Acts 2:41

2:41 So those who accepted ¹  his message ²  were baptized, and that day about three thousand people ³  were added. ⁴ 

Acts 4:4

4:4 But many of those who had listened to ⁵  the message ⁶  believed, and the number of the men ⁷  came to about five thousand.

Acts 6:7

6:7 The word of God continued to spread, ⁸  the number of disciples in Jerusalem ⁹  increased greatly, and a large group ¹⁰  of priests became obedient to the faith.

Matthew 13:31-33

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

13:31 He gave ¹¹  them another parable: ¹²  “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed ¹³  that a man took and sowed in his field. 13:32 It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest garden plant and becomes a tree, ¹⁴  so that the wild birds ¹⁵  come and nest in its branches.” ¹⁶ 

The Parable of the Yeast

13:33 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with ¹⁷  three measures ¹⁸  of flour until all the dough had risen.” ¹⁹ 

John 12:24

12:24 I tell you the solemn truth, ²⁰  unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself alone. ²¹  But if it dies, it produces ²²  much grain. ²³ 

¹ tn Or “who acknowledged the truth of.”

² tn Grk “word.”

³ tn Grk “souls” (here an idiom for the whole person).

⁴ tn Or “were won over.”

⁵ tn Or “had heard.”

⁶ tn Or “word.”

⁷ tn In the historical setting it is likely that only men are referred to here. The Greek term ἀνήρ (anhr) usually refers to males or husbands rather than people in general. Thus to translate “of the people” would give a false impression of the number, since any women and children were apparently not included in the count.

⁸ tn Grk “kept on spreading”; the verb has been translated as a progressive imperfect.

⁹ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

¹⁰ tn Grk “a great multitude.”

¹¹ tn Grk “put before.”

¹² tn Grk “He set before them another parable, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant and has not been translated.

¹³ sn The mustard seed was noted for its tiny size.

¹⁴ sn This is rhetorical hyperbole, since technically a mustard plant is not a tree. This could refer to one of two types of mustard plant popular in Palestine and would be either ten or twenty-five ft (3 or 7.5 m) tall.

¹⁵ tn Grk “the birds of the sky” or “the birds of the heaven”; the Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated either “sky” or “heaven,” depending on the context. The idiomatic expression “birds of the sky” refers to wild birds as opposed to domesticated fowl (cf. BDAG 809 s.v. πετεινόν).

¹⁶ sn The point of the parable seems to be that while the kingdom of God may appear to have insignificant and unnoticeable beginnings (i.e., in the ministry of Jesus), it will someday (i.e., at the second advent) be great and quite expansive. The kingdom, however, is not to be equated with the church, but rather the church is an expression of the kingdom. Also, there is important OT background in the image of the mustard seed that grew and became a tree: Ezek 17:22-24 pictures the reemergence of the Davidic house where people can find calm and shelter. Like the mustard seed, it would start out small but grow to significant size.

¹⁷ tn Grk “hid in.”

¹⁸ sn This measure was a saton, the Greek name for the Hebrew term “seah.” Three of these was a very large quantity of flour, since a saton is a little over 16 pounds (7 kg) of dry measure (or 13.13 liters). So this was over 47 lbs (21 kg) of flour total, enough to feed over a hundred people.

¹⁹ tn Grk “it was all leavened.”

²⁰ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

²¹ tn Or “it remains only a single kernel.”

²² tn Or “bears.”

²³ tn Grk “much fruit.”