Pattern Theology is a term coined to speak about the belief that one, or the church, ought to follow certain guidelines and patterns given by God in the Bible. Here are three reasons to reject such a belief system that they probably won’t tell you…
It Is Founded On Reliance On Scripture
At it’s very basic definition, Pattern Theology places a person in an extreme reliance upon what the Bible says. If the Bible writers recorded a set way in which a Christian is to do something, then the Pattern Theologian says that Christians are to follow such a pattern or else be outside the Will of God.
Like when Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper and gave His disciples the grape juice and unleavened bread (Luke 22:14-35). If you believe in Pattern Theology and that God would actually hold you accountable for doing Bible things in Bible ways, you are bound to follow just that and not add anything to that remembrance.
If God set His church with elders over congregations as the supreme leaders of the Church on earth (cf. Acts 20:28, 1 Timothy 3:1-7, Hebrews 13:17), then Pattern Theology says that’s the way it has to be and there is no other way that a congregation can be ultimately faithful to God.
It Places Importance on Universal Laws
That brings us to this idea of Law. Pattern Theology says that there are universal laws of God placed on man today. That whatever the Bible says to do, it says that to everyone regardless of their being a Christian or not.
So, if Jesus said to go and teach the Gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15-16) and that the Gospel meant people would be baptized, then every person who wishes to go to Heaven would have to be baptized.
Or, when Paul said that every man will give account for every deed that he has ever done on the day of Judgement, then every person would, in fact, give an account for everything he had ever done in his life on the Judgement Day (2 Corinthians 5:10).
It Rejects Self-Righteousness
This could really be the over-arching reason why people reject pattern theology if we wanted to boil it down into one point. Pattern Theology makes self-righteousness obsolete when it comes to soul-saving. It is as if Jesus said that we are to seek after the righteousness of God instead of our own (Matthew 6:33) or that a man’s heart is not his guide (Acts 23:1, Proverbs 14:12).
So, there really are three reasons to reject Pattern Theology and it boils down to this, if you don’t want to follow the Scriptures as your guide and believe that there are in fact universal laws that every human is to follow and instead want to follow your own opinions and rely of self-righteousness then there is no reason to follow Pattern Theology. But, if you don’t, then don’t expect God to keep up His end of the deal when it comes to following those patterns and granting eternal life based on your faithful obedience because of His sacrifice (John 3:16, 2 Corinthians 5:9-11, 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10).
It just doesn’t seem worth it to me to reject Pattern Theology…
Source: Lee M Snow