Filled (4137) (pleroo) means to be filled (passive voice = saints acted on by outside force) to the brim (a net, Mt 13:48, a building, Jn 12:3, Acts 2:2, a city, Acts 5:28, needs Phil 4:19), to make complete in every particular, to cause to abound, to furnish or supply liberally, to flood, to diffuse throughout, to pervade, to take possession of and so to ultimately to control.
Pleroo is used 87 times in the NAS - Matt 1:22; 2:15, 17, 23; 3:15; 4:14; 5:17; 8:17; 12:17; 13:35, 48; 21:4; 32" class="scriptRef">23:32; 26:54, 56; 27.9" class="scriptRef">27:9; Mark 1:15; 14:49; Luke 1:20; 2:40; 3:5; 4:21; 7:1; 9:31; 24" class="scriptRef">21:24; 22:16; 24:44; John 3:29; 7:8; 12:3, 38; 13:18; 15:11, 25" class="scriptRef">25; 16:6, 24; 17:12f; 18:9, 32; 19.24" class="scriptRef">19:24, 36; Acts 1:16; 2:2, 28" class="scriptRef">28; 3:18; 5:3, 28; 7:23, 30; 9:23; 12:25; 13:25, 27, 52; 14:26; 19:21; 24:27; Ro 1:29; 8:4; 13:8; 15:13f, 19; 2 Cor 7:4; 10:6; Gal 5:14; Eph 1:23; 3:19; 4:10; 5:18; Phil 1:11; 2:2; 4:18f; Col 1:9, 25; 2:10; 4:17; 2Th 1:11; 2Ti 1:4; Jas 2:23; 1Jn 1:4; 2Jn 1:12; Rev 3:2; 6:11. NAS is translated: accomplish(1), accomplished(1), amply supplied(1), approaching(1), complete(1), completed(3), completing(1), elapsed(1), fill(3), filled(16), fills(1), finished(1), fulfill(20), fulfilled(20), fully carry(1), fully come(1), fully preached(1), increasing(1), made complete(2), made full(5), make...full(1), make...complete(1), passed(2), supply(1).
Pleroo is used 77 times in the Septuagint (LXX) (Gen 1:22, 28; 9:1, 7; 24" class="scriptRef">25:24; 29:21; 50:3; Exod 32:29; Lev 8:33; 12.4" class="scriptRef">12:4; 25:29f; Num 6:5, 13; 7:88; 15" class="scriptRef">Josh 3:15; Jdg 17:5, 12; 2 Sam 7:12; 14" class="scriptRef">1 Ki 1:14; 2:27; 7:14; 8:15, 24; 13:33; 2 Ki 4:4; 1 Chr 12:15; 17:11; 29:5; 2 Chr 6:4, 15; 13:9; 24:10; 29:31; 36:21f; Job 20:22f; Ps 16:11; 20:4f; 65:9; 71:8; 72:19; 74:20; 81:10; 83:16; 104:24; 110:6; 127:5; 129:7; Eccl 1:8; 6:7; 9:3; 11:3; Song 5:14; Isa 8:8; 13:3; 40:4; 65:11; Jer 13:12f; 23:24; 25:12, 34" class="scriptRef">34; 29:10; 33:5; 34:14; 44:25; 51:11, 14; Lam 4:18; Ezek 7:19; Dan 2:35; 4:11, 34; 5:26; 8:23; Zeph 1:9)
Pleroo also means to fulfill, to complete, to carry out to the full (eg Lk 9:31 at the transfiguration, Moses and Elijah were "speaking of [Jesus'] departure which He was about to accomplish [pleroo] at Jerusalem")
Pleroo indicates more than just pouring water in a glass up the brim and has at least three shades of meaning that are helpful in illustrating the meaning.
(1) Pleroo was often used of the wind billowing the sails of a ship and providing impetus to move the ship across the water. To be filled with the Spirit then to is to be moved along in our Christian life by God Himself, by the same dynamic by which the writers of Scripture were “moved by the Holy Spirit” (2Pe 1:21-note). In the spiritual realm, this concept depicts the Holy Spirit providing the thrust to move the believer down the pathway of obedience. A Spirit-filled Christian is not motivated by his own desires or will to progress. Instead, he allows the Holy Spirit to carry him in the proper directions. Another helpful example of this first meaning is a small stick floating in a stream. Sometime in our lives most of us have tossed a stick into a creek and then run downstream to see the twig come floating by, propelled only by the force of the water. To be filled with the Spirit means to be carried along by the gracious pressure of the Holy Spirit. From a negative aspect, the men in (Ro 1:29-note) are being moved by their depraved minds to do unspeakable evil.
(2) Pleroo also conveys the idea of permeation as of salt’s permeating meat in order to flavor and preserve it. God wants the Holy Spirit to permeate and flavor our lives so that when we’re around others they will know for certain that we possess the pervasive savor of the Spirit.
(3) Pleroo conveys the sense of domination or total control. It is used by the Gospel writers in various passages to indicate that people were dominated by a certain emotion. In Luke 5:26, after Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and healed the paralytic, the people were astonished and “filled with fear.” In Luke 6:11, when Jesus restored a man’s hand on the Sabbath, the scribes and Pharisees “were filled with rage.” When our Lord told the disciples that He would soon be leaving them, He told of their reaction: “sorrow has filled your heart” (John 16:6). The person who is filled with sorrow is no longer under his own control but is totally under the control of that emotion. In the same way, someone who is filled with fear, anger or even Satan (Acts 5:3) is no longer under his own control but under the total control of that which dominates him. Each of these uses reveals an emotion so overwhelming within the people that it dominated their thoughts and excluded every other emotion.
The word pleroo can also convey the idea of being fully equipped and was used to describe a ship that was "fully equipped" and ready for a voyage at sea. The believer has in Christ all that he needs for the "voyage of life" for we "are complete (pleroo - perfect tense = having been filled full, with the present result that you are in a state of fulness) in Him” (Col 2:10-note). “And of His fullness have all we received” (John 1:16).
The more common meaning of "filled" in the NT is to be controlled by that which fills one's heart and mind. For example, in (Ep 5:18-note) Paul commands (imperative mood) all believers (the verb is plural) at Ephesus "do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled (pleroo) with the Spirit". The verb is present tense calling for all saints to be continually filled, which describes what should be "the normal Christian life" to be enjoyed and experienced constantly and not to be reserved for a few special "spiritual" experiences.
Pleroo is in the passive voice (subject receives the action - in this context the "divine passive") which points out the fact that as believers we do not fill ourselves but permit the Spirit of God to fill us (and control us). In other words God discloses a knowledge of Himself. One cannot simply learn to know God. God is not like secular truths which may be learned. Divine truth must be revealed!
Melick - Christians must place themselves in that spiritual environment with the hope and expectation that God will reveal his will regarding specific matters. Paul’s point was not the difficulty of knowing God; it was the attitude required by the seeker of knowledge. In Christ God always makes himself known. (Melick, R. R. V32: Philippians, Colossians, Philemon; The New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers)
The verb “fill” has less to do with contents, as though we are empty vessels that need a required amount of spiritual fuel to keep going. The person who is filled with sorrow (Jn 16:6) is no longer under his own control but is under the control of that emotion. In the same way, someone who is filled with fear (Luke 5:26), anger (Luke 6:11), jealously (Acts 5:17) or even Satan (Acts 5:3) is no longer under his own control but under the control of that which "fills" him. To be filled in this sense is to be totally dominated and controlled, and it is the most important meaning of pleroo for believers to understand.
Luke records that “all in the synagogue were filled with rage” (Luke 4:28) indicating that they were controlled by rage. What was the result? "They rose up and cast Him (Jesus) out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff." (Luke 4:29) The rage had so controlled Jesus' audience they were driven to the point of seeking to murder Jesus! Have you ever been furious? You know that you when anger controls you, you are capable of doing some things you would otherwise never consider.
In Acts 4:8 Peter "filled with the Holy Spirit" boldly proclaimed Jesus to the "rulers and elders of the people" even reminding them that they had crucified Jesus! This bold action shows the effects of one filled with the Spirit versus being filled with the flesh (see Peter's contrasting behavior on the night Jesus was betrayed in Mt 26:69ff)
In Acts 6:5 Stephen, a "man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit" was so controlled that he proclaimed to the hostile Jewish audience one of the most powerful sermons ever recorded in (Acts 7), with the result that it cost him his earthly life. In sum, the fullness of the Spirit refers to His control over the yielded or surrendered believer.
When Paul and Barnabas arrived at Pisidian Antioch, Paul began proclaiming Jesus as Savior to the point that people were even begging for more of Paul's expository preaching. “When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy, and began contradicting the things spoken by Paul, and were blaspheming.” (Acts 13:45)
In sum, to be “filled with the Spirit” means to be constantly controlled by the Spirit in our mind, emotions, and will. To be filled with the Spirit is not to have Him somehow progressively added to our life until we are full of Him. It is to be under His total dominion and control. This is in direct contrast to the uncontrolled drunkenness and dissipation in the worship of Dionysius that was alluded to in the first half of (Ep 5:18-note).
Remember that what ''fills'' you will control you...it will control both your actions and your reactions. Are you letting the Word of Christ richly dwell within you (Col 3:16-note) so that you might be controlled by the will of God in the Word of God as taught by the Spirit of God? How can you tell that you are "filled with the Spirit"? In Ephesians 5 Paul gives at least three "markers" of a person controlled by the Spirit because such an individual is (1) joyful (Eph 5:19-note), (2) thankful (Eph 5:20-note), and (3) submissive (Eph 5:21-33-note). Are you joyful, thankful and submissive? Then you are being controlled by God's Holy Spirit. Note that this filling is a repeated experience, for we constantly need to be filled with spiritual power if we are to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.
C. F. D. Moule has said, this prayer makes two great requests: (1) It asks for the discernment of God's will and (2) for the power to perform that will.
William Barclay has an interesting note - We are trying not so much to make God listen to us as to make ourselves listen to him; we are trying not to persuade God to do what we want, but to find out what he wants us to do. It so often happens that in prayer we are really saying, "Thy will be changed," when we ought to be saying, "Thy will be done." The first object of prayer is not so much to speak to God as to listen to him...So when Paul prays that his friends may have wisdom and understanding, he is praying that they may understand the great truths of Christianity and may be able to apply them to the tasks and decisions which meet them in everyday living. A man may quite easily be a master of theology and a failure in living; able to write and talk about the eternal truths and yet helpless to apply them to the things which meet him every day. The Christian must know what Christianity means, not in a vacuum but in the business of living. This knowledge of God's will, and this wisdom and understanding, must issue in right conduct. Paul prays that his friends may conduct themselves in such a way as to please God. There is nothing in this world so practical as prayer. It is not escape from reality. Prayer and action go hand in hand. We pray not in order to escape life but in order to be better able to meet it. To do this we need power. Therefore, Paul prays that his friends may be strengthened with the power of God... What we need is power; and that we receive in prayer. If God merely told us what his will was, that might well be a frustrating situation; but he not only tells us his will, he also enables us to perform it. (Colossians 1 - William Barclay's Daily Study Bible)
Adam Clarke - Nothing could satisfy the apostle, either for himself or his hearers, but the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of peace. The Colossians had knowledge, but they must have more; it is their privilege to be filled with it. As the bright shining of the sun in the firmament of heaven fills the whole world with light and heat, so the light of the Sun of righteousness is to illuminate their whole souls, and fill them with Divine splendor, so that they might know the will of God, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; in a word, that they might have such a knowledge of Divine things as the Spirit of truth can teach to the soul of man.
Spurgeon commenting on the idea of be filled says that...
...this is grand scholarship, to have the mind, and heart, and the whole of our manhood filled with knowledge. Paul would not have a believer ignorant upon any point: he would have him filled with knowledge, for when a measure is full of wheat there is no room for chaff. True knowledge excludes error. The men that go after false doctrine are usually those who know little of the word of God; being untaught they are unstable, ready to be blown about with every wind of doctrine (Ep 4:14-note). It you leave empty spots in your minds unstored with holy teaching, they will be an invitation to the devil to enter in and dwell there. Fill up the soul, and so shut out the enemy.
Paul desired the Colossian saints to be filled-filled up to the brim with the knowledge of God’s will. Brethren, we would have you know all that you can know of God’s truth. Rome flourishes by man’s ignorance, but the New Jerusalem rejoices in light. No knowledge of the revealed will of God can ever do you any harm if it be sanctified. Do not be afraid of what they call “high doctrines,” or the “deep things of God.” They tell us that those things are secrets, and therefore we ought not to pry into them. If they are secrets, there is no fear that anybody can pry into them; but the truths revealed in the word are no longer secrets, seeing that they are revealed to us by the Spirit of God, and as far as they are revealed it should be our desire to understand them, so as to be filled with the knowledge of them.
WITH THE KNOWLEDGE (deep, thorough, experiential): ten epignosin: (1Co 1:5 Eph 1:15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 3:14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 Php 1:9, 10, 11 Col 2:2, 3:10 2Pe1:2, 3)
Spurgeon comments on this intimate, experiential type of knowledge exhorting us to...
Let us try to know divine truth more and more intimately. You know a man, for you pass him in the streets with a nod; you know another man far better, for you lodge in the same house with him; you know him best of all when you have shared his trouble, partaken in his joy, and have, in fact, had fellowship with him by blending your two lives in one common stream of friendship.
When you learn a spiritual truth endeavor to know it out and out; to know its foundation and up building; to know it by the application of the Spirit to your own soul so that you are filled with it.
You may have knowledge in the brain, but it may not run into your spirit, so as to penetrate, and permeate, and saturate your spirit, till you are filled therewith. Oh, to get the gospel into one’s entire nature, and to be like the water pots of Cana, filled up to the brim! Lord, fill thy poor children with the knowledge of thy will!
PRAYER FOR
A CHRISTIAN
MIND
Paul is praying in essence for these saints to have a Christian mind in the midst of a secular world who has a mindset radically and definitively in opposition to God and His will. Harry Blamires puts it this way in his book The Christian Mind explaining that...
The Christian mind has succumbed to the secular drift (cp Col 2:8-note) with a degree of weakness and nervelessness unmatched in Christian history....as a thinking being, the modern Christian has succumbed to secularization. He accepts religion - its morality, its worship, its spiritual culture; but he rejects the religious view of life, the view which sets all earthly issues within the context of the eternal...the view which sees all things here below in terms of God's supremacy and earth's transitoriness, in terms of Heaven and Hell. The Christian mind (is) a mind trained, informed, equipped to handle data of secular controversy within a framework of reference which is constructed of Christian presuppositions. The Christian mind is the prerequisite of Christian action. (The Christian Mind- How Should a Christian Think. Vine Books. 1997).
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Greek Word Studies ( - )
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