To talk about or to desire more abundance of
anything has probably always been dangerous, but it seems particularly
dangerous now. In an age of materialist science, economics, art and
politics, we ought not to be much shocked by the appearance of
materialist religion. We know we don’t have to look far to find people
who equate more abundant life with a bigger car, a bigger house, a
bigger bank account and a bigger church. They are wrong, of course. If
Jesus meant only that we should have more possessions or even more
"life expectancy," then John 10:10 is no more remarkable than an
advertisement for any commodity whatever. Abundance, in this verse,
cannot refer to an abundance of material possessions, for life does not
require a material abundance; it requires only a material sufficiency.
That sufficiency granted, life itself, which is a membership in the
living world, is already an abundance. – Wendell Berry in a remarkable essay.