Oliver O’Donovan on the modes of scripture’s moral teaching

Moral teaching is given in exhortation, parables, lists of virtues, and so on. Narrative, command, prediction, and invocation (i.e., prayer and praise) all teach us how to direct our ways pleasingly to God. We can learn of the wrong of adultery from the story of David and Bathsheba, not only from the seventh commandment of the Decalogue.

from “The Moral Authority of Scripture,” in Scripture’s Doctrine and Theology’s Bible, (Baker, 2008), 174.