One of America's best-loved writers on Christian spirituality shares her insights on the sayings of Jesus

The four gospels in the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) record many things that Jesus said-words that are among the most revered among Christians and most often looked to and studied as a way of getting to the essentials of the faith. In The Words of Jesus, Phyllis Tickle has compiled and ordered all the red-letter verses of Jesus' sayings from these gospels so that they stand on their own and then added her own thoughtful reflections on the words and their meaning for those who wish to follow the Way of Jesus. She accompanies the biblical text with her thoughts on the sayings of Jesus and on the meaning they have had for her in her spiritual and faith journey. Her thoughtful work helps readers to experience a clearer, more embodied encounter with the author of these words and with their meaning and message.

Phyllis Tickle (Millington, TN), for many years contributing editor in religion at Publishers Weekly, is an authority on religion in America and a much sought-after lecturer on the subject. In addition to lectures and numerous essays, articles, and interviews, Tickle is the author of some two dozen books, most of them in religion and spirituality. She is best known for her work on fixed-hour prayer, most notably her Divine Hours series. Other works include God-Talk in America (978-0-8245-1773-1), a selection of One Spirit Book Club; My Father's Prayer: A Remembrance (978-0-8358-0733-3), which won a Book of Excellence Award from Body, Mind and Spirit; and Rediscovering the Sacred: Spirituality in America (978-0-8245-1460-0), which won a Catholic PressAssociation Book Award. She has received the Mays Award, one of the book industry's most prestigious awards for lifetime achievement in writing and publishing. She holds an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from the Berkeley School of Divinity at Yale University.

"Award-winning author and speaker Tickle (Rediscovering the Sacred; The Divine Hours), who is PW's former contributing editor in religion, chooses to take the 'red letter' Bible one step further in this excellent study tool. The first section of this slim volume is a reflective essay on what Tickle learned from extracting the words of Jesus out of their narrative context in the Gospels. She writes of Jesus gradually becoming 'the heard' rather than 'the seen,' stripped of the sentimental images she had grown up with. She argues that the sayings, taken on their own merit, offer a third way between biblical literalists and literary critics: 'Jesus was an actualist, not a literalist or a metaphorist... [the words] don't mean; they are.' As such, they must be absorbed with both heart and mind together. Tickle divides the sayings into five categories: public teaching, private instruction, healing dialogue, intimate conversation and postresurrection encounters. Each saying stands alone but has been given a brief descriptive title. Tickle used an amalgam of biblical translations and chronologies to produce a version that is accessible and vibrant. These sayings of Jesus will be a valuable tool to Christians looking for new ways to study and assimilate his core teachings and character." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

What if you could encounter the words of Jesus on their own, lifted up from the surrounding narratives and presented in their full power and mystery? That's the question Phyllis Tickle--one of America's most beloved writers on Christian spirituality--asked when she set out to write what she calls a Sayings gospel. In The Words of Jesus Tickle has compiled and arranged all the sayings of Jesus from the first four books of the New Testament and the first chapter of the Book of Acts in a way that creates an entirely new kind of encounter with the texts. And she has accompanied those sayings with her own personal reflections and commentaries not just on the words themselves but on the One who spoke them.

Phyllis Tickle has compiled all the red-letter verses of Jesus' sayings from the first four gospels of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John)in order to help them to stand out, to make their teachings and meaning clearer. She accompanies the biblical text with six essays that comment both on the sayings and on the meaning they have had for her in her spiritual and faith journey.