Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. (Acts 17:11 NIV)
One of our challenges with having on-line concordances is we find word strings (the word string "there is no god" occurs about a dozen times) but don't always examine the Scripture to see what it means. What if we considered David's adultery prescriptive, after all it led to Solomon, one of the ancestors of Jesus being born? (Matt 1:6)
I'll give you an example of people being prescriptive.
A priest discovered his baptism was invalid. Its ripple effects bring heartache and confusion to the entire church community
The Archdiocese of Detroit is seeking to contact anyone who may have received invalid sacraments after a priest of the archdiocese learned his own baptism as an infant 30 years ago was invalid. ... the priest said "It was an alienating sense that even though I was following the Lord, I wasn't a Christian". Yep, RCCs think if you're not baptised you're not Christian.
Catholic priests really think they can forgive sins, and an unforgiven mortal sin leads to hell.
But what went wrong? What could have led to people who thought their mortal sins were forgiven going to hell? Well the priest who baptised this priest said "
We baptise you ..." instead of "
I baptise you ...". (I wonder how many other times he said that).
A priest discovered his baptism was invalid. Its ripple effects bring heartache and confusion to the entire church community | America Magazine