How Much More

I have had some extra time, after a long quarter at Fuller, to look at various texts from the scriptures. I have also been reading McLaren's new book titled Everything Must Change. While I have grown less fond of McLaren in some of his latest writing, he has captured me with his latest articulation of reality in his new work. (I recommend the text for all... Not only those seeking to understand reality within a postmodern culture, as has been much of McLaren's previous work.) As I was reading last night before going to bed, McLaren spent a short time on the word construction seen in the Bible, "HOW MUCH MORE". It is a common word construction not only in the New Testament, but also in the entire text. "Paso mallon" is the Greek that the New Testament authors use in order to bring hope to some hopeless contexts. I have been encouraged today in spending time with these texts, written by so many different authors, in so many different communities, throughout the second half of the first century. I hope that they can be an encouragement today to you too!



Matt. 7:11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Matt. 10:25 It is enough for students to be like their teacher, and servants like their master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!

Matt. 12:12 How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

Luke 11:13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Luke 12:24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!

Luke 12:28 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!

Rom. 5:9 ¶ Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!

Rom. 5:10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

Rom. 5:15 ¶ But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!

Rom. 5:17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

Rom. 11:24 After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!

1Cor. 6:3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!

2Cor. 3:9 If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!

Heb. 9:14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death,d so that we may serve the living God!

Heb. 10:29 How much more severely do you think those deserve to be punished who have trampled the Son of God underfoot, who have treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who have insulted the Spirit of grace?

Heb. 12:9 Moreover, we have all had parents who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live!