In the opening of Paul’s letter to the believers at Colossae, he follows his normal pattern of greeting with a note of thanksgiving and prayer for them. We have previously looked at this prayer, however today we want to focus on the end of this prayer in which Paul’s petition for them essentially summarizes the Christian life. In chapter 1, verses 9-12 of this divinely inspired letter, we note that the apostle moves from thanking God for their faith to prayer for them.
9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
Colossians 1:9-12
This opening section of the letter is part of a 218-word sentence that runs from verse 9 to verse 20 and can be neatly divided after verse 14. Our focus here is on the passage above and the specific prayer requests that Paul has for the people. The first petition that Paul asks for on behalf of the Colossians is that they would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will, which broken down into components includes both what God does and what He requires in and through the Son (forthcoming in chapter 1). Knowing the will of God or more accurately not knowing God’s will, is a common struggle among believers. Typically, it involves making day to day or life event decisions and wanting to know God’s will, i.e., what He wants us to do, one way or the other to help with the decision-making process. That isn’t exactly what Paul has in mind with his prayer. He isn’t necessarily praying that Joe would be able to know God’s will in choosing a particular job or that Mary might know God’s will in choosing the right car. Instead, Paul’s petition is much more basic, much more foundational to the Christian life. Knowledge of God’s will comes through fellowship with God that is rooted in knowing the very character of God and how He has determined to act providentially. This is not the accumulation of facts about God but is more experiential knowledge of or better with God. Paul is praying here that through spiritual wisdom and understanding believers would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will. There isn’t a how-to manual on this. It takes time and comes by intentional and habitual time spent with God.
The next petition provides us with the purpose of being filled with the knowledge of God’s will with all the clarity of spiritual wisdom and understanding is to produce a daily walk that is pleasing to the Lord. In other words, by being filled with the knowledge of God’s will, again both what He does and requires, it is to have an effect in us which Paul summarizes by the familiar word, peripateó, translated as our walk. Our habitual, daily practice in life is to be the product of being filled with the knowledge of God’s will. A good starting point for this is to simply meditate on what God has done in Christ along with the promises of what He has yet to do in Christ. He has elected us in Christ, redeemed us in Christ, and is working to conform us to the image of Christ. All of this should have a profound impact on our daily Christian lives. It is very practical, not abstract or theoretical.
A walk that is pleasing to the Lord is then characterized by four main participles: bearing (fruit), increasing (growing), (being) strengthened, and giving (thanks). Each of these are to supplement our walks and the apostle makes an appeal to God for all of them. First, bearing fruit in every good work. This is listed first, perhaps as a priority, because the evidence of good works is the produce of genuine faith. Jesus uses this metaphorical relationship as evidence of genuine salvation in Matthew 7:15-20. Paul, elsewhere in Ephesians, makes it crystal clear that the root of our salvation is not works, rather it is the fruit and that they are a direct product of what God has created us in Christ, before the foundation of the world (see Eph. 1:4), to walk in, the same word for walk that is found in our passage.
Second, we are to increase or grow in our knowledge of God. This is the second time knowledge has been used in the passage showing the prioritization of it as foundational, knowledge of God’s will, and also that which we are to mature in. Again, knowledge here is not a collection of facts. It is more akin to an intimate relationship with God. I know Him, because I spend time with Him. One commentator supplies Job as a supreme example of one who knew about God, but then after his complaints had come to see Him with his own eyes. Job’s theoretical knowledge of God had become secondary to his experiential knowledge of God.
The third participle that is placed alongside our walk is that we are being strengthened with all power, which is additionally modified as that which is according to “God’s glorious might”. It’s significant to note that this power is not intrinsic to believers, rather it has a source far greater, namely God’s own power. This Holy Spirit imparted power is for a purpose, that is for endurance and patience. The power that is to accompany our walk is for our endurance in the midst of temptation and trials, the challenges and struggles that accompany this fallen world. William Hendricksen defines this endurance as, “the grace to bear up under, the bravery of perseverance in the performance of one’s God-given task in spite of every hardship and trial, the refusal to succumb to despair or cowardice.” It is, he says, a human attribute. Why does he make this distinction? Because patience or longsuffering that is mentioned in the passage is a divine attribute as well as human. It is “refusing to yield to passion or to outbursts of anger” despite those who may antagonize or otherwise oppose you.
Finally, we arrive at the last element which supplements our walk. Depending on where the punctuation is placed (not present in the original Greek) “with joy” could accompany patience but more naturally accompanies giving thanks. The capstone to our Christian walk is a joy-filled thankfulness to God the Father for all of the things which we have discussed above as well as the description of God’s work in Christ on behalf of believers that is described in verses 12-13.
Paul’s prayer for the believers in Colossae has a two-fold application for us. On the one hand, it lays out for us the benefits of the Christian life which Christ purchased for us on the cross. There should be a Spirit-led desire in us to increase in the knowledge of God’s will, the all the clarity of spiritual wisdom and understanding. This inherently leads us daily in our Christian walk, our patterns of life, interactions with others, how we handle the issues that arise whether or not they included temptations and trials. Our daily walk is supplemented with four critical components in which we are bearing fruit in good works, increasing in our knowledge of God, strengthened with God-wrought power for endurance and patience, and finally joy-filled thankfulness. What an amazing description of the Christian life! Secondly, what we’ve seen and treated as a doctrinal description of our Christian life was a prayer by Paul for the believers in Colossae. It wasn’t a how-to manual or treatise. It was a prayer. Would that our hearts might feel conviction to pray for one another like this! Rather than our weak, ineffectual and boring prayers, how encouraging would it be to know someone is praying in such a manner for us. Walk in a manner that glorifies God and pray for your fellow saints.
Soli Deo Gloria
