Yesterday I wore a green jumper.

Does that mean everyone has to?

A silly example, perhaps, but it illustrates something that fascinates me. Just because something happened – I wore a green jumper – does it mean everyone else has to follow in my footsteps?

Easy answer when it’s me: no. Of course not. And I am definitely not the person to be setting fashion trends.

However, it’s this kind of thing that fascinates me when I read the Bible.

Am I reading a description of something that happened, where I can simply nod and think, “Oh, that’s interesting”? Or am I reading something prescriptive – because that happened, I should do it too?

Descriptive versus prescriptive. A fascinating theological quandary!

And it’s not just limited to how we read the Bible.

You hear amazing stories of people who got up at 5am every morning to pray. Wonderful. But does that mean I need to get up at 5am?

Someone fasted for 40 days. Someone else spent an entire night in prayer. Another person gave everything away. Someone heard God while walking up a mountain. Someone else went away on retreat for a week and came back with absolute clarity about what God was calling them to do.

These stories can inspire us.

But sometimes, without even realising it, we turn someone else’s testimony into our instruction manual.

They got up at 5am and encountered God, therefore serious Christians get up at 5am.

They heard God on retreat, therefore I need to go on retreat.

Their church grew because they did X, therefore our church needs to do X.

They prayed in a particular way and something extraordinary happened, therefore that must be the right way to pray.

And suddenly we have moved from “Look what God did” to “This is what everybody must do.”

The Bible itself requires us to think carefully about this.

The early Christians in Acts shared their possessions. They met in homes. At times they sold property to meet one another’s needs. Paul travelled extensively to preach the gospel. Jesus regularly withdrew to solitary places to pray. The disciples cast lots to choose Matthias.

All of those things happened.

But the fact that the Bible tells me that something happened doesn’t automatically mean it is telling me to make it happen again in exactly the same way.

Of course, sometimes Scripture is very clearly instructing us. Love one another. Forgive. Pray. Care for the poor. Make disciples. Pursue justice. Be generous. There are things at the heart of Christian discipleship that aren’t merely descriptions of somebody else’s experience.

The interesting bit is learning to tell the difference.

Perhaps one of the questions we need to ask when reading Scripture is not simply:

“What did they do?”

but:

“What is God showing us through what they did?”

Because the principle may be transferable even when the practice isn’t.

Jesus withdrawing to pray doesn’t necessarily mean I need to find a first-century mountainside. But it tells me something profound about making space for God.

The generosity of the early church doesn’t necessarily give me a precise financial formula for Christian living in 2026. But it should certainly challenge my attitude towards money, possessions and people in need.

And perhaps the same is true when we hear the stories of other Christians.

The person getting up at 5am to pray might challenge me about the priority I give to prayer without requiring me to set my alarm for 4.55am.

Their practice might not be my prescription.

And I find that strangely freeing.

Because Christianity can sometimes become a collection of other people’s green jumpers.

We see somebody whose faith we admire and copy what they do. We read about a great Christian leader and adopt their routine. We hear someone’s testimony and wonder whether perhaps we’re doing Christianity incorrectly because our experience doesn’t look like theirs.

But perhaps faithfulness isn’t always about copying the form of somebody else’s obedience.

Perhaps it’s about discovering what obedience looks like for us.

So by all means, tell me about the 5am prayers. Tell me about the retreat, the fasting, the radical giving and the extraordinary moment when God spoke.

I want to hear those stories.

They may inspire me, challenge me and even change me.

But before I assume I need to do exactly what you did, I might just ask one question:

Is that a prescription – or are you simply telling me about your green jumper?