How Scot McKnight fell in love with the Gospels (Paul or Jesus?)

From Christianity Today:

I grew up with, on, through, and in the apostle Paul. His letters were the heart of our Bible. From the time I began paying attention to my pastor’s sermons, I can only recall sermons on 1 Corinthians—the whole book verse by verse, week by week—and Ephesians. I don’t recall a series on any of the Gospels or on Jesus.

There were two annual exceptions to our Pauline focus. At Christmas, we heard a sermon on one of the narratives about Jesus’ birth, and during Holy Week, we got something on Jesus’ death and resurrection. We were Pauline Christians and not one bit worried about it. I learned to think and believe and live in a Pauline fashion. Everything was filtered through Paul’s theology. Justification was the lens for the gospel, and “life in the Spirit,” the lens for Christian living.

Then I went off to Bible college (now Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan) and majored in history while taking as many Bible courses as I could. Once again, Paul featured prominently. My senior year, I read the first volume of Ralph Martin’s New Testament Foundations series and was taken with the freshness of the Gospels. But nothing overwhelmed me like my first experience in seminary. Sitting in Walter Liefeld’s synoptic Gospels course at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I was absolutely mesmerized by Jesus, his kingdom vision, and the Gospels. I decided then and there that my life’s pursuit would be Jesus and the Gospels.

A few years later, I began doctoral work on the Gospel of Matthew, and a few years after that began teaching as a young professor at Trinity, where I even got to teach Jesus and the Gospels. I spoke so often about Jesus’ teachings that one student quipped that I needed to give a lecture called “Jesus’ View of Jesus,” since I had covered Jesus’ view on everything but Jesus!

Something was clearly happening to me. Formerly I had loved Paul and thought with Paul. Then, when I encountered Jesus, as if for the first time, I began learning to think with Jesus. One of my colleagues occasionally suggested I was getting too Jesus-centered and ignoring Paul. I’m not so sure I was ignoring Paul; after all, I was teaching a few of his letters on a regular basis. But I had unlearned how to think in Pauline terms and was thinking only in the terms of Jesus. Everything was kingdom-centered for me.

Evangelicalism is facing a crisis about the relationship of Jesus to Paul, and many today are choosing sides.

And, truth be told, I was so taken with Jesus’ kingdom vision that reading Paul created a dilemma every time I opened his letters…..

Do you tend to gravitate toward the Gospels or toward Paul’s letters? Why?