Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Colossians · About this commentary
Filled with the Knowledge of His Will
Colossians 1:9-10
9 For this cause, we also, since the day we heard this, don’t cease praying and making requests for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, · WEB
Paul prays for exactly what the false teachers were promising — and the test of having it is a walk rather than an experience.
For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, don't cease praying for you. The prayer begins where the report ended, so Epaphras's news is what set it going.
What he asks for is knowledge — that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Three words in one clause that the Colossian teachers were almost certainly using: knowledge, wisdom, understanding. Paul does not concede the vocabulary; he prays for the thing itself, from God, for everyone in the church.
And the word for knowledge is the fuller compound, the one that means recognition rather than information 2 Peter 1:2.
Verse 10 gives the purpose, and it is where the prayer becomes a test. That you may walk worthily of the Lord, pleasing him in all respects. Knowledge is asked for so that a life will match, and four participles follow to describe it — bearing fruit in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened, giving thanks. The first two repeat the verbs used of the gospel itself in verse 6. What the message does in the world, it does in a person.
settled What this mark means