John’s works are strategically placed in the New Testament.
Gregory Goswell, “The Johannine Corpus and the Unity of the New Testament Canon,” JETS, December 2018.
This very fine article shows how the distribution of John’s various works throughout the New Testament plays an important role in unifying the New Testament’s many different literary genre and themes.
The Gospel of John stands at the end of the gospels, as a summation and expansion of their teachings, and as an introduction to Acts and the ongoing work of Christ by His Spirit.
John’s placement in the general epistles reinforces numerous preceding themes, and keeps intact the link between Peter and John, established in Acts.
Revelation reaches back to Old Testament prophecy and connects those with New Testament themes of the Church, false teaching, and Christ as Son of God, and points us forward to His imminent return.
This article helps to bring to the surface the role of the Holy Spirit in inspiring the New Testament and in guarding its transmission – including the order of canonical lists – from early on in Church history.