In A Word: Kal-v’chomer (How Much More)

In A Word: Kal-v’chomer (How Much More).

CAUTION. In this era of amazing advances in technology, there are sometimes unexpected consequences that turn out to be harmful to our Christian faith. One of these harmful improvements is the flood of believers who read scripture online, on the smart phone, on the computer screen. I’m convinced there should be a warning label on every one of the online Bibles… CAUTION: SKIM AT YOUR OWN RISK. So many of us now read the Word like we would read our emails or social media or the daily news. We skim the material hurriedly, superficially, carelessly. We skim the Scripture. Skim-reading the Bible doesn’t really bury the seed very deeply, of course. And in our skimming, we would be more likely to just skip over an important word or phrase without thinking, a word that could be vital to the whole passage. The fact is, the Bible is full of single words or short phrases that are too important  to simply gloss over as if it wasn’t there. There are times in the Word when single words are intended to feed us, nourish our faith, stimulate us to think at a deeper level about the biblical text.

There are single words in Scripture that are like stop signs asking us to stop and consider carefully, to pause before moving forward in the reading. This series on my blog will try to unpack some of these power-packed words or phrases in Scripture… Words like: Behold; Rejoice; Truly; Woe; Blessed; Beware; Come; If. And I will attempt to also explore the meanings of some short phrases that are single words in the original biblical language, such as “Himeni” (Here I am); “Shema” (Listen and Do’); “Splagchnizonai” (deeply moved with compassion); “pistence” (believe), and “kal-v’chomer” (How much more).  If it is poetically possible to “see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wildflower, and hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour,” as William Blake once imagined, then certainly we readers of Scripture can find a world of meaning in a single word, we can grasp something profound in a simple phrase.

Since we accept the truth of this fact, then we naturally must accept the truth of that fact. If this reality is commonly accepted as good, then how much more likely is that reality also true, and maybe even better!  

The Jesus we find teaching in the gospels remained fully in the historic flow of Jewish tradition. He taught and preached and demonstrated and told His stories in ways that were accepted in rabbinic circles. Jesus taught like a Jew, He argued like a Jew, He reasoned like a Jew.

One classic method of rabbinic teaching was called the “Kal-v’Chomer” (pronounced as it looks, except the c is silent). This was a commonly used strategy of reasoning and persuasion used throughout the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition. Breaking down that Hebrew phrase, “kal” means “Of course, obviously Yes.” And “v’chomer” means “all the more so.” The Hebrew understating of this teaching strategy can be described in many ways: light to heavy; lesser to greater; simple to complex; minor to major; lenient to strict. The kal-v’chomer is a strictly logical process used everywhere in Jewish culture, from the courtrooms to the corner conversations to the synagogues. It is used by a speaker when he or she wants the listener to logically arrive at an inescapable conclusion. If A is obviously true, then it stands to reason that B is true as well. This process is often spoken of as the “How much more” argument. If A is commonly accepted, then how much more is it likely that B should be accepted as well?

Like all effective rabbis, Jesus used this traditional strategy of argument when He read the room and believed that His audience was up to a logical argument. He would say, ‘If something is true in a minor matter, then how much more true will this major matter be?’ Jesus made successful use of Kal v’Chomer in His public ministry. ‘If this is obviously good, then that must be good as well.’ This is a commonsense type of reasoning that Jesus used many times in His speaking.

There are at least eight different times He used this “Kal-v’chomer” approach to persuasion:

1. The Parable of the Judge and the Widow. (Luke 18:1-8).If even a callous judge, who cared for no one, will help out a poor widow who keeps pestering him, how much more will a loving Father help those who approach Him!
2. The Parable of the Friend at Midnight. (Luke 11:5-8). If the host in the story received everything he needed from a grouchy, resistant neighbor in the middle of the night who didn’t really like him, how much morewill the loving Father provide what you need?
3. The Object Lesson of the Birds, the Flowers and the Grass.“ And Jesus said to His disciples, ‘Stop being overly anxious. Don’t be distracted by so much worry about your life – what you’ll eat or drink; or about your body and what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Think about the ravens! They neither plant nor harvest, they have neither storehouses nor barns, yet God feeds them. Of how much morevalue are you than birds? And consider the wildflowers, and how they grow. They neither work nor spin thread. Yet, I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed as beautifully as one of these. If this is how God clothes the grass, which is alive today in the field and thrown into the oven tomorrow, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little-faith!” (Luke 12:22-34 and Matthew 6:25-34).
4. The Value of a Person? “Jesus said to them, ‘What if one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a deep ditch on the Sabbath? Will you not take hold of it and lift it out? Of course you would! How much morevaluable is a person than a sheep! Surely kindness to people is as legal as kindness to an animal! For this reason, the Law allows a person to do what is good on the Sabbath.’” (Matthew 12:11-12).
5. Servants Treated Like Their Masters. “It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!” (Matthew 10:25). In other words, since a student is not superior to her teacher any more than a servant would be greater than his master, the student and servant should be content to share the fate of the teacher and master. If hostile skeptics dare to call me, the head of the house, a friend of the devil, then how much more likely is it that you, members of my family, will hear them dare to accuse you of the same thing? If my enemies insult me, the housemaster, by calling me the Devil, then how much more will they insult you, my followers, in the same way?
6. The Heavenly Father. “You fathers – if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father keep giving the Holy Spirit to those who continue to ask Him.” (Luke 11:11-13, also refer to Matthew 7:11).

St. Paul loved to use this type of argument, and was probably taught it by the Master Rabbi Gamaliel. The New Testament has well over twenty different passages that include Kal v’Chomer reasoning. The four Kal v’Chomer arguments of St. Paul in Romans 5 are considered by many scholars to be perhaps the greatest use of the Kal v’Chomer in his epistles:

“Now that we have been declared righteous and set right with God by means of Christ’s bloody sacrificial death, how much more is it certain that we are safe from God’s holy anger, rescued from His condemnation, through Jesus Christ!” (5:9);

“Our relationship with God was fully restored through His Son’s death while we were His enemies. So how much more certain are we of our rescue through His Son’s life, that His Son’s life will be our salvation!” (5:10);

“It is absolutely true that one man’s failure brought death to all mankind. So how much more certain are we that God’s grace-gift of forgiveness will overflow to mankind because of what the other Man, Jesus the Messiah, accomplished for us!”  (5:15);

“It is certain that death has ruled over mankind ever since the sin of that one man, Adam. But how much more certain are we now that sin no longer has us in its grip, because of what the other Man, Jesus Christ, has accomplished. For all who receive God’s abundant grace are considered righteous in His eyes and will live in triumph in Jesus!’  (5:17).