Learned preachers are misleading young people and older by asserting that the New Testament epistles are "a collection of love letters, and love letters do not contain rules." Truly, love undergirds and permeates the whole of the New Testament, but it pronounces a blessing only on those who walk by a certain "rule" (kanon, Galations 6:16, ASV).

Some say "love letters have no laws," but the New Testament love letters are based on "the law of Christ" (Galations 6:2).

Some say, "let us have love but no doctrine." However, an inspired man wrote to a young preacher to "give attendance" to "doctrine", and to "take heed" to "doctrine", for "in doing this you will save both yourself, and them that hear you" (1 Timothy 4:13, 16, KJV).

Some ridicule the idea of a pattern. However, a lady, in making a new dress like an old one, finds a pattern very helpful. A school boy, learning to write the alphabet, copies a pattern his teacher puts on the blackboard. Jesus left an "example" that Christians might "follow his steps" (1 Peter 2:21).

It was God, not old fashioned preachers, who initiated what some modern preachers condemn as "pattern theology." The Lord began it with Abel. Since Abel offered his sacrifices by faith, and since faith comes by hearing God’s word, it is clear that the Lord had specified animal sacrifices, not vegetation (Genesis 4:4; Romans 10:17; Hebrews 11:4).

So began the pattern of animal and blood offerings, and it was continued by Noah, and by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Genesis 8:20; 12:7-8; 26:23-25; 31:54). Offerings with blood were essential in the Mosaic covenant with Israel (Leviticus 16:1-34). The climax was reached when a human "body" was "prepared" for Jesus "with his own blood" that he might be "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" (John 1:29; Hebrews 9:12; 10:5).

It was God who gave Noah specific instructions for building the ark: the kind of wood, the dimensions, the number of floors, the window, etc., and Noah was complimented because he followed the pattern (Genesis 6:14-16, 22). Similarly, Moses, in constructing the tabernacle, did not work without the "pattern" (tabhnith in the Hebrew; tupos in the Greek) given to him "in the mount" (Exodus 25:9, 40; 26:30; Hebrews 8:5).

Likewise, the Lord "by the Spirit" gave David a blueprint for the temple (1 Chronicles 28:12). David said,

David himself was not permitted to build the temple, but he said that he "prepared" for it "with all my might" (1 Chronicles 29:2). Before he handed the blueprint "Solomon my son" he had had stones cut to the prescribed dimensions "made ready at the quarry" (1 Chronicles 28:1; 1 Kings 6:7). Solomon’s care in following the pattern was so precise that "there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building" (1 Kings 6:7).

God always gives a pattern for his people to imitate. As he was the architect for Solomon’s temple, so he was the architect for another temple, one built by "someone greater than Solomon" (Matthew 12:42). Jesus announced that he would build, not a physical structure, not a church ("an edifice erected for public worship"), but a building made up of people, of whom it would be written, "You are God’s building" (1 Corinthians 3:9). Consequently, Jesus’ temple was not built "with timber or cedar" and "costly stones" of marble (1 Kings 5:17; 6:10), but with "living stones" (1 Peter 2:5). "Love" is the mortar "which binds all together in perfect harmony" (Colossians 3:14).

What a building! All Christians collectively are privileged to say, "Indeed, we are the temple of the living God, as God has said, "I will dwell in them and live among them’" (2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 2:20-22). Paul wrote to Christians that "God’s temple is sacred, and you are his temple" (1 Corinthians 3:17).

Then, amazingly, not only are Christians collectively the temple of the Lord, but also singly: the physical body of each Christian "is a temple of the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 6:19).

Is there a blue-print for this amazing building undertaking? Just as the directions for Abel'’ sacrifices, Noah’s ark, Moses’ tabernacle, and Solomon’s temple came from heaven, so did the specifications for God’s spiritual temple, usually called the church. Those specifications were to be sent from heaven to the apostles of Christ. In anticipation of "the beginning" of Christianity (Sunday morning, May 28, A.D. 30, Acts 2:1-47; 11:15), Jesus had announced to the twelve the Father’s pattern for the church:

Before the apostles said or wrote anything, what they would say or write had already been said in heaven by the Father to the Holy Spirit whom the Father was going to send to the apostles in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (John 14:26; Acts 1:8; 2:1-4). The Spirit would speak nothing "from himself, but what things" that he had heard the Father say, these he would "speak" to guide the apostles "into all the truth" (John 16:13).

The apostles, being "ambassadors" sitting on "twelve thrones" during all of the time of the "regeneration", have "authority" from "heaven" until "the end of the world" (Matthew 18:18; 19:28; 28:20; 2 Corinthians 5:20; 1 Thessalonians 2:6, ASV). The only way, from the day of Pentecost, A.D. 30, to the second coming of Christ, to know "the spirit of truth and the spirit of error" is to turn to "the apostles’ doctrine" (Acts 2:42; 1 John 4:6). And the only place on earth where the apostles’ doctrine can be found is in the 27 New Testament books. By the Father’s will and wisdom, the New Testament is complete, unchangeable, and final (2 Timothy 3:17; 2 Peter 1:3; Galations 1:8-9; Jude 3).

Some sneer at the idea of going to the New Testament in an attempt to restore the first century church:

The New Testament makes it clear what God approved and what he disapproved in every first century church. It tells us of good and bad examples, and it is written in such a way that plain, common people can "discern both good and evil" (Hebrews 5:14).

Sadly, as God planned from the beginning for mankind to be pattern keepers, so from the beginning pattern rejecters have appeared, starting with Cain (Genesis 4:5-7). Man’s pride, over and over, leads him to spurn heaven’s directions, doing what is "right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25). Jeremiah preached that "the way of man is not in himself", that a mortal is incapable of directing "his steps" (10:23). But human arrogance says, "Man is the measure of all things" (Protagorus, a 5^th century B.C. Greek philosopher).

The apostolic warning, "Be not wise in your own conceits", is disregarded (Romans 12:16). "Man’s larger [?] understanding" led humanists to write that "the time has passed for theism" (HUMAN MANIFESTO I, 1933). "No deity can save us; we must save ourselves" (HUMAN MANIFESTO II, 1973).

Others, still believing that God exists, reject Christ, asserting that the statement "salvation is only possible through Jesus" is "self-righteousness."

Others, still believing that God exists, and that salvation is only through Christ, yet renounce the pattern for obeying the gospel (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9; Romans 6:17, 3-4). An alleged gospel preacher has written, "" am convinced that the honest unimmersed" will "be eternally saved".

Others, rejecting all patterns, hold that no one will be lost, that God is too good and loving to send anybody to hell.

"WHO INDEED ARE YOU, A HUMAN BEING, TO ARGUE WITH GOD?" (Romans 9:20, NRS).