Paul tells the Colossian believers that precise and correct knowledge of God's will is possible. Not some nebulous knowledge, but precise and correct knowledge.
That is the meaning of the word that is translated “knowledge” in our English Bibles in verse nine. The common Greek word for knowledge was gnosis. It's the root word from which we get English words like diagnosis (analytical knowledge), and prognosis (foreknowledge).
Normally, in Greek, if you wanted to talk about knowledge, you simply used the word gnosis. But Paul doesn't use that word here in verse nine. He says, my prayer is not that you will simply have knowledge, gnosis – my desire is that you will have epignosis – full knowledge, complete knowledge, accurate knowledge.
Paul uses the same word in a number of other places. For example, in Romans 3:20 he says that by the law is the knowledge, the epignosis, of sin – the law gives us the full understanding of the sinfulness of sin. In Romans chapter ten and verse two he says that the unsaved Jews have a zeal for God, but it is not a zeal according to knowledge, epignosis, a full and accurate knowledge of God. The unsaved Jews don't have that, Paul says. And Peter, in Second Peter chapter two, verse twenty says that Christians escape the pollutions of the world through the knowledge – the epignosis, the full and complete and accurate knowledge – of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Precise and correct knowledge of God's will – knowledge that is not merely gnosis but epignosis – that kind of knowledge comes because of two things: prayer, and the Word of God. The two go hand in hand. They are inseparable in the Christian life. |
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