Parable Wisdom Quotes

“That is the message of Jesus in black and white: Bring people into contact with God and you will be feeding thousands. And what happens? The disciples leave everything and follow him. This means that the disciples freed themselves of everything. To follow him, you have to deny yourself, release your elf from your own need to be right all the time, to be in charge all the time, to have your own way all the time, all those desires that make you inaccessible from the Holy Spirit.   This is how you are transformed. This is how you become a light in this world so that others want what you have found.”
― Theodore J. Nottingham, Parable Wisdom: Spiritual Awakening in the Teachings of Jesus

“comes the next lesson: “From now on, you will catch people.” The Greek words translate more literally as: “From now on, you will revive people, bring them back to life.”   He is telling us: From now on, you will go out into the deep, the dangerous, where people don’t believe anything, are lost, are in turmoil, are surrounded by sharks. Go out into the deep and go get them. That is the mission of the disciple. I will send you into all the depths, starting with next door. There are many fish out there who are hungry for God, who are lost without God. Perhaps more than ever before, we are a disintegrating society, a broken civilization. The words of Jesus tell us: Help them find God, help them find peace, help them find joy and sanity. The assumption is that we find sanity first so there is a sane place for them to come.”
― Theodore J. Nottingham, Parable Wisdom: Spiritual Awakening in the Teachings of Jesus

“We love those words – “For God all things are possible.” But the application is another matter: I’m in a terrible relationship. We’re going to get divorced. It’s never going to work. That is when those words need to become real for us. That is when you must think of abundance that fills the ships and the nets to overflowing. That’s the word of Jesus. This is not a fantasy, nor poetry. It is the power of God.   Peter sees this astonishing miracle, phenomenon, manifestation of the Holy and he falls on his knees, not to worship but to beg Jesus to go away. He wants Jesus to get away from him! What does that mean? When you and I are faced with Truth, with purity, with goodness, it is like placing a mirror right up to everything that is not so pure within us.  We do not want to see ourselves. Our response most often is: “Get away from me, please. I would much rather be comfortable in my old ways, in my darkness.” Jesus is too much to handle especially if you do not want to follow his life-changing teachings.   So here is this man who is so ashamed of himself, of just being a human being that he says  – “You shouldn’t be around me.” And what does Jesus say to you, to me? “Do not be afraid.” God loves us anyway. The Holy accepts us despite ourselves and will use anyway in all our fragmentation, brokenness, confusion and mistakes. If we are willing, God wants us to sign up and be part of God’s activity in the world no matter who we are. That is why we were born.”
― Theodore J. Nottingham, Parable Wisdom: Spiritual Awakening in the Teachings of Jesus

“Try it some time. This is the effort that opens the door to the other side, to a new life, to God’s way in our life. If you want to get out of a dead end -- spiritual, emotional, intellectual -- this is how you do it: Do what God tells you to do even if it makes no sense. Can you manifest enough faith, enough trust in the God revealed by Jesus to say, “If you say so, I will do it”? I will have faith.   Peter responds: “Okay, makes no sense but if you say so, I’ll do it.” And what happens? They go out in the middle of the day time and the net gets so full, it starts breaking. There are so many fish that the other boat comes out to help and the two boats start sinking. Now what does this picture tell us? That is the mercy of God! That is the abundance of Grace with which God wants to fill our life. That is what God wants to give you.   If Peter had not said “if you say so,” if he had said, “I’m sorry, rabbi. We tried it. We can’t do it,” Jesus would be on his way to find himself another fisherman, another community, another set of people who might just be willing to go out and take the risk. But Peter did say it and the simple fisherman is known to us today as one of the great world transformers. God will take anyone of us and use us for His purposes if we are willing like Peter to say, “Okay, I’ll do it.” That decision opens the door, and makes the impossible possible.   We”
― Theodore J. Nottingham, Parable Wisdom: Spiritual Awakening in the Teachings of Jesus

“We too spent the night fishing and did not catch anything, each in our own way. He gives us the key to how we can get past that failure, that hopelessness. You will notice that Peter addresses him as “Master” but has never met him before. Here is the simple fisherman looking up at this man covered with dust from Galilee and, somehow, he knows he is looking at a holy man. Can you imagine for a moment what must have been radiating out of this man that caused the fisherman with no education to say “Master”?   Yet even though he called him Master, he knew his business when it came to fishing. He knew that fishing should take place at night when the fish were up by the surface, rather than in the day, when they scatter down into the depths. Yet this holy man, who is not a fisherman, is telling him his business. All of us think we know something about something, don’t we? We have our little corner carved out that we know all about,  and here comes Jesus messing with our business, telling us something that is not logical. Nevertheless, Peter says, “Yet because you say so, we will do it.” That is a sacred teaching: I don’t understand it, I don’t know where it’s going to lead me. it’s not familiar, it’s not what I know but because you say so, I will do it.   Consider a situation in your life where, in applying this teaching, another door will open, another opportunity will arise “because you say so.” Look at the fruits of the Spirit: Because you say to be patient even though I’m so upset and it makes no sense and I’m right and they’re wrong, yet I will be patient.   Try”
― Theodore J. Nottingham, Parable Wisdom: Spiritual Awakening in the Teachings of Jesus

“we see here that Jesus comes and teaches people from the boat. But did you notice that it doesn’t mention what he said? There is no teaching expressed here. That tells us that the story itself is the teaching. As 21st century people, you know that when you take a four gigabyte file and turn it to a 100 megabyte file, you have compressed a great amount of information.   That is what we have here. This is sacred wisdom containing universal truth and one of our great mistakes is that we only take it on the surface. Do you know that for hundreds of years, for centuries, all the teachers talked about different levels of understanding holy scripture and yet, somewhere around the 1800s, scholars locked in to merely the surface, so it is just about Peter and the guys out fishing.  Yet, this is only a picture to touch us at an emotional level that can understand better than our mind. Jesus is going passed our mind to a place where we can understand in another way.   Let me give you an example of a picture that stirs the emotions. You notice that the fishermen were washing their nets and a bit later, we find Peter saying, “We’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything.” Have you ever tried something with all your efforts and gotten nowhere? Have you ever run out of steam or lost hope? Have you ever given up on something because you’ve given it all you had and nothing came of it?   Jesus is addressing us right there in that frustrated place, in that unhappy place, in that depressed place, whatever it is that caused it. Jesus is giving us a spiritual remedy to our sense of failure.”
― Theodore J. Nottingham, Parable Wisdom: Spiritual Awakening in the Teachings of Jesus

“In spiritual symbolism, there are three levels of truth: stone, water, wine. Stone truth is seen found in: Thou shall not kill and if thou killest, we will kill thee. It is literal truth, often a truth with no mercy, a truth that we must obey, and much religion is simply truth of stone -- Follow the laws or else. Water, which also stands for Truth, is found when we begin to recognize the good of the Teaching, the good of God’s Word, the good of not killing -- not because we are afraid of what will happen but because it is the right thing to do. It is the beginning of transformation. Christ tells us, “You have heard it said…but I say to you; you have heard it said ‘Do not kill,’ I say to you, do not even think deadly thoughts about your neighbor in your mind.”   Understand that since it is wine, it is the kind of truth that intoxicates the soul. It gives you joy to live the teachings of Christ. That is wine. This is what Jesus brings into the world, not a religion of laws, not a morality of obligation, but a delighting in spirit. This kind of Truth naturally makes us good people, forgiving people, caring people.   Now we come to the meaning of the marriage, the union. It is a marriage between what we know and what is in our character. When knowledge and being come together, a new understanding is created.   So the secret formula to spiritual transformation is the application of what you know through living it out. This is the union which creates the person we are called to be. Jesus changes us into wine. When you bring the teachings into your life, you can bring flavor and joy that were not there before.   This is the miracle. Not out there in Cana at a wedding but right in the middle of your life. Living out the power that the Christ has brought into the world, the renewal of what religion is meant to be. There is the secret in the very first step, the very beginning of Christ’s ministry in the Gospel of John. On that “third day” comes a new beginning, not just for Jesus, for all of us.”
― Theodore J. Nottingham, Parable Wisdom: Spiritual Awakening in the Teachings of Jesus

“Surely, you are a bit surprised when you hear Jesus say, “Woman…” Let me  point out that he says “woman” at another time, on the cross, saying, “Woman, behold your son,” speaking of apostle John standing there in despair. So the term “woman” is not a negative, although it is an objectification because this new beginning represents Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph and Mary, becoming Jesus the Christ, son of the living God.  He is moving from his natural identity into his true identity.   This is a message telling you that you are not merely the product of your Mom and Dad. You are not the result of whatever mistakes they made. You are not just the imitation of their ways. You are not just what your environment created. You are more than your DNA. You are child of the living God. As the Gospel of John says: “What is born of flesh is flesh; what is born a spirit, is spirit.” When you awaken to your true identity, to your spiritual self, you find that you are much more than just that person you thought you were.   Jesus says, according to this translation, something like, “What does this have to do with you and me?” You will find all sorts of politically correct, cleaned-up, watered-down versions of that statement.”
― Theodore J. Nottingham, Parable Wisdom: Spiritual Awakening in the Teachings of Jesus