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You Do Not Know Where It Will Have Success!The Watchtower—2008 | July 15
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The Illustration of the Mustard Grain
3, 4. The illustration of the mustard grain highlights what aspects concerning the Kingdom message?
3 The illustration of the mustard grain, also recorded in Mark chapter 4, highlights two things: first, the amazing growth of the Kingdom message; second, the protection given to those who accept the message. Jesus said: “With what are we to liken the kingdom of God, or in what illustration shall we set it out? Like a mustard grain, which at the time it was sown in the ground was the tiniest of all the seeds that are on the earth—but when it has been sown, it comes up and becomes greater than all other vegetables and produces great branches, so that the birds of the heaven are able to find lodging under its shadow.”—Mark 4:30-32.
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You Do Not Know Where It Will Have Success!The Watchtower—2008 | July 15
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8. (a) Whom do the birds in Jesus’ illustration represent? (b) From what are we protected even now?
8 Jesus says that the birds of the heaven are able to find lodging under the shadow of this Kingdom. These birds do not represent enemies of the Kingdom who try to eat up the good seeds, as was true of the birds in the illustration of the man who scattered seed on different kinds of soil. (Mark 4:4) Rather, in this illustration the birds represent righthearted ones who seek protection within the confines of the Christian congregation. Even now, these ones are protected from the spiritually defiling habits and unclean practices of this wicked world. (Compare Isaiah 32:1, 2.)
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