Continuing in our study of prayer as part of the PPOG for the spiritual life of the believer we are now looking at Paul and Timothy's prayer for the believer's spiritual growth in Col 1:9-12;

In verse 9 we have "Since the day we heard of you, [we] have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you ” may be filled (pleroo) with the knowledge (epignosis) of His will (thelema) and all spiritual wisdom (sophia) and understanding (sunesis).

We concluded last time with a brief discussion of the categories of the will of God because the believer filled with Epignosis would know, understand and function in the will of God for their lives.


In our passage a relationship between wisdom (sophia), understanding (sunesis) and knowledge (epignosis) is described.

In the Greek New Testament epignosis, sophia, and sunesis are cognitive or thinking assets.

Cognitive assets function along side of character or integrity assets like love, faithfulness, generosity and empathetic assets like humility, gentleness, and compassion.

Cognitive assets are established from the continual PMA of accurate biblical truth and advance alongside the virtues produced by the Spirit Gal 5:22-23; Col 1:8; to keep those virtues from becoming humanly produced imitations of the Fruit of the Spirit.

What this means for example is that Love as a Fruit of the Spirit is genuine 2Cor 6:6; and not hypocrititical Rom 12:9; because Bible doctrine resident in the soul keeps "defining" love in doctrinal terms with at divine frame of reference per 1Cor13: 4-8a; 1John 2:5 as a result real love is not based on sentimentality or emotional self indulgence.

It also means that In terms of spiritual advance, cognitive assets flank or function alongside of emotional and character assets as columns advancing together moving forward toward spiritual maturity which is the state of fullness from God known as pleroma which Paul and Timothy are praying for believers to have.

A good example of cognitive assets flanking the growing character asset of love is found in Phil 1:9 "And this I pray. that your love may abound still more and more with real knowledge (epignosis) and keen all discernment (aisthesis)

In the same way, Paul prays for the Colossian believer’s abounding love to be
bounded or surrounded by real knowledge.

Love stays real when it's accompanied by real knowledge, not illusion or unrealistic expectations which are based in emotional sentimentality, unrealistic expectations or false doctrine.

Paul prays for believers to have all wisdom to accompany their real knowledge and their real love.

This wisdom is pure divine viewpoint from the true insight that comes from illumination by God. Eph 1:17-18; and disclosure from the Spirit of truth John 14:16-17;

True integrity love is contrasted with hypocritical or pretentious "love" and true knowledge is contrasted with the mystical so called "gnosis" of the Gnostics, and pure wisdom is contrasted with the "wisdom" that James called "earthly, natural, and demonic." James 3:15;

In Colossians, pure or real wisdom Col 1:9,28; Col 3:16; is contrasted with "the mere appearance of wisdom" which was the alleged "wisdom" of the ascetic gnostics who believed in harsh treatment of the body because of their belief that it was evil. Col 2:23;

These were religious people who were deceptive in their appeal, 2Cor 11:14-15; even counterfeiting the empathetic characteristic of humility Col 2:23; - Col 3:12; in their ascetisism.

Pure wisdom was the wisdom that Peter acknowledged was granted to Paul in all of his epistles 2Peter 3:15-16; it is through this wisdom that the one who is growing in grace and in the knowledge of TLJC, can make accurate application of Bible doctrine to experience.

Col 1:9c " may be filled (pleroo) with the knowledge (epignosis) of His will (thelema) and all spiritual wisdom (sophia)" and understanding (sunesis).

The word translated "all" is the Greek adjective "pase” which Paul uses to connect knowledge and wisdom which means that through their epignosis knowledge of Bible Doctrine, every possible application of doctrine can be mastered by believers.

Through their advance in the PPOG for their lives, they can become masters of and even expert in their use of all of the available divinely provided Problem Solving Devices and become experts at coping with and overcoming in every exigency in life and in spiritual combat.