Parables Quotes

I prefer sayings over jokes.

Re-telling the Christian story is the essence of my vocation. That has been going on since the Evangelists in one form or another.

The words of Jesus, as distinguishable from the matter in which they are embedded as diamonds in dunghills. A more precious morsel of ethics was never seen.

Seeing 'The Gospel According to St. Matthew' was an extraordinary experience because it made me realise that all the biblical stories and images I'd ignored as a child had sunk in by osmosis. I saw that my childhood was deeply rooted inside me.

In church I feel very close to the publican of the parable.

Jesus must have had a sense of humor. I like to think of Him as a guy who got people to listen to Him by leaving them laughing and chuckling with one another.

My son Bill, who came to me in 1960-he was 14 then, quoted the old parable to me: "It is not by their words, but by their deeds that ye shall know them" -pointing out that if I was a true atheist, I would not permit the public schools of America to force him to read the Bible and say prayers against his will. He was right.

Reading the Gospels, without the personality of Jesus, is like watching television with the sound turned off.

Storytelling is essentially what we do.

Some of the parables of the Kingdom made wonderful sense, but the exclusivity in the New Testament put me off.

I grew up with Bible stories, which are like fairy tales, because my father was a minister. We heard verses and prayers every day. I liked the gorier Bible stories. I did have a book of Chinese fairy tales. All the people except the elders looked like Italians. But we were not a family that had fiction books.

The Bible is not only laws, it's also stories.

Entire families are attending 'Son of God' together and sharing it with their own kids. Parents are using the film as a conversation starter to help bring the story of Jesus to life for their children.

Fairytales were never really meant for children; they were meant as cautionary tales for teenagers on the verge of growing up.

'One Minute Mentoring' is written in the parable style Spencer Johnson and I popularized in 'The One Minute Manager.' It's an entertaining story about the mentorship between a young salesperson, Josh, and a seasoned executive named Diane. As the characters learn about mentoring, so does the reader.

Jesus is absolutely at the centre of Western civilisation and part of my fascination with him is, why? What is it about this particular man and his story?

I went to Sunday School and liked the stories about Christ and the Christmas star. They were beautiful. They made you warm and happy to think about. But I didn't believe them.

I do believe in the idea of a historic person named Jesus that was a kind of chill dude who was just telling people to chill and be nice to each other. And he got penalized for that.

I once heard a theologian remark that in the Gospels people approached Jesus with a question 183 times whereas he replied with a direct answer only three times. Instead, he responded with a different question, a story, or some other indirection. Evidently Jesus wants us to work out answers on our own, using the principles that he taught and lived.

Oh, I get it," I said. "It's a parable. Cute. Let's go eat.

Who doesn't love the parables? You know there's a solution, but you have to do some work to find it.

It sounds trite, but I like telling stories.

Ack! Parables. I hate parables.

All happenings, great and small, are parables whereby God speaks. The art of life is to get the message. To see all that is offered us at the windows of the soul, and to reach out and receive what is offered, this is the art of living.

I was brought up, as a lot of kids are, on 'Aesop's Fables,' 'Brothers Grimm,' 'La Fontaine,' all those sorts of things. Hans Christian Andersen is a hero of mine.