GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
COLOSSIANS 1:9
The Person and Work of Christ (1:9-14)
Expressed in a prayer, Paul reminds the Colossians and us that the source of all true knowledge, wisdom, and understanding is God.
9 And so, from the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you, asking God that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and in all spiritual understanding,
Paul’s prayer is that the Colossians would be filled with knowledge, but not merely any knowledge, as if knowledge all by itself is power regardless of its content. True and useful knowledge is knowledge of God’s will. Otherwise, knowledge just babbles on and on about useless things, and does not build up the church of Christ. What Paul prays for is that the Colossians should be filled with the most useful knowledge as they face the storm-front of error and heresy bearing down upon their community.
The will of God is easiest explained by the summaries of the two tables of the Law: “Love the Lord your God will all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). Loving God above all things means putting his will ahead of mine. It means growing in our understanding of his word, so that we don’t just know one or two parts of God’s word, but all of it. The Twenty-third Psalm is an excellent Psalm, and a wonderful part of God’s word to contemplate, but there are 149 other Psalms. Romans is an excellent epistle, but Paul wrote a dozen more. Isaiah is an excellent book, but there are 38 others in the Old Testament. We should not limit ourselves to any one part of the Bible. We should get our arms around all of it.
The Colossians were not the only Christians being confronted by false teachings and by false teachers. Today there are hundreds of religious TV shows being broadcast, and only one of them is Time of Grace. There are dozens of religious radio programs with Christian music on the air, but not every song proclaims correct doctrine, and few of the friendly words spoken with buttery voices between the songs are in agreement with the Catechism.
“Wisdom” (sophia) in the Bible is the wisdom of knowing that our Savior is Jesus Christ. Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24). All spiritual understanding is applying that wisdom to everything in life and to everything in Scripture. What could salvation be apart from Christ? What could the law be apart from Christ? What could the resurrection be apart from Christ? This is the way a Christian naturally thinks about these things, but we need to be reminded, or a buttery voice like the one approaching the Colossians may invite us to think that we are the ones to persuade God, to invite him into our hearts, rather than proclaiming that the word of God is what has worked in us.
Be wise, Christian. Pursue understanding. Read your Bible, and remember your Catechism. At its simplest, the Catechism uses the words of the Bible to explain our Savior to us:
“I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord. He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death. All this he did that I should be his own, and live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as he has risen from death and lives and rules eternally. This is most certainly true.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota