This is the beginning of a three-verse prayer. While Paul appreciated their love, he prayed that their love would be marked by discernment.
It should not be free-floating love, but love enhanced by knowledge and insight, meaning love under divine direction.
We see an example of this with the healing of a paralyzed man at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-15). Jesus healed only him and explained that His actions followed the Father’s direction (John 5:19).
Sometimes, people approach you with needs, and God can direct you away from such individuals and redirect your generosity to specific targets where it has the greatest impact.
Knowledge reveals who to direct your love toward, and insight provides the timing.
There’s an example of the sons of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do (1 Chronicles 12:32).
The next verse tells us why Paul was praying for love to be accompanied by insight and knowledge: so that they can make the best decisions.
Love can miss the mark without being guided by knowledge and insight. This is smart love—love under control, not love under guilt, compulsion, or pressure. Not love about impressing others or making people feel good, but saying like Jesus, “What I see my Father doing, that is what I am doing.”
This is love that is not accidental but targeted—love at rest that carries out God’s preferences, chooses what God chooses, sees with God's eyes, and expresses what was written about Jesus in Isaiah: that he will be filled with extraordinary wisdom and ability to execute plans (Isaiah 11:1-3).
This is not an easy lesson to learn, so Paul is praying about it. Not that their love would reduce because of knowledge and insight, but rather that it would abound.
The phrases “abound even more and more” and “every kind” signal that this prayer will have an ongoing relevance, because there is always room for your love to expand.
Like many of Paul’s prayers, this has no endpoint because it is rooted in spiritual reality, and the results differ from person to person.
This is the manifestation of what Jesus said—that he and the Father will come and dwell in us (John 14:23).
Sometimes love tells you who to avoid, but that is love equipped with knowledge and insight.
Paul is praying that a whole vista of spiritual reality be opened to these people.
Take some time to pray this prayer for yourself and see what happens.
The prayer doesn’t seem spicy. It seems bland because it appears amorphous. There seems to be nothing specific we are aiming for in the natural sense.
However, praying this prayer is an act of humility, as you acknowledge that you need knowledge and insight.
Jesus said, “Do not give what is holy to dogs or throw your pearls before pigs" Matthew 7:6).
Expressing love demands time and energy, but some people are simply not worth it, as Jesus is saying. The end goal of the prayer, as we’ll see in the next verse, is to make the best decision for the best impact.
Let’s say you have pearls representing your love, and you think the person you’re looking at is a young lady who would appreciate them. But your evaluation would change when you have the insight and knowledge to recognize that the person you’re looking at is actually a pig with zero appreciation for the pearl. You would move in the opposite direction. That would be love taking the best action at that time. This is how knowledge and insight transform love.
Paul said he wished he could be accursed and cut off from Christ if that would result in Israel realizing that Jesus is the Messiah, so they could have life in him (Romans 9:3).
But he realized that Israel as a people group (at least for the moment) was a lost cause and that God was behind it (Romans 11:25).
Equipped with knowledge and insight, the best decision Paul could make was not to continue trying to push it, but to go to the Gentiles and focus on bearing fruit among them, even as his heart continued to ache for his natural brothers.
That is love equipped with knowledge and insight—seeing things based on God’s reasoning, which may be difficult to explain to others.
Knowledge is divine information or fact, and insight is knowing the divine reasoning behind it.
That Israel would not en masse receive the Messiah was a painful pill for Paul to swallow, but his love was equipped with insight and knowledge, and he devoted his time to the Gentile church under God. The rest, as they say, is history.
