How to Pray Like Paul

The primacy of prayer is in view in the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Colossians. Paul wrote that since he had heard of the faith of the Colossians, he had been praying for them without ceasing. The Apostle was in prison and could not go to the church in Colosse but he knew that even if he could, his greater work was prayer. And he could do that from anywhere, with or without chains. Sometimes we say, “But I want to do more than just pray!” Remember two things. First, prayer is enlisting the help of Almighty God through praise and thanksgiving and intercession, that He might intervene in His creation is a way that brings Him glory. With that in mind, we must pray first. Second, as S.D. Gordon said, “You can do more than pray after you have prayed but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” What did Paul pray for the people in Colosse? 
 
First, he prayed that they would be “filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” That they would know God and know His will for them. Is there anything more important for us than that we come to know God, more and more, and understand His ways and His will? Is there a better way to pray for our spouse or our children? Or anyone else, for that matter? Paul also knew that the people in Colosse were being deceived by the Gnostics, who were teaching that Christ was great, at least as a starting point, but telling the church what they really needed now was to go much deeper by understanding some of the secret ways of knowing. These false teachers believed in secret gospels and personalized interpretations of the Bible. Gnostics often took eastern mysticism, elements from Plato’s philosophy, and astrology, and blended them together to have what they believed to be a higher plane of knowledge. One form of Gnosticism was the idea that inside of every person is a divine spark, and you just have to find it and be fully liberated from your flesh. Another form came to be known as Docetism, which is the idea that all matter is evil, so, they said  Jesus could not possibly have come in a human body. He only appeared to be human and was only present in spirit! This heresy was condemned in the Council of Nicaea in 325AD and again in the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. Both councils affirmed that the Bible clearly says Jesus was fully human and fully divine, and that He truly suffered! This is part of what Paul was dealing with then in Colosse, and things have not changed in 2000 years. Those beliefs still exist, along with many other forms of heresy. 
  
They needed knowledge, and Paul used the word epignosis for the knowledge that he was praying for them to walk in, a word which means “full knowledge, precise, and singularly spiritual.” He believed that to be filled with a deep and growing understanding of who Christ is, is of the utmost importance to the spiritual life of all believers. He said the same to the Philippians: “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge (epignosis) and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.”   
Warren Wiersbe used to tell the story of a preacher who said, “I didn’t never go to school. I’m just a igerant Christian, and I’m glad I is!” Wiersbe commented, “A man does not have to go to school to gain spiritual intelligence, but neither should he magnify his ‘igerance’.” Let us instead grow in knowledge of God as He reveals truth to us through the Word and develops in us a Christian mind.  
 
We tend to pray mostly for ourselves and others to have safety, health, comfort, and provision. It is certainly not wrong to pray for those things! Why not begin today to put a greater emphasis in prayer that we and others would be “filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” 
 
Let’s learn to pray like Paul.