Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers

Spiritual Theology #4

by Eugene H. Peterson

The fourth volume in Peterson's best-selling "conversations" in spiritual theologyJust as God used words both to create the world and to give us commandments, we too use words for many different purposes. In fact, we use the same language to talk to each other and to talk to God. Can our everyday speech, then, be just as important as the words and prayers we hear from the pulpit? Eugene Peterson unequivocally says "Yes!"Peterson's Tell It Slant explores how Jesus used language, particularly in his parables and prayers. His was not a direct language of information or instruction but an indirect, oblique language requiring a participating imagination — "slant" language. Tell It Slant beautifully points to Jesus' engaging, relational way of speaking as a model for us today.

Genres: Theology, Christian, Christianity, Spirituality, Nonfiction, Faith, Christian Living

298 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Eugene H. Peterson was a pastor, scholar, author, and poet. For many years he was James M. Houston Professor of Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He also served as founding pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland. He had written over thirty books, including Gold Medallion Book Award winner The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language a contemporary translation of the Bible. After retiring from full-time teaching, Eugene and his wife Jan lived in the Big Sky Country of rural Montana. He died in October 2018.

Reviews

[Bill Huizer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tell It Slant takes it's title from the famous Emily Dickinson poem:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

This sets the stage for Eugene Peterson’s argument that the parables of Jesus are told exactly this way. It’s connected to Peterson’s translation of Matthew 13:11-14:

He replied, “You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom. You know how it works. Not everybody has this gift, this insight; it hasn’t been given to them. Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That’s why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they’re blue in the face and not get it.

Peterson spends the first section of the book moving through the parables of Luke and demonstrating all the ways that truth dazzles gradually in each of these stories. The second section of the book deals with the language of the prayers of Jesus, although I’m not so sure they really tell the truth as slant here as in the parables. Nevertheless, it is a compelling and helpful read.

In my view, Eugene Peterson is the preeminent living American Christian thinker. In a time when Evangelical Fundamentalism demands quick action and results in the working out of God's will in the world, Peterson is the patient, poetic, and prophetic voice that brings us back to the Jesus revealed in scripture and through two thousand years of Christian witness. He writes well but he does not write simply - it takes me time to work through most of his books, as I would through a satisfying meal or walk through the woods. This examination of the stories and prayers of Jesus reawakened me to the power of the gospel's parables and language. It's reminded me to be an attentive reader and listener, opening my eyes and ears to the power of the words contained in each story and prayer. Peterson saves the best part of the book for the second last chapter "Jesus Prays from the Cross." Here, he brings the reader through each part of those final moments contained in the four gospels, and there's enough in these pages to provide helpful lenten reading for many years to come.

The appendix is called "Some Writers Who Honor the Sacred Inherent in Language." Here is the first paragraph of it, which I feel compelled to share. It reminds me why reading good books (both “sacred” and “secular”) is a spiritual practice:

"It is no small thing that the Christian community has men and women who pay close and continuous attention to the way it uses words. The sacrilege of language is epidemic in our culture. We live in a language wasteland. The care of words is urgent Christian work. Our assignment is clear: keep them personal, preserve their place in the creation/salvation story, maintain congruence between our conversations and our prayers. The major way we do this is by keeping company with Jesus in his stories and in his prayers. I also find it useful to keep up conversations with men and women who do this well. Some of them write books. When they write well I read their books. Here are seven writers that I like very much." (271) [N.T. Wright, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, William Stafford, Francis de Sales & Jane de Chantal, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, and Reynolds Price]

[Elise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first time reading Eugene Peterson, and although I found the book a little difficult to get through at times, I am completely captured by his thoughts and understanding of words and Jesus and the sacred and secular. AMEN.

[Chrystie Cole · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book on the parables and prayers of Jesus. But the second half on his prayers was particularly rich.

[Jens Hieber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eugene Peterson writing about stories and language; what's not to love. Brilliant, meaningful, well-written, and life-giving as always.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this as an in-depth study over the course of 8 or 9 months with a group. I found that it gave us some new perspectives on the way we looked at Jesus, and provided some interesting discussion topics for us to evaluate our faith.

I found some of his assertions to be a bit "out there," and didn't quite agree with everything he said, especially in a few of the more difficult parable chapters. It almost felt like reaching, at some points, for an interpretation that just wasn't there. Also, I prefer the Biblical text (I was raised on NIV), rather than his own translation directly from the Greek that he published in The Message. While it may be helpful to read it in our own form of language, I think some of it leaves out a lot of the force behind Jesus' words and actions. For example, in one parable it was translated to the effect of the main "character" saying to get people away from him, while in my Bible (NIV) it said to take the people out and kill them. Just being nit-picky...

[Brian Eshleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is more biblical exposition than "How to Enrich Language". I felt a little misled, but his exposition is skillful and engaging.

[Marcas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eugene reminds us that Jesus' prayers start in heaven and finish on earth. They are distinct but are organically and persistently paired in unity. His emphasis on narrative is also there, as ever, and allows him to follow the main scriptural motifs up and down the mountain.
“This kingdom of God life is not a matter of waking up each morning with a list of chores or an agenda to be tended to, left on our bedside table by the Holy Spirit for us while we slept. We wake up already immersed in a large story of creation and covenant, of Israel and Jesus, the story of Jesus and the stories that Jesus told. We let ourselves be formed by these formative stories, and especially as we listen to the stories that Jesus tells, get a feel for the way he does it, the way he talks, the way he treats people, the Jesus way.” -Eugene Peterson

[Dorothy Greco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exactly what you might expect in a book on language and prayer written by the man who translated the entire Bible. Insightful. Revelatory. Challenging. Encouraging. I'm so grateful for Peterson's legacy.

[Chad · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic book. inspirational and so uplifting. I loved the way he explains how and why Jesus used his stories to convey different messages and how those same messages ring just as true today.
English teachers will love this book, real good like.
Top ten of the year.

[Timothy Hoiland · Rating 5 out of 5]

These days I’m rereading this one, the penultimate book in Eugene Peterson's excellent five-part “spiritual theology” series. Here, he reflects on the words Jesus used in his prayers and parables—grounded as they were in real relationships, among actual people with names, drawing on the ordinary stuff of everyday life.

Taking his title from Emily Dickinson (“Tell all the truth but tell it slant . . .”), Peterson writes, “Language—given to us to glorify God, to receive the revelation of God, to witness to the truth of God, to offer praise to God—is constantly at risk. Too often the living Word is desiccated into propositional cadavers, then sorted into exegetical specimens in bottles of formaldehyde.”

In the end, he says, we’re left with “godtalk”—a far cry from the living and life-giving language we find in the stories and prayers of Jesus.

“As we listen in on Jesus as he talks and then participate with Jesus as he prays,” Peterson continues, “I hope that together we, writer and readers, will develop a discerning aversion to all forms of depersonalizing godtalk and acquire a taste for and skills in the always personal language that God uses, even in our conversations and small talk, maybe especially in our small talk, to make and save and bless us one and all.”

[Fred · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than the earlier two volumes in this series, this book examines the parables and prayers of Jesus. It reads like an eloquent thoughtful sermon series. Eugene Peterson has a generous spirit, guiding us with his wisdom and experience, noting the pitfalls of the spiritual life without ever attacking straw-men or sounding cranky. He is at his best when writing about prayer and language - two of his favorite topics which makes this a great, accessible work.

[Amy Riccio · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love how much Eugene Peterson values words and how he so simply uses the words of Jesus to give me a whole new, simplified take on prayer and on the parables. I really liked this book a lot, but only gave it four stars because there were a few portions that were really dry.

[Brian White · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great volume from Peterson. These are always slow books for me. Each page can be savored. He makes me think and draw near to Jesus. I want to soak in these truths.

[Michele Morin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The recent biographical movie featuring the life of J.R.R. Tolkien captures him saying, “After all, what’s language for? It’s not just the naming of things, is it? It’s the life blood of a culture, a people.”

Language and the way we use it reveals our thinking and our character. The structure of a language reveals what’s important to the people who speak it. In Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers, pastor and author Eugene Peterson argues that language is a gift from God through which we sing and pray and, using the very same syntax and parts of speech, can also order a burger at the drive through or tell a story to a two-year-old. Peterson describes the language Jesus used in his three embodied years by capturing a line from an Emily Dickinson poem:

“Tell all the Truth but tell it slant.”

Particularly in Jesus’s parables, it’s clear how the truth “comes up on the listener obliquely, ‘on the slant'” (20) and then overtakes one with its clarity. His use of language wars against our natural tendency to compartmentalize speech into secular and sacred spaces. Jesus used the language of the people and the metaphors of his space and time to tell stories and to pray.

Jesus in His Stories
The four gospel writers differed in their focus, but collaborated in presenting the ways in which Jesus used language to preach, teach, and converse his way through first-century Palestine. Peterson zooms in on the ten parables unique to Luke’s gospel to illustrate Jesus’s “story telling way with words” (31) that give us deeper insight into God and His ways:

Life is Personal by Definition
“When we deal with God, we are not dealing with a spiritual principle, a religious idea, an ethical cause, or a mystical feeling.” (44)

Avoid Chattering Godtalk
“A lot of our talk about ‘the things of God’ is a way of avoiding the personal presence of God in the hurt and hungry people we meet.” (56)

The World is Prodigious in Wealth
“God does not barely save us, doling out just enough grace to get us across the threshold of heaven. He is lavish.”

Jesus in His Prayers
The language of prayer is “local and present and personal.” (160) Words that bubble up from the heart are the same when addressed to God or to a close friend. The six New Testament transcripts of Jesus’s prayers mentor readers in the language of prayer–and also in the absolute necessity of it in a following life.

Peterson advises readers to leave room for silence in prayer, a form of punctuation in which monologue is transformed into conversation. Then, he cautions about the ease with which we can lapse into pretending to pray, to use, “the words of prayer, practice the forms of prayer, assume postures of prayer, acquire a reputation for prayer, and never pray.” (161)

Jesus’s prayers sing his life of unity with God and shimmer with intimacy that invites us to advance beyond the “I’ll pray for you” narrative and jump into something more relational, substantial, and whole in our conversations with God.

Involved and Participatory Language
Peterson’s writing is almost unbearably relevant and always leaves me flipping pages to check for chapter endings because I’ve become saturated with more truth mid-chapter than I can absorb or assimilate. His insights crackle and spark, leading me into a new way of reading a familiar parable that intensifies its intended message and anchors it in the narrative arc of Jesus’s purpose as The Storyteller.

Tell It Slant sets up a framework for exploring large and sweeping concepts (parables and prayer) using pictures and particulars harvested from Peterson’s experiences and deep understanding of Scripture. He advocates for a use of language that is both “involved and participatory” (68), a use of words that rejects complacency and guards our hearts against depersonalizing God. To that end, he offers the stories and the prayers of Jesus as a model for how language can witness to the holy while still anchoring us to this very real and startling world.

Many thanks to William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company for providing a copy of this book to facilitate my review, which, of course, is offered freely and with honesty.

[Evan Steele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost two books in one: Peterson explores the parables and language of Jesus and tthe power and nature of the prayers of Jesus.

Another journey with Peterson for me, perhaps the 4th or 5th one I have been on in the past couple of years. Peterson is not a best selling kind of writer. He never repeats or reinforces topics. That is both a blessing and a curse as we can all use some reinforcement to help with memory. But as so many of Peterson's books tend to be this book is a conversation, and like conversation, this book twists and turns, wraps deeply around subjects and breezes through others.

There is some real insight to the way Jesus presents and teaches truth. There are several parables that I will never see the same way, not because Peterson demanded I reach the same conclusion but because he carefully and slowly unpacked and pointed out the Jesus way of telling truth.

I was ready for this book to be over when we got through the parables found in Luke, and found the transition into prayer to be disjointed. However there was as much spiritual good found in that section as in the whole book.

It is a great delight to be able to spend time with Peterson. This would not be my first recommendation for a Peterson book. But please find a way to read something of his. He is a great balm to what ails the modern Christian church. Every time I read him I want to read more and know Scripture better.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This started a bit slow, but really picked up for me about 1/3 of the way in, where Peterson gets to the story of the lost brothers in Luke 15, illustrating the way we can be avoid recognizing our lostness which keeps us "from experiencing the elegant profundities of foundness."

Another powerful chapter was on Luke 18, with the story of the Pharisee and tax collector coming to church to pray. He talks about how easy it is to become a hypocrite without knowing it, how easy it is to go to church and participate in the activities of God without attending to God. This quote rocked me: "...how easy it is to acquire a reputation as a man or woman who is on good terms with God without bothering to pay attention to God, how easy it is to use the setting of church and the forms and words of prayer to avoid the demanding work of dealing with God, with God’s people, with God’s Creation. Given the ease of deception, is it any wonder that the place and practice of prayer should be the very best place where we can avoid God without anyone noticing?”

[Gabe Perez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eugene Peterson has a gift for turning familiar ideas on their head and helping you see them afresh. At its best, Tell It Slant does just that. His reflections on parables were some of the highlights for me. For instance, he insists that “a parable is not an explanation… it makes it harder by requiring participation, by entering the story.” Likewise, his description of prayer being “as commonplace as asking for and receiving bread in acts of everyday hospitality” is simple yet profound.

That said, the book often felt uneven. Some chapters were meandering and hard to follow, with long stretches that didn’t leave me with much to take away. I found myself alternating between moments of clarity and inspiration, and moments where the writing felt rambling or unfocused.

Overall, I’d say this is a book worth dipping into rather than reading straight through. When Peterson is sharp, he’s brilliant; when he’s not, the prose can wander. I’m glad I read it, but it didn’t come together as cohesively as I’d hoped.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

p.4 'God does not compartmentalize our lives into religious and secular. Why do we? I want to insist on a continuity of language between the words we use in Bible studies and the words we use when we're out fishing for rainbow trout.
......I want to nurture an awareness of the sanctity of words, the holy gift of language, regardless of whether it is directed vertically or horizontally. Just as Jesus did.'

AW Tozer would've loved the unsiloed living purported as the best kind of living, contained in this book.

Luke's 'Travel Narrative' of the 10 parables not mentioned in other Gospels, take place between Galilee and Jerusalem. Petersen's 'Tell It Slant' is disarming in its clarity and unique perspective. I dog-eared page after page and underlined many sections. It's a breath of fresh air.

[Steve Croft · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved it. Tell it Slant, as opposed to 'Tell it Straight' explores how Jesus used language to reveal his truth. Mostly in parables and prayers. Jesus rarely said anything 'straight' and so Peterson shows us how spiritual truth is best conveyed via metaphor and story. I thought this book was awesome, nearly up there with 'Eat this Book' (book 2 in the series). I highly recommend this to anyone that wants a deep interpretation of all the parables and pretty much everything Jesus was recorded as saying. Peterson is the master at translating for the layman, after all, he created 'The Message' bible translation.

[Tabitha McDuffee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peterson walks through Jesus' parables and his prayers as a framework for discussing the importance and sacredness of language. Each chapter can almost stand on its own, so this is great for devotional reading as well.

[Greg M. Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good explanation of several of the parables and then a lengthy discourse on prayer. Peterson is one of the best religious expositors. I’ve been thinking that the writing is like a fresh coat of paint in the mind, rather than a radical, life-changing kind of thing.

[Neil Saltmarsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this series in Spiritual Theology is great. It is well thought through and interesting in his opinions which I mainly agree with. I like that it is a lived in book in that this comes from Mr. Peterson's experience. The analysis of Luke's parables and the prayers of Jesus are superb.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so grateful for the faithful life and pastoral voice of Eugene Peterson. I started listening to this book on a day my spirit felt down, and I wanted to listen to a voice I could trust to speak honest courage into and over my soul. This book extends the invitation to slowly meditate on the stories and prayers of Jesus, and in doing so, be more deeply formed by each one. I would like to go back and read it on paper so that I can study the reflections more deeply, but the reminder, story after story and prayer after prayer, that we live an embodied faith given to us by a God who loved us so much that He took on flesh, did breath fresh strength into my spirit. This book, like all of the other books of his that I have read, is a call to wholeness, and the call to wholeness is the call to deeper surrender and deeper relationship and deeper healing.

[James Korsmo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This next installment in this beautiful series is another gem. Peterson has such a way with words, and he conveys such a depth of faith. This book investigates the parables and prayers of Jesus. So much wisdom!

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know if you could ever go wrong by reading Eugene Peterson. It took me a couple tries to get going into this books, much to my discredit. His works have so much depth.

[Diane Chang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely requires multiple read. I was blessed to have a book group that would meet and discuss monthly. Changed and greatly impacted my prayer life and redefined what prayer is.

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Peterson because he makes me think. I don't tend to get as much out of his stuff some others, but I get a few good nuggets, and I know my mind has been challenged by his views and style.

[David J. Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inconsistently helpful, but really shines in some spots.

[Ryan Koenig · Rating 4 out of 5]

2nd favorite in the series after “Christ Plays...”

[Justin Lonas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great work. Why didn't I read these when they came out? I don't remember, but I'm at a place to receive them now.