Parable of Mustard Seed – Printable

A familiar sight in Palestine was a six to twelve foot mustard bush filled with a flock of birds. The birds enjoyed feasting on the tiny black seeds. Mustard seeds were cultivated for their oil during biblical times and were ground into powder for both culinary and medicinal purposes.

The significant lesson that Jesus draws from the mustard plant is the fact that a huge, significant plant can come from a small, insignificant beginning like a little seed. This is parallel to the kingdom of God. Think of all of the insignificant events that hold such huge meanings: a little out-of-the-way town of Bethlehem, an animal’s manger, an obscure carpenter and his young wife, a bunch of uneducated fishermen, a few loaves and a couple of fish, a rooster crowing, a tree that’s wood would someday be a cross, a tomb with a stone rolled away