That is a purposely eye catching title.

What it means is basically ignoring most of Acts, Paul and all his Epistles to the Gentiles Churches is a common mistake a lot of people and churches make. They often want to teach from 4-5 books and mostly ignore the rest. I myself attended churches growing up that did this. Matthew, Mark Luke and John are perhaps the 4 most important books of the Bible because they record Jesus' Words, the crucifixion and Resurrection among other things. Its the turning point of all human history.

But that is only the beginning of the NT. The book of Acts is a book of great transition. Doctrine and church age events are changing rapidly throughout the book of Acts and are taught in detail in the books of Paul. Throughout Acts, Jesus is revealing key doctrines and understanding to the Apostles, which they did not yet understand and were not yet taught in the 4 gospels.

If you base your all your doctrine off those 4 books alone and ignore the other 23 book of the NT you are going to be ignorant of all sorts of key doctrines and teachings.

Jesus was offering a Kingdom to the JEWS in the gospels. The church was not born until the book of Acts, AFTER the Jews had rejected Jesus and the Kingdom. The Gentiles were not included and preached to until the book of Acts. The coming of the Holy Spirit was not until the book of Acts, the doctrine that the Gentiles were not to be under the OT law and be circumcised and other things were not given until the midpoint of the book of Acts.

Jesus did not hand pick Paul as the Apostle to the Gentiles and reveal to him the doctrine of salvation by faith alone until the mid point of the book of Acts. In the 4 gospels, sins were forgiven by water baptism. But after the crucifixion and later in the book of Acts and in Pauls Epistles, we learn that our sins today are forgiven not by water baptism but by the blood of Jesus through faith. We still get water baptized but the significance of the water baptism has changed since the 4 gospels, the crucifixion and resurrection. It even changed after the 2nd chapter of Acts as Peter and the Apostles began to see salvation and the Holy Spirit came as soon as people believed, not at the moment of water baptism.

We today are church age Gentiles. Our church age doctrine comes from the books of Paul written to the Gentile churches. We are not Jews living under the law awaiting the Messiah as was in the 4 gospels.

Jesus hand picked Paul to write nearly half the NT, and to give church age doctrine to the GENTILES of the church age. That is US.

This is a good teaching for Christians of all denominations or non denominational. Catholic or Protestant.

The book of Acts is the key transitional book of the NT. Its mostly a straight forward record of major events. It recorded X, Y and Z happened, Jesus reveals X, Y and Z to the Apostles. The church is born, the Holy Spirit comes, Paul is chosen by Jesus, the early church comes together as one to understand what they are supposed to teach, who they are supposed to teach it to and what is changing based on what Jesus is revealing to them, etc.

All these transitional events are recorded chronologically in Acts, but the doctrines set forth in Acts are expounded and explained in great detail in Paul's Epistles to the churches. And they are given and explained in the context of the audience, which are church age Gentiles.

This is why Paul's church epistles are so vital for us today. Anytime you are seeking clarity on a doctrine or issue, Paul's Epistles are were we go today. All key doctrines are explained (including salvation) from the perspective of a church age believer.

How we are to worship, how the churches are to be structured and operate, what our doctrine is, how we are to live in this lost world, EVERYTHING.

Its all right there in those key books from Romans through Philemon. Those books are written DIRECTLY to us today as church age Christians.

I suppose the Gospels and Epistles appeal to different types of people in today's society. The Gospels emphasize the human impact of the good news and the Epistles emphasize the undergirding theology of the good news. There are similar sets of Old Testament books that receive the same this-or-that treatment by today's society.

This sentiment that the Epistles are MORE important, because they address a post-resurrection audience, can be taken too far. We can see the Spirit indwelling the words of every biblical author. If we "ignore" the 4 gospels or the books of the old testament, we close ourselves off from observing the Spirit at work.

(10-27-2021 08:25 PM)Crayton Wrote:  I suppose the Gospels and Epistles appeal to different types of people in today's society. The Gospels emphasize the human impact of the good news and the Epistles emphasize the undergirding theology of the good news. There are similar sets of Old Testament books that receive the same this-or-that treatment by today's society.

This sentiment that the Epistles are MORE important, because they address a post-resurrection audience, can be taken too far. We can see the Spirit indwelling the words of every biblical author. If we "ignore" the 4 gospels or the books of the old testament, we close ourselves off from observing the Spirit at work.

I've never really heard of any Christian denomination ignoring the 4 gospels (other than wild apostate churches), but a lot of denominations do ignore large portions of OT. Often its the same who ignore most of the Epistles. Its a pretty massive straw man to suggest understanding the church epistles are directly to us means somehow "ignoring" the gospels.

As you stated and scripture tells us, the entire book is God's Word. God breathed and inspired.

Its all for us, but most of the Epistles are addressed directly to us as Gentiles in Christ. Hebrews and James are addressed specifically to the 12 tribes of Israel (Jews). Just as how the Gospel of Matthew is focused more on the Jewish perspective and how Jesus is the Messiah and the son of David while Luke is more written for a Gentiles perspective.

We are all supposed to read all of it and learn and apply teaching from all the books, but we also are supposed to realize who each section is about and addressed to.

The Book of Acts talks a lot about this as it was an early point of debate in the early church. Many of the Jewish leaders in the church were arguing the gentiles should be burdened with Jewish customs as believers in Christ, but it was clear they decided this was not God's will and Gentiles were not to be burden with things like circumcision, keeping the 7 feasts, the High Holy days and other Jewish customs in the law. They were raised as pagan Gentiles who were coming to Christ, not Jews under the law.

And the understanding that spiritually we are all one in Christ, no matter if Gentiles or Jews. Jews who keep Jewish customs as believers in Christ or Gentiles who know little to nothing of those Jewish customs and practices.