Paul’s prayer for the church in Colossae is one for us to pray for new church plants today in the light of the dangers facing them from without and within. Paul’s prayer is an informed one; it comes in response to news from Epaphras that is both encouraging and unsettling. Paul’s prayer, therefore, is for fruitful knowledge of God, issuing in obedience and endurance.
9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy;
