The Colossians' faith and love "spring from" the hope that is stored up in heaven, and they heard about this hope "in the word of truth, the gospel" (v. 5). This gospel is a message about God's grace, bearing fruit consisting of faith, love, and hope once it is heard and understood (v. 6). And it is heard and understood when a person teaches it to an audience (v. 7).

Because the Christian faith is transmitted when it is explained and understood, it is intellectual in nature. We can think about it, and talk about it. We can explain it, and we can understand it. The idea that faith is "caught, not taught" is against the whole spirit of the Christian religion, and is also an assault on the verbal revelation of Scripture. True piety begins and grows in precisely the opposite manner – it is taught, not caught. The idea that God's grace is beyond our understanding comes from false humility and a rejection of the nature of the gospel in favor of human tradition and philosophy about God's "incomprehensibility." One who does not understand something about God's grace cannot believe it, since there would be nothing for him to believe, so that he is not a Christian at all.

One commentator remarks that Paul does not include "knowledge" in this list of things that characterize the Christian faith, but "he deliberately omitted the word 'knowledge' because of the 'special knowledge' aspect of the heresy," that is, the heresy of Gnosticism. But to say this is so misleading that it should almost be considered a heresy itself. Paul represents "the word of truth" as the foundation of the Christian's entire life of faith, love, and hope. It is information about God's grace that is "learned" and "understood" by the mind, so that it could produce the intended effects in those who affirm it.

The rest of the letter continues to hammer on the essential role of knowledge in the Christian religion over and over again. It is one of the major themes of the letter. By verse 9 Paul is already praying for his readers to be "filled with knowledge" – not just to have the bare minimum, but to be filled with it. The above commentator admits, "In 1:9, Paul did pray that they would be filled with the knowledge of God's will," and adds, "not some speculative or intellectual knowledge (gnosis) of the heretics and their false teaching."

But then what has become of his remark that Paul does not add knowledge to faith, love, and hope? It is a misleading observation. Knowledge produces and sustains faith, love, and hope. The commentator seems to think that Paul de-emphasizes knowledge in order to make a contrast between Christianity and Gnosticism (or tendencies that were to develop into Gnosticism). But Paul in fact does something very different – he emphasizes knowledge even more than Gnosticism, only that this knowledge is "truth" (v. 5-6), conveyed in the message of the gospel.

The commentator has, it seems, read into Paul's letter a strategy of spiritual surrender and suicide that Christians sometimes employ. In essence, it is the practice that says, "I will kill my own beliefs to spite yours." However, Paul does not defend Christianity by denying its very foundation – that is, true knowledge – but rather emphasizes it even more and contrasts it against the imposter. As the commentator says, Paul's knowledge is not the "speculative or intellectual knowledge of the heretics." Although Christianity is not speculative, as it is in non-Christian science and philosophy, it is intellectual knowledge, since knowledge is by definition intellectual. One cannot "know" something in an non-intellectual way, as in apart from the intellect or the mind.

Christianity is an intellectual religion, not always in the academic or professional sense, since any ordinary person should be able to understand it, but it is intellectual in that it is of the mind, to be taught and learned. We can discuss it, think about it, remember it, and debate about it. Christian evangelism and teaching are possible only when the intellectual nature of this religion is acknowledged and emphasized.

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