God used the apostle Paul to write 13 epistles (Romans through Philemon) directly to the Body of Christ in this present age, but if that is all the scripture we needed that is all God would have preserved. He preserved the 66 books of the Bible because we need the whole Bible. All the words of the Bible are the words of God, and Christ said in defeating the temptation of Satan in the wilderness, “MAN shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY WORD of God (Lk. 4:4, last 6 words omitted in the corrupt modern versions, as well as “get thee behind me Satan” in v.8).

The Bible is a library of different books, and yet it is one Book. God used about 40 different writers over a period of about 1,500 years to write the 66 books of the Bible. These books cover about 7,000 years of human history and give glimpses into eternity past and future. That 66 books written in such a manner make up one Book without error or contradiction proves that the Bible is the word of God.

Divine revelation was dispensed progressively, but the dispensations of the Bible are not isolated and disjointed time periods. There is a harmonious unfolding of progressive revelation from Genesis to Revelation. Dispensational truth demonstrates how God changes in His dealings with man, but when He brings in a new dispensation that does not mean everything from the previous dispensation is null and void because there are things that carry over from dispensation to dispensation. For example, the attributes of God and His moral truth never change.

That all the Bible is FOR us (2 Tim. 3:16), but it is not all written TO us (2 Tim. 2:15) is a common saying among Mid-Acts preachers, but in practice too many of them treat the scripture outside of Paul’s epistles as though it is not really for us. When they deal with a passage outside of Paul’s epistles, they typically only talk about how it is not about us instead of showing how it might apply to us. The flesh is prone to extremes. Because most preachers only focus on application, some overcorrect and go to the other extreme of only focusing on divisions in the Bible. They are not Pauline in their attitude toward the rest of scripture.

For example, they would not dare preach on the 10 commandments lest they be called a legalist, and yet Paul reaffirmed 9 out of the 10 commandments in his epistles, and even applied the promise of the fifth commandment to children in this present age (e.g., Eph. 6:1-3).

The apostle Paul quoted from and alluded to the OT many times throughout his epistles. The book of Romans is the foundational book of doctrine for this present age, and Paul quoted from and referred to the OT about 70 times in that one epistle. He opened and closed the epistle with reference to the OT (Rom. 1:1-4; 16:25-27). If we understand prophecy, we will see how different it is from the mystery. For example, we won’t conflate the rapture with the second coming of Christ. Paul also quoted from and alluded to the earthly ministry of Christ (Acts 20:35; Rom. 15:1-4; 1 Cor. 9:14; 11:23-25; Gal. 6:2; Phil. 2:5-8; 1 Tim. 5:18).

Every passage of scripture has one primary doctrinal interpretation, but it may have more than one secondary application. The apostle Paul applied truth from the OT to the Body of Christ many times in his epistles. Bullinger wrote, “The interpretation of a passage belongs to the occasion when, and the persons to whom, or of whom, the words were originally intended. When that has been settled, then it is open to us to make application of those words to ourselves or others, so far as we can do so without coming into conflict with any other passages.” As extreme as Bullinger became in his dispensationalism, he still applied OT passages to the Body of Christ in his sermons.

According to the apostle Paul, we need the OT for:

• Learning (Rom. 15:1-4) – There are many lessons God wants us to learn and apply from the OT. In the context Paul quoted Psalm 69:9 concerning how Christ did not please Himself and applied it to the church. There is much comfort to be found in Psalms for believers today (e.g., Ps. 23). Paul said the spiritual believers speak to themselves in psalms (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16). In Romans 15:5-13 Paul quoted 4 prophecies about the Kingdom Age from each of the three main sections of the OT (the law, the prophets, and the psalms) and applied them spiritually to this present age. He used an OT principle to show that since God intends for both Jews and Gentiles to praise them together, they ought to be doing that today in the Body of Christ.
• Admonition (1 Cor. 10:11-13) – The Oxford English Dictionary defines admonition as “authoritative counsel; warning, implied reproof.” In the context Paul used the bad example of Israel in the wilderness to warn the church at Corinth not to take sin lightly in this present age of grace. The same people who enjoyed a fivefold blessing from God committed five grievous sins and were overthrown in the wilderness. Those same sins were going on in the church at Corinth. We cannot lose salvation, but we can fall into temptation and become a castaway (1 Cor. 9:27).
• Doctrine (2 Tim. 3:15-17) – Along with the doctrine (teaching that is right) there is also reproof (what is not right), correction (how to get it right), and instruction in righteousness (how to keep it right). In the context Paul reminded Timothy that what he learned as child from the holy scriptures made him wise unto salvation by faith in Christ Jesus. I’ve heard it said that doctrine for the Body of Christ is only found in Paul’s epistles. That is not true. The specific revelations concerning this age are only found in his epistles, but there is doctrine we need today found throughout ALL SCRIPTURE. For example, Paul only implied the virgin birth of Christ (Gal. 4:4), a fundamental of the faith, but that doctrine was firmly established before he showed up. He did not use the word “hell” (he described it, 2 Thess. 1:8-9), but that doctrine was also firmly established before he wrote his first epistle.

We need to read and study the WHOLE BIBLE! We are to consider what Paul said first since God spoke through him directly to us in this present age (2 Tim. 2:7). When we come cross something that does not line up with Paul said to us, we are to rightly divide it. When come across something that does line up, we are to rightly apply it. The simple rule is what God has divided, leave divided and what God has connected, leave connected.