6. PARABLE OF THE MUSTARD SEED Mark 4:30-32 (Matthew 13:31-32) 30 And he said, How shall we liken the kingdom of God? or in what parable shall we set it forth?--That is, what other parable or illustration than the ones already used shall be used showing and enforcing some other feature of "the kingdom of God"? 31 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown upon the earth, though it be less than all the seeds that are upon the earth,--Matthew (Matthew 13:31) says: "Which a man took, and sowed in his field." Luke (Luke 13:17-27) says: "His own garden." It is a garden plant. It is the least of all seeds which were sowed in the field or garden in that country--not really the least of all seeds known to botanists. It was proverbially used to denote any small seed. 32 yet when it is sown, groweth up, and becometh greater than all the herbs, and putteth out great branches; so that the birds of the heaven can lodge under the shadow thereof.--From this very small seed grows a very large herb, "greater than all the herbs" grown in that country, "and becometh a tree"--not like the cedar or fir or oak, but so large that birds lodge in its branches. We are told by those who have traveled through that country that "in the proper season the traveler on Gennesaret may ride by mustard bushes as high as his horse, and alive with flocks of merry bullfinches or of rock pigeons feeding upon the seeds." The points of resemblance in the parable are the smallness of seed and the greatness of the production from it. So the kingdom of God, from an insignificant beginning, has grown to a huge magnitude. From a babe in a manger has grown this mighty kingdom.