Title: 13
Author: JOEG
Last saved by: Auth User
Company: Auth Co

© 2003 Joe Griffin		03-09-25.CC02-186 /

Epignōsis: Cognizance of Divine Thought; Esōterikē & Exōterikē Harmonia: Inner and Outer Harmony of Soul; The Double-Columned Advance, Col 1:10-12
™p…gnwsij, epignōsis -	“Full knowledge, discernment, perception, understanding”
Vine, W. E., Merrill F. Unger, and William White, Jr.  An Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words.  (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984), 629, 631:
EPIGNŌSIS, denotes exact or full knowledge, discernment, recognition; a strengthened form of gnîsij, gnōsis expressing full knowledge.  Paul uses the former 15 times out of the 20 occurrences; Peter 4 times, all in his second Epistle.  In all the four Epistles of the first Roman captivity [Paul’s “prison Epistles”] epignōsis is an element in the Apostle’s opening prayer for his correspondents’ well-being, Philippians 1:9; Ephesians 1:17; Colossians 1:9; Philemon 6.  It is used with reference to the will of the Lord in Colossians 1:9.
Yeager, Randolph O.  The Renaissance New Testament.  (Woodbridge: Renaissance Press, 1979), 4:165:
gnîsij.  Knowledge.  Not to be confused with epignōsis, which is a higher sort of perception unavailable to the unregenerate.  (Gnōsis refers to) knowledge in the sense in which science normally uses the term.  That which is known to be true; that which consists with reality.
Yeager, Randolph O.  The Renaissance New Testament.  (Gretna: Pelican Publishing Co., 1985), 15:10-11:
Colossians 1:9, Comment: To know the more efficient and perfect will of God we must have more than gnōsis.  We need the perfective epignōsis which is available only to the regenerate.  Such wisdom is unavailable except to those who have the guidance of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
This (Colossians 1:9) is Paul’s opening salvo against the Gnostics, who were bothering the Colossian Christians.  'Ep…gnwsij is a koin» addition to the classical gnîsij.  It was not used in pre-Hellenistic days.  Polybius, Plutarch and others used the word for full knowledge.  Paul uses it here to reply to the Gnostics who pretended to know it all.  The Gnostic assumes that with his native intellectual powers, unaided either by the Holy Spirit or the revelation of Scripture he can arrive at what he calls maturity.  He will never know the blessedness available only to the child of God who has ™p…gnwsij and who thus knows enough to know that until we get to heaven, and perhaps not even then, will our thought be as high as God’s.
We further illustrated this concept of the double-column phalanx by referencing excerpts from Stephen Pressfield’s Gates of Fire.  A couple of paragraphs are pertinent to Colossians 1:9:
Pressfield, Stephen.  Gates of Fire.  (New York: Doubleday, 1998), 78, 80-81:
The Spartans have a discipline they call phobologia, the science of fear.  Phobologic discipline is comprised of twenty-eight exercises, each focusing upon a separate nexus of the nervous system.  These nexuses are termed by the Spartans phobosynaktērēs [fobosunakt»rhj, fear accumulators.
Fear spawns in the body and must be combated there.  For once the flesh is seized, a phobokyklos [fobokÚkloj, phobokúklos], or loop of fear, may commence, feeding upon itself, mounting into a “runaway” of terror.  Put the body into a state of aphobia [¢fob…a, aphobía], fearlessness, the Spartans believe, and the mind will follow.  (p. 78)
Pressfield uses the compound phobokuklos and defines it as a “loop of fear.”  He combines the words phobos, “fear” and kuklos, “loop.”  A more instructive set of definitions is provided by:
	
Liddell, Henry George and Robert Scott.  A Greek-English Lexicon.  Revised by Henry Stuart Jones.  (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 1007:
	kÚkloj (kuklos): the circle which hunters draw around their game.
Pressfield’s “loop of fear” illustrates the soul as being encircled by fear, an emotion that originates in the limbic system of the brain.  Once the soul permits itself to become ”game” for this encircling phobokuklos “hunting party” it results in the phenomenon of the sympathetic nervous system being excited to the point of either fight or flight.
Pressfield continues: 
(The) pursuit of esōterikē harmonia [™swterik» ¡rmon…a], (is) that state of self-composure which the exercises of the phobologia are designed to produce.  As a string of the kithēra [kiq»ra: a lyre] vibrates purely, emitting only that note of the musical scale which is its alone, so must the individual warrior shed all which is superfluous in his spirit, until he himself vibrates at that sole pitch which his individual daimōn [da…mwn, “god”] dictates.  The achievement of this ideal, in Lakedaemon \la-ke-dē' man\ [the Spartan state that included the territories of Laconia \la-kō' ni‑a\ and Messenia \ma-sē' nē‑a\], carries beyond courage on the battlefield; it is considered the supreme embodiment of virtue, andreīa [¢ndre…a, andreia: a manly spirit producing brave deeds], of a citizen and a man.
Beyond esōterikē harmonia lies exōterikē harmonia, [™xwterik» ¡rmon…a], that state of union with one’s fellows which parallels the musical harmony of the multistringed instrument or of the chorus of voices itself.  In battle exōterikē harmonia guides the phalanx to move and strike as one man, of a single mind and will.  In passion it unites husband to wife, lover to lover, in wordless perfect union.  In politics exōterikē harmonia produces a city of concord and unity, in which each individual, securing his own noblest expression of character, donates this to each other, as obedient to the laws of the commonwealth as the strings of the kithēra to the immutable mathematics of music.  In piety exōterikē harmonia produces that silent symphony which most delights the ears of the gods.
Colossians 1:10 -		That you might walk [ peripatšw, peripateō: manner of life ] worthy of the Lord [ in wheel-tracks of righteousness ], pleasing God in all things, constantly producing [ customary present of karpoforšw, karpophoreō for habitual action ] every divine work [ divine good ], constantly receiving spiritual growth [ customary present of aÙx£nw, auxanō for habitual action ] by means of epignōsis knowledge [ doctrine taught by the Holy Spirit ] from the ultimate source of God [ biblical revelation ];
Colossians 1:11 -		being constantly strengthened [ customary present of  dunamÒw, dunamoō for habitual action ] by every enabling power [ the Holy Spirit’s ], according to the standard of the power of His glory [ the sovereign will of God backed by His omnipotence ] resulting in patience [ Øpomon», hupomonē: endurance and perseverance under pressure ] from spiritual stability [ faith-rest ] and self-restraint under pressure [ makroqum…a, makrothumia: endurance from a spiritual force, identified as “joy,” or ] from inner happiness [ car£, chara ].
v. 12 -	Constantly being thankful [ customary present of eÙcaristšw, eucharisteō for habitual action ] to the Father, having qualified you all for a share of the assigned inheritance [ escrow blessings ] of the saints by means of the light [ truth ].
		36-	The second and third paragraphs of Colossians, verses 3‑12, affirm the claims of the doctrinal community that the top priority of the Christian way of life is Bible study and that the believer is unqualified and incapable of serving God without spiritual growth through Bible study.

Grace Doctrine Church Media Ministries:	     www.gracedoctrinechurch.com          www.joegriffin.org          www.gdcmedia.org