28 Cf. Hos. 2:20; 6:3, 6.
28Cf. Hos. 2:20; 6:3, 6.
29Cf. Col. 1:28; 2:1-3; 3:10.
30Perhaps one reason for Paul’s preference for ἐπίγνωσις (cf. Rom. 1:28; 3:20; 10:2; Phil. 1:9, in addition to instances in Colossians, Ephesians, and the Pastorals) is his desire to point a contrast with the much canvassed γνѽσις. This is more likely than the view that he takes over a catchword of his opponents, by which they emphasized the more advanced knowledge they taught as against the ordinary γνѽσις (so W. L. Knox, Some Hellenistic Elements in Primitive Christianity, p. 150; cf. MM, p. 237). Whether the force of the prefix ἐπί here is intensive (J. B. Lightfoot, Colossians and Philemon, pp. 137-38), directive (J. A. Robinson, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians [London, 1904], pp. 248-54), or ”ingressive or—still better— decisive” (R. E. Picirelli, “The Meaning of ‘Epignosis’,” EQ 47 [1975], 85-93), or whether in fact it has any special force, is uncertain: no rule can be laid down covering all instances. In many, but not all, NT occurrences ἐπίγνωσις, like the verb ἐπιγινώσϰω, “has become almost a technical term for the decisive knowledge of God which is involved in conversion to the Christian faith” (R. Bultmann, TDNT 1, p. 707 [s.v. γινώσϰω, etc.]). See J. Dupont, Gnosis: La connaissance religieuse dans les épîtres de saint Paul (Louvain/Paris, 1949).
31Cf. Ps. 111:10; Prov. 9:10.
32Cf. Phil. 1:9-10; also Rom. 12:2; 15:14; 1 Cor. 1:6; 2:6-16; 3:2; 2 Cor. 8:7; 11:6; Phil. 3:10; Philem. 6.