Principle 3: Narrative describes; doctrine prescribes

From Sovereign Grace and the Scope of Election: A Comparative Examination of Attainment Theology and Grace Theology, with Particular Attention to the Question of Whether God's Elect Are Found Among All Nations and Religions

The principle. The book of Acts records what happened, including unique, unrepeatable, transitional events; the epistles teach the churches what always obtains. Doctrine is established from the didactic and confirmed in the narrative, not built on narrative incident and imposed against didactic statement.

Why it should be preferred. Because Acts, read as a rulebook, contradicts itself. The Spirit falls before baptism in Acts 10, after apostolic hands in Acts 8 and 19, at Pentecost with wind and fire never repeated; converts are baptized instantly in Acts 8 and after instruction elsewhere; believers hold goods in common in Acts 2 and own homes in Acts 12. Which incident is the template? Any selection is arbitrary, and the attainment system's selection is demonstrably arbitrary: Acts 2's tongues are made normative while Acts 2's community of goods, Acts 15's dietary letter, and Acts 21's temple vows are not. The reason Luke's incidents vary is that Luke is narrating a one-time historical transition, the gospel crossing, in stages, from Jew (Acts 2) to Samaritan (Acts 8) to Gentile (Acts 10) to the dispersed (Acts 19), with the extraordinary signs functioning precisely as boundary markers of that expansion, which is why Peter must cite the Gentile Pentecost as evidence in council (Acts 15:8): it was remarkable, not routine. The epistles, by contrast, are addressed instruction, "these things write I unto thee, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God" (1 Timothy 3:15), and when the epistles legislate on the very subjects at issue, they say: not all speak with tongues (1 Corinthians 12:30); a bishop is a husband and father (1 Timothy 3:2-4); bodily provision for ministers is a right Paul refused, not a communal requirement (1 Corinthians 9). A method that overrides the legislation with the anecdote has the courtroom backwards.