From the beginning the word of God always preceded the creations of God. God spoke, and the universe sprang into being. We agree on this, true? But no one knew this until God told us that this is how it happened, and this is what it means. Some he appointed to write these things down. It is evident from the teaching ministry of Christ that what God said was what was recorded in the law and the prophets, the Old Testament. That was not the entire Scripture, because all that God would do and say was not yet done and said. But when it was, God had someone write it down.
So to invert the sequence so that the church, God's most magnificent creation, precedes the divine word that created it is absurd. We emerged from the promises of God, the written promises of a coming Messiah and a new and better covenant that would finally do away with our sins forever. You can say the Church preceded the epistles of John, but you cannot say it preceded God's gift to us of His precious, written word. His word has been with us from our earliest beginnings, and nearly the entire time in written form, therefore most certainly before the Church.
Well said!
bttt