Paul and the Gospels.

Michael Spencer asks at Internet Monk:

Why does the Apostle Paul not refer to the stories, miracles and teaching from the ministry of Jesus in his letters to churches?

What a cool question.

Paul wrote before many of the written Gospels were widely circulated. More importantly he wrote centuries before the establishment of the New Testament canon. While the truth of Christ was likely present and circulating orally, there was a almost certainly a lot of falsehood out there as well. The signal to noise ratio outside of apostolic circles would have been poor. There would also have been gaps caused by oral transmission. You can't rely on a story for authority if your readers haven't heard of it yet. It wouldn't be until the establishment of the canon that the noise drops out and everyone has a consistent set of scripture they can employ without one side or the other fearing hearsay.

People also don't rely on the work of their contemporaries this way. When was the last time you thought another guy in your bible study was speaking the inerrant word of God? The establishment of scriptural authority takes time. Paul didn't have the benefit of that time yet. When Paul does cite scripture it is the Old Testament because it has the weight of history behind it.

He also cites scripture sparingly period. If you read contemporary letters of pastoral instruction, how often do they make use of scripture? Not that much. How many scriptural references to the life of Christ are in contemporary evangelical literature? Christian blogs?

Paul also wrote based on his own experience. The literal translation of "apostle" is witness. Paul has witnessed the resurrected Christ on the Road to Damascus, but not the pre-resurrection Christ. Therefore he focuses heavily on the connotations of the resurrected Christ. It is his apostolic witness. His experience of the resurrected Christ figures heavily into his faith walk and so he relied on it heavily in his message to others.

Paul's writings may also have been intended by God to compliment the other written Gospels. God doesn't give exactly the same message in every book and it is quite possible that Paul's works were intended to give the Gospel a second leg to stand on philosophically.