Some years before the destruction of Jerusalem, the apostle Peter left Palestine. In the course of his missionary journeys he went to Rome, and it was perhaps from Rome that he wrote the First Epistle of Peter, the word "Babylon" in I Peter 5:13 being perhaps a figurative designation of Rome as the "Babylon" of that age. The Epistle was addressed to Christians in Asia Minor, and was intended to encourage the readers to Christian fortitude in the midst of persecution. The gospel proclaimed in the Epistle is the one great apostolic gospel of Christ's redeeming work which was also proclaimed by Paul.
The Second Epistle of Peter; The Epistle of Jude
The Second Epistle of Peter was written by the apostle to warn his readers against false teaching and urge them to be faithful to the authority of the apostles and of the Scriptures. Closely related to II Peter is the Epistle of Jude, which was written by one of the brothers of Jesus. The apostle Peter, in accordance with a thoroughly credible Christian tradition, finally suffered a martyr's death at Rome.
The apostle John, the son of Zebedee, became the head of the Church in Asia Minor, where, at Ephesus, he lived until nearly the end of the first century. During this period he wrote five books of the New Testament.
The Gospel According to John was written to supplement the other three Gospels which had long been in use. It contains much of the most precious and most profound teaching of our Lord, as it had been stored up in the memory of the "beloved disciple"; and it presents the glory of the Word of God as that glory had appeared on earth to an eyewitness.
The Epistles of John
The First Epistle of John was written in order to combat certain errors which were creeping into the Church in Asia Minor and in order to present to the readers the true Christian life of love, founded upon the Son of God who had come in the flesh, and begun by the new birth which makes a man a child of God.
The Second Epistle of John is a very brief letter written to warn an individual church of the same kind of error as is combated in I John.
The Third Epistle is addressed to an individual Christian named Gaius, who is praised for his hospitality to visiting missionaries, which was the more praiseworthy because it was in contrast to the inhospitality of a certain Diotrephes. The little letter sheds a flood of light upon the details of congregational life in the last period of the Apostolic Age.