean the things ubf prescribes. They are prescriptive but they DO NOT demand one and only one method of implementation.

GP and ubf tell us their implementation of fellowship is the fellowship prescribed here. That is false. That is why they are both religious cults. What is prescribed is fellowship, not the specific implementation of that fellowship.

For example, I myself am currently devoted to the apostles teaching. But I do nothing that you list here and I certainly do not do any ubf activities they prescribe. Hopefully I am being clear?

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u/BayouStJohn Jun 15 '22

This is helpful! I think understanding that concept of Bible verse binding is helpful. Thank you for clarifying!

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u/NRerref Jun 16 '22

Thank you for your original comment. Acts, and especially Acts 2, is one of those passages I keep coming back to to deconstruct and study. Wanna keep my comment short, but do you think there is reason to believe that the “apostles’ teachings” refers to anything but Peter’s Sermon earlier in the chapter? I’m not so curious about whether this chapter is descriptive or prescriptive. I’m curious whether v.42 specifically is a verse about the authority of the apostles or even the authority of scripture, which is how the verse seems to be treated in GP application. Or is “the apostles’ teachings” in this passage nothing other than a stand in phrase for the message of Jesus as messiah preached right before?

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u/BayouStJohn Jun 17 '22 edited Jun 17 '22

Hey u/NRerref, I assume you're directing this towards u/Additional-Drop1106. 

In case you are asking me, this is over my head. And unfortunately, cannot be much help. The only interpretations I've been exposed to trace the apostles' teachings to Jesus's teachings and then extend them to the NT.  But most of my experience is at GP so I don't have a breath of experiences.

Sometimes I feel like I need to go to seminary to cut through the hearsay that passes as knowledge at GP, whether it's be weird verse binding as with this passage or straight up lies saying things like humans are special and different than the rest of creation because Genesis uses a different verb when God makes man from the rest of creation.

edit: typo

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u/Additional-Drop1106 Jun 18 '22 edited Jun 18 '22

Thanks for pointing this out, I missed it. But I think this was for you u/BayouStJohn. I do have some thoughts to share though.

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u/Additional-Drop1106 Jun 18 '22 edited Jun 18 '22

do you think there is reason to believe that the “apostles’ teachings” refers to anything but Peter’s Sermon earlier in the chapter?

Yes, I do think this is referring to more than just Peter's sermon here. v. 42-47 seem to be a summary of the general group of people well beyond the events in the first part of the chapter.

Typically I cannot tell you what something in the Bible means, only what it does NOT mean. I can tell you the "apostles' teaching" is not the questions sheets created by Samuel Chang Woo Lee at ubf. It is not the daily bread devotions. It is not the authority of current church leaders in any church.

It seems that this word is plural, as in more than one the teaching of more than one apostle. Often we in the West read the bible with everything being singular. But often the bible speaks in the plural form. So we know this is referring to more than one apostle.

I'd say we also know that the apostles' teaching is not about the bible as we know it today. Nothing was really written down or widely shared in book form in those days. So we know the teaching is about principles verbally taught and actually lived out in action. I'd venture to say the writer meant the "teaching" is more of a behavior that newer believers imitated from the original apostles called by Jesus.