When I was first getting into eating organic, I took a stroll through the natural section of the grocery store. A Bible verse on a bread wrapper caught my eye. The bread was called Ezekiel 4:9 and it’s made by the Food for Life company. I was intrigued so I purchased a loaf. I found it to be dense and full of flavors I wasn’t used to tasting in bread. When I looked up the Bible verse on the wrapper I found out why.

Ezekiel 4:9 says:

 “Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself.”

Recipe for Bread

The Food for Life company took this verse which describes God giving instructions to Ezekiel and used it as a bread recipe for their company. They decided to sprout the grains before using them in the bread as well. Perhaps this is a nod to God telling Ezekiel to put the grains in a storage jar first.

This unique bread includes legumes along with the grains which gives it a high level of protein. That’s great for the carb-counters out there. There are a lot of other reasons why people get excited about the bread. 

The idea of God giving Ezekiel the recipe made me wonder if this was some kind of holy whole grain bread. After all, this wouldn’t be the first time God described how to make bread. When the Israelites, God’s people, were slaves in Egypt, He gave them instructions to make bread that we call matzah and that kind of bread is sold in our grocery store, too.

This Ezekiel 4:9 bread was a recommended recipe from the Lord like Ezekiel was scrolling through Pinterest just before meal time and the Lord saved him some time by giving him this recipe directly. But is that really why God gave this verse to Ezekiel? So that we have the best bread recipe ever?

Recipe for Disaster

I decided to find out more by reading the whole context of Ezekiel chapter 4. In the chapter, God gives Ezekiel several different symbols or object lessons to live out in order to show God’s people what was coming. Their city, Jerusalem, would be besieged and Ezekiel’s demonstrations show how awful the siege would be.

First, Ezekiel built a model siegeworks like a model train set to show what the siege will be like.

Next, he laid on his left side for 390 days, one day for each year of Israel’s sin. Then he laid on his right side for 40 days, one day for each year for the nation of Judah’s sin.

Then comes the recipe for bread. God instructs the loaf to be cooked over human feces. Ezekiel protests this instruction since he has never been unclean in God’s sight, so God allows Ezekiel to cook it over cow dung instead. Although God does not explain to Ezekiel why he should use this particular mix of grains and legumes, commentators suggest that this mix shows how scarce grain would be during the siege. The people would just have to make do with the little bits that are left from each crop. This bread recipe is not chosen for its balance of nutrients or gourmet taste. This is a recipe for disaster.

Descriptive not Prescriptive

The Ezekiel 4:9 bread recipe illustrates an important Bible reading and interpretation principle. Just because something in the Bible is described, doesn’t mean it is prescribed. Ezekiel 4:9 is descriptive, not prescriptive. However, the Food for Life company has taken this descriptive passage and decided to make it prescriptive by trying it out for themselves.

This also happened with the Daniel Fast. In the book of Daniel, Daniel and his friends asked to eat vegetables and water instead of the king’s meat offered to idols. This descriptive text has also been turned into prescriptive.

This Bible reading application method doesn’t just happen with food. It is also used for the house church passages in Acts. Some believers read those descriptive passages and decide to start their own house church or find one to attend since they are intrigued by the idea.

While there is nothing wrong with doing a Daniel fast, eating Ezekiel bread, or attending a house church, be careful about what descriptive passages you apply to your life and how you apply them. It can get tricky.

Here are some principles to consider before you apply descriptive Bible passages:

1. Make sure the passage does not contradict God’s explicit commands. For example, after he got off the ark, Noah got drunk. Should we say,  “Noah got drunk, so I can do it too!” No. That explicitly contradicts Ephesians 5:18, “Do not get drunk with wine which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.”
2. Examine the consequences. Many men in the Old Testment were bigamists or polygamists. While we don’t hear God explicitly commanding them to only have one wife, we can see from the descriptive passages that no good ever came out of polygamist marriages. They were messy and full of jealousy and distractions from the Lord’s plan and worship. Not a good idea.
3. Allow for freedom. If you decide to incorporate a descriptive passage into your life, you cannot require other believers to do it, too. One example would be house churches in Acts.  You may think house churches are the best. However, you cannot conclude that they are the only way to do church. You cannot build a theological or doctrinal case on descriptive passages alone.
4. Prayer first. Before you latch on to a descriptive passage for your life, ask the Lord if the passage is for you. It may not be. God deals with each one of us individually on our spiritual journey. Just because God honored the Prayer of Jabez and enlarged his borders and increased his responsibilites doesn’t mean that now is the time God wants you to increase your responsibilites. He may even want you to decrease your responsibilities. Pray first to the Lord: is this descriptive passage for me?

What descriptive passages have you heard used as prescriptive? Is there a descriptive passage that you have used for God’s glory when you applied it to your life?