The first reading for today is from Paul’s Letter to the Colossians 1:9-14, a part of the opening greeting of the letter – which is more than a greeting, it is a prayer for the people of Colossae in which Paul hopes the people are filled with the “knowledge of God’s will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” It is this ‘knowledge’ which forms the basis both of holiness and of thanksgiving, and which is the central characteristic of humanity that is now renewed in Christ (3:10 – the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge, in the image of its creator).

The three terms ‘knowledge’, ‘wisdom’ and ‘understanding’, are the basic character which God seeks to infuse in his people.  ‘Wisdom’ is the characteristic of the truly human person, who takes the humble yet confident place marked out for Adam in the order of creation, under God and over the world. For Christians to ‘grow up’ in every way will include the awakening of intellectual powers, the ability to think coherently and practically about God and his purposes for his people. But Paul does not exalt intellectual understanding over and against spiritual life. The wisdom and understanding endorsed here are given the adjective ‘spiritual’, and at once expounded in practical and ethical terms in verse 10 (“to live in a manner worthy of the Lord, so as to be fully pleasing, in every good work bearing fruit and growing in the knowledge of God”).

Yet, the ‘knowledge of God’s will’ is more than simply an insight into how God wants his people to behave: it is an understanding of God’s whole saving purpose in Christ, and thus knowledge of God himself. Paul is not speaking of an esoteric knowledge, confined to private religious experience or exclusive insiders. It is a knowledge of God’s will that is open to all God’s people.

When I read this passage from St. Paul, I am often reminded it is a prayer for the whole person that we may grow in completeness and to the perfection for which we are intended. It is as St. Irenaeus said: the glory of God is the human person fully alive.  Alive in knowledge, in wisdom, in understanding and bearing good fruit with our lives.

Idea credit: N.T. Wright, Colossians and Philemon: An Introduction and Commentary. Vol. 12 in Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986)

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