For this reason *we* also, from the day we heard [of your faith and love], do not cease praying and asking for you, to the end that ye may be filled with the full knowledge of his will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,
The verse turns from thanksgiving to prayer. One request heads the list of what Paul asks for these believers: the full knowledge of God's will, held in wisdom and spiritual understanding.
Why move from thanks to prayer? One writer draws the line between what is already settled and the road still ahead:
The Apostle has thanked God for the hope stored up for believers in heaven. The certainty of the end of the journey is not something to pray about; it is something to praise God for. But we are still in the world, though not of it, and there is a path to walk on our way to heaven. Because of its difficulties and dangers, this path draws out the Apostle's prayer.
The word behind "knowledge" here is not the ordinary one. It is stronger, and Paul is not asking for a little of it:
God's will is to govern everything for us, so the knowledge of His will must come first. The word used for knowledge here is a very strong one, really meaning full knowledge, and they were to be filled with that full knowledge. God's will was to take up all their thoughts and fill their whole horizon. This is a very high standard, but God's standard and goal are never anything but very high.
Commentators differ here. Some read it as God's direction for daily life, and tie it to the spiritual state of the soul:
In many passages the will of God refers to God's eternal purposes... In other passages it refers to God's will for His people in their daily path... That is the case here, where the will of God clearly refers to our practical walk. Discerning God's will for our path calls for knowing God's mind as revealed in the Word. But it also depends on the spiritual state of the soul, implied in the words "wisdom and spiritual understanding."
Others read it as what God has purposed for those who belong to Christ:
God has willed certain things for those who are redeemed by the blood of His Son. They are made holy in Him, put into the place of sons, accepted in the Beloved, heirs of God, sealed and indwelt by His Spirit. This is the knowledge Christians should be filled with. This the Colossians lacked.
Paul names two things that go with this knowledge, and they do different work:
I think "wisdom and spiritual understanding" means perceiving what is good and wise in God's sight, apart from it being His express command. For example, my father may tell me to do something, and I may do it without knowing why; but here it is my Father who at the same time shows me why it matters. So "wisdom" sees the beauty and rightness of any given thing, and "spiritual understanding" makes the right application. One grasps the cause; the other deals with the effect.
The understanding Paul asks for is spiritual. That rules out one way of getting it:
Our knowledge is to be in spiritual understanding — understanding gained by the Spirit of God, not by a merely intellectual process. A person can gather Bible information in much the same way as historical or geographical information. He may then be able to analyse and explain the Scriptures, and still be a complete stranger to how they touch real life and to their power.
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Being filled with one will pushes another will out. But God does not do this by overriding us:
God does not treat the believer like a horse or a mule, which have no understanding, but as an intelligent and loving person whom He brings into fellowship with Himself. A man is not a delivered man if his own will rules him. That is the very opposite of being filled with the knowledge of God's will, and that is why the Apostle prays that they may be filled.
Another writer sets Paul's prayer beside the prayers of Epaphras for the same believers, and finds something greater still:
It is a great thing to have a full knowledge of the will of God; that is what the Apostle desired for the Colossians in Colossians 1:9. It is a greater thing to stand perfect and complete in that will. Standing in it means that we are subject to it and marked by it. Clearly the desires and prayers of Epaphras for the believers at Colosse and the surrounding area ran exactly parallel with the prayers of Paul for them.
- Filled, not informed. The word means full knowledge. Paul asks that God's will take up all their thoughts and fill their whole horizon.
- Filled, so displaced. God's will crowds out our own. He does this by bringing us into fellowship, not by treating us as animals with no understanding.
- Filled, then applied. Wisdom sees why a thing is good in God's sight; spiritual understanding puts it in the right place.
- Filled by the Spirit. Anyone can gather Bible facts like history or geography and still be a stranger to their power.
- Filled, then standing. Knowing God's will is great. Standing complete in it — subject to it, marked by it — is greater. Epaphras's prayers ran right alongside Paul's.
[so as] to walk worthily of the Lord unto all well-pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work, and growing by the true knowledge of God;
In the previous verse Paul prays that the Colossians will be filled with the knowledge of God's will. This verse shows what that knowledge is for: a walk, a work, and a growth that match the Lord Himself.
Verse 9 and verse 10 belong together. Knowing God's will and living it out were never meant to come apart.
In verses 9 and 10, our walk is tied to our spiritual state, and God does not mean the two to come apart. To have only the knowledge of God's will, without walking worthy, would in fact do me harm. Nothing would then exercise me about actually being a spiritual saint.
Notice what Paul does not pray for. His concern is not that they achieve great things, but that their daily life match their Lord.
Notice why this passage asks for the fullness of wisdom and spiritual understanding. It is not so that we might do great things for the Lord. It is not so that we might teach and preach the truth about the Lord. It is so that, above every other consideration, we might walk worthy of the Lord. Our spiritual condition and our practical walk in everyday life matter far more than all our service and activity.
That standard is sharper than the vague ideals we settle for. It also ends a great deal of argument.
Notice the standard for the walk: it is to "walk worthy of the Lord." How seldom we find anyone insisting on such a standard. We hear much about a "consistent walk," but such a loose, vague walk is not found in Scripture. It is "worthy of the Lord," who loved us and gave Himself for us. This is a different thought, and it silences a thousand questions about going here or there, doing this or that. The whole point is, Is it "worthy of the Lord?"
The title Paul chooses carries weight. In Ephesians the measure is a walk worthy of our calling. Here the appeal is to the Lord's authority.
He could not say in this letter "worthy of your calling," as in writing to the Ephesians. He does not even say worthy of Christ, but "of the Lord." That is, he brings in His authority. A Christian can make no more serious mistake than to suppose that presenting the Lord as Lord is the higher thing for the believer. It is completely true in its place. But it speaks to our sense of responsibility more than to the loving fellowship of the children of God.
The words "fully pleasing to him" turn the verse into a question you can carry into an ordinary day.
We often say and do much that we would never say or do if we stopped to ask ourselves two questions: "Is this worthy of the Lord?" and "Is this pleasing to the Lord?" So we do well to set out day by day with the prayer that we may "walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing."
Paul asks for fruit in good works. Anyone can do a kind act. Something more is meant here.
Fruit in the believer is always the expression of the character of Christ. The man of the world can do many good works, but he cannot bear fruit to God in his good works. The believer alone can express something of Christ in his good works. So in the good works that help people, there will be fruit for God.
Others draw a related line between the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians and the fruitfulness named here, and put them in order.
We may distinguish between the "fruit of the Spirit," spoken of in Galatians 5:22-23, and "being fruitful," according to our tenth verse. There it is fruit produced in the way of Christian character. Here it is fruitfulness in good works. The former lays the foundation for the latter, but both are necessary.
The last clause names the source of growth, and it is not information. Older translations read "increase by the knowledge of God," and the writers below use that wording.
Scripture tells us that "knowledge puffs up" (1 Corinthians 8:1) — that is, the mere collecting of the terms of truth. But it also says that we "increase by the knowledge of God" (Colossians 1:10). That is not knowledge about God, but personal heart-knowledge of Him, and it comes largely from what the soul has lived through with God.
This is why the verse has no ceiling.
Though we may have the knowledge of His will, we are still to go on increasing in the knowledge of God, or "by the full knowledge of God." We not only grow in it but by it. The more we know God by experience, the more our spiritual stature increases.
- Filled — verse 9 asks for the knowledge of God's will, and verse 10 puts it into the feet. Knowledge kept apart from the walk does the believer harm.
- Walk — the measure is not a vague "consistent walk" but the Lord Himself. That one question settles a thousand smaller ones.
- Please — the title "Lord" brings in His authority and speaks to our responsibility. So each day carries one test: is this worthy of Him, and pleasing to Him?
- Fruit — anyone can do good works. Only a believer can carry the character of Christ inside them, so the act that helps a person also bears fruit for God.
- Grow — growth comes by knowing God personally, not by collecting terms. We grow by that knowledge as well as in it, so there is no finish line on earth.
strengthened with all power according to the might of his glory unto all endurance and longsuffering with joy;
Paul's prayer for the Colossians rises to its highest note here: all power, measured by God's own glory. The surprise comes in what that power is for.
The walk Paul prays for needs a power we do not have in ourselves. One writer points to where that power comes from: Christ at the right hand of God.
The more exalted a Person, the greater His power. Who then can estimate the might of the glory of Christ, who is at the right hand of power? ... This mighty power is at our disposal. It is not here to make us great preachers or teachers, or prominent leaders among the people of God. It is here to enable us to take the path of pleasing the Lord, and also to endure in that path with longsuffering and joyfulness. We look at His perfect pathway as our pattern. We look to Him in the glory for power to walk in that pattern.
Read the first half of the verse and you expect great deeds. The second half turns elsewhere.
We see here the character of the letter — the full knowledge of a glorious Christ. And so we are strengthened with all power. To what purpose? For some heroic deed? No; but that we may endure. It is unto all endurance and longsuffering. This is true power. When Paul speaks of proofs of power, he always puts endurance and longsuffering first. It is no easy matter to endure everything with joy; for this we need the might of His glory.
Another writer met the same surprise while reading the verse for himself.
It was a bit of a shock. In those days I had never thought much about endurance, or about patience either, as our ordinary English Bible puts it. But God's thoughts are not our thoughts. God knows the true worth of endurance, and just the power it takes. This is even more true when "longsuffering", or "suffering-for-a-long-time", goes with it. And all of it is done not in a spirit of self-pity, but "with joy."
The verse names patience, long-suffering, and joy. One writer sets out what each of the three faces.
These terms describe what we are, rather than what we do. Patience has more to do with circumstances. Long-suffering has to do with our brothers and sisters, and joyfulness with God.
The Greek word behind "endurance" is stronger than it sounds, and it has one perfect example.
Hupomone comes from hupomeno, which means "to sustain." It is once translated "enduring" and once "patient continuance." That is the full thought of the word: a "patient endurance" that does not give way under trial and suffering. ... It is never applied to God Himself, since there could be no such testing or pressure in His case. But the Lord Jesus, in the place He has taken as Man, is our perfect example of it.
Patience sounds like a small ask until you test it against your own will.
Is that not a wonderful thing to say? And what is the fruit of it? It sounds a poor thing — "patience!" But try it and see. Is there a working of will in you that does not like to be crossed? That is not patience! ... The moment my will breaks and bows to God's will, and I bear with patience everything I meet, joy is unhindered.
This power meets a scene where everything is against us. One writer shows what the last words of the verse rule out.
"Strengthened with all power," for a scene where everything is against us. ... And we are "strengthened … to all long-suffering." This long-suffering bears every evil work without a complaint. It can also do every good work through Christ who gives it strength. ... But "with joyfulness" crowns the verse. This is not the heart submitting with sorrow at its core. People call that resignation, a word unknown in Scripture. But the heart's joy springing up to Him in glory.
Anyone can imitate the first half of that pair. Only God's work produces the second.
Even someone who is not a Christian can at times show long-suffering. But who except the Christian can combine long-suffering with joyfulness?
- Source — the strength comes from Christ in glory. Its measure is the might of that glory, not the size of our need.
- Spent — this power is not given for heroic deeds or prominence, but so that we may endure. Paul puts endurance and long-suffering first among the proofs of power.
- Split — patience meets circumstances, long-suffering meets people, joyfulness answers to God. These words describe what we are, not what we do.
- Struggle — patience sounds cheap until something crosses your own will. When the will bows to God's will, joy runs unhindered.
- Signature — an unbeliever can manage long-suffering. Long-suffering with joy, and not resignation, is the mark of glory's power in us.