CANONIZATION OF ALL SCRIPTURES WAS CRITICAL
Because there was apostasy coming in the church. There is crime and corruption entering in; false prophets, antichrists, strong delusions. It says men shall be lovers of themselves, disobedient, proud, vain, booster, lovers of pleasure (II Tim. 3) and all of these things are coming into the church. So they need to be sure that everybody knows what is the Truth. Now they are going to set aside the books for the final canonization, as what are the Scriptures.
Now look a little bit at what we can gleam, there are all kinds of outside information, tradition and some history. There are traditions of the Jews that I could bring in here, but I wanted to stick pretty much just to the Scriptures. So we can see from the Scripture how and why God brought everything together.
Something really interesting to me, is the doctrine of 2 administrations; one for the Jews and one for the Gentiles. Two different gospels and all that nonsense. The Concordant Publishing teach that, a total farce. You can read my paper Exposing The Secret Rapture, a 100 pages that just blows all that away.
II Peter was written to show the apostasy that had set in and would grow worse. That the WORDS OF THE PROPHETS AND THE WORDS OF THE APOSTLES must be heeded and preserved.
II Peter 3:2 that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior,
But Peter says, Paul writes to you, isnt that what he says in II Peter 3:15?
But I thought Peter was suppose to go to the Jews and Paul to the Gentiles. Now it says in Gal. 2, that I (Paul) was to the uncircumcised and Peter to the circumcised.
Gal 2:7
when they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me, as the gospel for the circumcised was to Peter.
But look at this.
II Peter 3:14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for these things, give diligence that ye may be found in peace, without spot and blameless in his sight.
v. 15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you;
Who did Paul write all his epistles to? The Gentiles. Paul is now in prison in Roman and Peter is writing to the Gentiles. What is going on here? Apparently Paul wanted him to, because Paul cant get these letters out being in Roman, like he use to.
II Peter 3:16 as also in ALL his epistles, speaking in them of these things;
What did Peter know about all his (Pauls) epistles? Because Peter had them. He had them all. How did he get them?
II Tim. 4:11 Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with you; for he is useful to me for ministering.
v. 12 But Tychicus I sent to Ephesus.
v. 13 The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when thou come, and the books, ESPECIALLY THE PARCHMENTS.
These are Pauls letters. These are not the books, but the vellums, these are his epistles. Why would he want all his epistles? Didnt he know what he said? Well he knows his time is near the end and Paul knows what he has written is Scripture. We read many Scripture showing that he knew that he was writing Bible verses if you will.
Now Paul wants Mark to come and bring those letters, because hes going to go through them. In fact hes going to edit some of them.
Eph 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, to the saints that are at Ephesus,
It doesnt just say to the saints of God, but that are in Ephesus, That was editorialized, because his first letters apparently do not contain that. But then he edited it, so that they would know where this letter went.
Of course Ephesus was really the head quarters for the Asian church.
Remember there are 7 churches on a mail route; Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. But the head church was always in Ephesus.
So he says, bring the parchments especially I want those, these were Pauls epistles. Now Mark returned to Peter in Babylon. Remember Peter wrote from Babylon.
II Peter 5:13 The church is in Babylon, elect together with you, greets you; and so does Mark my son.
So Paul said sent Mark and be sure to bring the vellums and he must have brought them. Paul then edits them and says these are the ones. He started with the most important one of all for basic information, the book of Romans. It sets the doctrinal standards, but its mostly milk as far as doctrine goes. This leads up to his last epistles written from prison, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians. These are the most spiritually strong Scripture in the whole bible.
Now Mark is back in Babylon with Peter and then when we go to II Peter, guess what? Peter has all of Pauls epistles. There was a reason why Mark got them and took them to Paul. Then Paul sent them with Mark and he gave them to Peter. Now Peter has got them all, at least all the ones that Paul wanted to be sent to him. So Peter is definitely in charge of the Scriptures and here he talks about his epistles and the OTHER Scriptures. So he knows what the other Scriptures are.
So obviously the Apostles had all the Scriptures. They had the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the writings, they had it all. It (Old Testament) was in the synagogues and the Temple until 70 AD, but they also had them.
General epistles James, Peter, John and Jude should come before Paul's epistles. They were first to teach, first in authority (Acts 15) and first in teaching the milk of God's Word, followed by Paul's strong meat of God's Word.
