When you pray for other believers, what do you pray? What is
your heart’s desire for them? On Sunday evenings, a group of moms from our
church is studying Colossians together. Paul wrote this letter from prison. We
can piece together his connection to this church by looking at several verses
in Acts and Colossians. It seems that while Paul was preaching and living in
Ephesus during his third missionary journey, a man from Colossae named Epaphras
heard and received the gospel and took it back to his hometown. Thus, a church
was started in Colossae. Most likely, Paul never met these Colossian believers,
but he heard about them from Epaphras who kept him informed about how the
church was doing. And even despite not knowing them personally, they were on
his heart. His letter to them is filled with words that contain deep emotion.
Feel Paul’s care and concern in these verses from chapter 2:1-3: “I want you to
know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all
who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being
knit together in love, to…” To what, Paul? What is your great desire for them? What
do you want their hearts to be encouraged towards? Let’s read on… “to reach all the riches of full assurance of
understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are
hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
Let’s put this in our own words: Paul wants these believers’
hearts to be encouraged by the full assurance they can have in Christ and by believing
that all knowledge is found in Him. Nothing outside of Him is needed. And the
knowledge and wisdom that is bound up in Him can be a source of great treasure
and riches in their lives. You see, there were many voices speaking into the
Colossian believers’ ears. Paul spends significant time in this letter warning
them not to listen to these false teachers who were telling them they could
find wisdom and acceptance with God through means other than Christ. These men
spoke of the necessity of keeping festivals and special days, visions, the
worship of angels, and abstaining from certain foods and drink (2:16-21). In
contrast, Paul drives home again and again the sufficiency of Christ for
salvation and for wisdom (2:1-15; 3:1-4). He wants them to be wise – wise in
the doctrine they know which he lays out in the first two chapters, and also
wise in the way they live as a result of what they know, seen in especially
practical ways in the last two chapters. The words wisdom, knowledge, and
understanding show up a combined thirteen times throughout this four-chapter
epistle.
Don’t we need this same wisdom today? Never before in history
have there been so many platforms for people to let their voices be heard.
Podcasts, cable news channels, social media posts, Twitter feeds, YouTube
videos, and more. Everyone is wise in his or her own eyes. The problem is that
wisdom does not originate in man; no one is wise in and of himself (or herself).
The only one who is truly all-wise is God, and all wisdom must find its source
in Him, or it is not wisdom (Romans 11:33; 16:27). We may feel that as
believers we aren’t swayed by false teachers in our beliefs of salvation and
major doctrines, but we must not deceive ourselves. Lies can easily creep into
the church, and wisdom is needed to discern truth and error, especially when
the error sounds good. God has given us truth in His Word; we must weigh
everything we hear against what the Lord says. It is our responsibility as
followers of God to study the Word, put ourselves under sound teaching of the
Word, and to pray for wisdom which God promises to give (James 1:5). And thus,
our hearts are encouraged to stand strong. We are not duped by the latest
“Christian” teaching that sounds good but isn’t biblical. We are not like the
double-minded woman who is tossed by the wind (or by the latest social media
post or the angry voice on cable news), who is unstable in all her ways (James
1:6-8). No, our hearts are at rest and encouraged for we know where life-giving
wisdom is found: in the One in whom our very lives are hidden, the One who is
our life, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (Col. 3:3-4). May we join Paul in
this prayer for a full assurance of Christ’s sufficiency and the wisdom found
in Him, not only for ourselves, but also for our brothers and sisters in the
family of God.
--Amy O'Rear
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