Colossians 1:9
Colossians 1:9 - "For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding...."
“…we have not ceased to pray for you…” - This is reminiscent of statements like Ephesians 6:18 says we are to “...pray at all times in the spirit...” or I Thessalonians 5:17 says we are to “...pray without ceasing...” Of course, that doesn’t mean we spend every waking moment with heads bowed and eyes closed in prayer. It means we are to live in such close fellowship with God that we just naturally bring before Him people who cross our minds during the course of the day. As one writer put it, “Through the day [Paul] would think of the Colossians; how they were doing and what was threatening them, and he would breathe a prayer for them. This is what he means by ‘we have not ceased to pray for you.’ We can pray for each other in that same wonderful way.” [Ray Stedman, “Growing Up,” sermon on Colossians 1:9-14]
“that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding…” - This request would have had special meaning to the Colossians because Paul deliberately uses a concept often used by the false teachers who had infected the early church. The heresy infecting the Colossian church was an early form of a philosophical system known as gnosticism. The word gnostic comes from the Greek word “gnosis” which means knowledge. The gnostics claimed to have a secret knowledge about the universe. To their way of thinking, only those people who were let in on their secrets, who were filled with their knowledge, could live full or complete lives. And in this prayer Paul says to the Colossians that there is a knowledge with which you should be concerned. But it’s not the secret knowledge claimed by the gnostics. It is knowledge of God and His will for your lives. And to drive his point home, Paul uses a word for “knowledge” in verse 9 which trumps the word commonly used by the gnostics. They used “gnosis” which just means knowledge, but Paul prayed that the Colossians would have “epignosis” which carries the idea of deep or thorough knowledge.
For more detailed notes on Colossians go to http://www.larryreynolds.org-a.googlepages.com/home)
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