Luke 17:20
Luke 17:2020When asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God will not come with observable signs.
This is one of the Watchtower's foundational eschatology texts. JWs cite the NWT's "the Kingdom of God is not coming with striking observableness" as proof that Christ's return and Kingdom inauguration are invisible — fulfilled in 1914 when Christ began ruling unseen from heaven. The verse authorises the entire 1914 framework: any objection that the Kingdom is not visibly present can be deflected by appeal to Jesus' own words that it does not come with observable signs.
Jesus is answering the Pharisees' question "when is the Kingdom of God coming?" with a present-tense reality: "the Kingdom of God is in your midst" (v.21). The "not coming with observation" of v.20 sets up the present-tense answer of v.21 — the Pharisees were looking for a future political-cataclysm Kingdom, and Jesus says they are missing the Kingdom that has already arrived in his ministry. Read with ("if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you"), the Kingdom is inaugurated in Jesus' first coming, not postponed nineteen centuries to 1914. The Reformed inaugurated-eschatology reading takes the verse as it stands; the 1914 framework requires reading "not with observation" against v.21's present-tense answer.
The NWT renders meta paratērēseōs as "with striking observableness" — a famously awkward English coinage that appears nowhere in standard translations (ESV reads "in ways that can be observed"; NIV "with your careful observation"). The phrase is doctrinally weighted: by emphasising the non-visibility of the Kingdom's arrival, it primes the reader for the Watchtower's invisible-presence framework, where Christ's 1914 enthronement is proof against any demand that he visibly return. The verse itself is about the Pharisees missing what was already present in front of them; the NWT's rendering quietly redirects it toward a doctrine of permanent invisibility that fits an already-decided eschatology.