Kisah Para Rasul 21:20

21:20 When they heard this, they praised ¹  God. Then they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews ²  there are who have believed, and they are all ardent observers ³  of the law. ⁴ 

Matius 13:31

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

13:31 He gave ⁵  them another parable: ⁶  “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed ⁷  that a man took and sowed in his field.

Yohanes 14:12

14:12 I tell you the solemn truth, ⁸  the person who believes in me will perform ⁹  the miraculous deeds ¹⁰  that I am doing, ¹¹  and will perform ¹²  greater deeds ¹³  than these, because I am going to the Father.

Yohanes 14:1

Jesus’ Parting Words to His Disciples

14:1 “Do not let your hearts be distressed. ¹⁴  You believe in God; ¹⁵  believe also in me.

Kolose 1:6

1:6 that has come to you. Just as in the entire world this gospel ¹⁶  is bearing fruit and growing, so it has also been bearing fruit and growing ¹⁷  among you from the first day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.

[21:20]  ¹ tn Or “glorified.”

[21:20]  ² tn Grk “how many thousands there are among the Jews.”

[21:20]  sn How many thousands of Jews. See Acts 2-5 for the accounts of their conversion, esp. 2:41 and 4:4. Estimates of the total number of Jews living in Jerusalem at the time range from 20,000 to 50,000.

[21:20]  ³ tn Or “are all zealous for the law.” BDAG 427 s.v. ζηλωτής 1.a.β has “of thing…τοῦ νόμου an ardent observer of the law Ac 21:20.”

[21:20]  ⁴ sn That is, the law of Moses. These Jewish Christians had remained close to their Jewish practices after becoming believers (1 Cor 7:18-19; Acts 16:3).

[13:31]  ⁵ tn Grk “put before.”

[13:31]  ⁶ tn Grk “He set before them another parable, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant and has not been translated.

[13:31]  ⁷ sn The mustard seed was noted for its tiny size.

[14:12]  ⁸ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[14:12]  ⁹ tn Or “will do.”

[14:12]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “the works.”

[14:12]  ¹¹ tn Or “that I do.”

[14:12]  sn See the note on miraculous deeds in v. 11.

[14:12]  ¹² tn Or “will do.”

[14:12]  ¹³ tn Grk “greater works.”

[14:12]  sn What are the greater deeds that Jesus speaks of, and how is this related to his going to the Father? It is clear from both John 7:39 and 16:7 that the Holy Spirit will not come until Jesus has departed. After Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit to indwell believers in a permanent relationship, believers would be empowered to perform even greater deeds than those Jesus did during his earthly ministry. When the early chapters of Acts are examined, it is clear that, from a numerical standpoint, the deeds of Peter and the other Apostles surpassed those of Jesus in a single day (the day of Pentecost). On that day more were added to the church than had become followers of Jesus during the entire three years of his earthly ministry. And the message went forth not just in Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, but to the farthest parts of the known world. This understanding of what Jesus meant by “greater deeds” is more probable than a reference to “more spectacular miracles.” Certainly miraculous deeds were performed by the apostles as recounted in Acts, but these do not appear to have surpassed the works of Jesus himself in either degree or number.

[14:1]  ¹⁴ sn The same verb is used to describe Jesus’ own state in John 11:33, 12:27, and 13:21. Jesus is looking ahead to the events of the evening and the next day, his arrest, trials, crucifixion, and death, which will cause his disciples extreme emotional distress.

[14:1]  ¹⁵ tn Or “Believe in God.” The translation of the two uses of πιστεύετε (pisteuete) is difficult. Both may be either indicative or imperative, and as L. Morris points out (John [NICNT], 637), this results in a bewildering variety of possibilities. To complicate matters further, the first may be understood as a question: “Do you believe in God? Believe also in me.” Morris argues against the KJV translation which renders the first πιστεύετε as indicative and the second as imperative on the grounds that for the writer of the Fourth Gospel, faith in Jesus is inseparable from faith in God. But this is precisely the point that Jesus is addressing in context. He is about to undergo rejection by his own people as their Messiah. The disciples’ faith in him as Messiah and Lord would be cast into extreme doubt by these events, which the author makes clear were not at this time foreseen by the disciples. After the resurrection it is this identification between Jesus and the Father which needs to be reaffirmed (cf. John 20:24-29). Thus it seems best to take the first πιστεύετε as indicative and the second as imperative, producing the translation “You believe in God; believe also in me.”

[1:6]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “just as in the entire world it is bearing fruit.” The antecedent (“the gospel”) of the implied subject (“it”) of ἐστιν (estin) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:6]  ¹⁷ tn Though the participles are periphrastic with the present tense verb ἐστίν (estin), the presence of the temporal indicator “from the day” in the next clause indicates that this is a present tense that reaches into the past and should be translated as “has been bearing fruit and growing.” For a discussion of this use of the present tense, see ExSyn 519-20.