I CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 11 - 16

1 Just follow my example as
I also follow what Christ has.

How can Paul say to follow what he does?
I’d think for shame! Yet that’s the word that was
On Paul’s lips. Glory be that he went straight
In Christ’s example on from gate to gate.
To follow Paul is just to follow Christ
And not depart obedience enticed.
To follow Christ is just to walk within
Your word, Beloved, made flesh and without sin.
Let me follow the one who follows You
And find the footsteps leading to what’s true.
Let me walk in the footprints left to lead,
Let me battle, and then march in all speed
To rest and table in Your hidden room
Where candlesticks dispel all earthly gloom.

2 Now I praise you, brothers, that you
Remember me in all you do
And keep the ordinances I
Gave you to do and to comply.

Is there praise that I keep the ordinance
That Paul or any man gave and to dance
To every tune of human intervention?
Oh no, Beloved, send me a clear prevention.
Paul gives no ordinance for me to keep
Except what You have given first to peep
To Adam, Abraham, and all the saints.
In those there’s praise and not any complaints.
Paul gives such things again not to dismiss
The holy law and its glories, to miss
The lovely lovesong of Sinai, but still
Because remembering is such a pill.
Let me remember You, Beloved, today
And take no praise but in the words You say.

3 But I want you to know the head
Of every man is Christ, the head
Of woman is the man, while God
Is head of Christ, which is not odd.

Does Paul mean here he wants hierarchy’s weight
To bring the universe into the late
Great order in which men and women are
Not equal before sun and moon and star?
If so, he flies against creation’s story
Where men and women are of equal glory,
Two sides of one creation, split apart
In trance and dark sleep by the divine art.
If so, he fails to see Sabbath commandment
Lists all subordinates with gay disbandment,
But does not set the wife or husband under
The other, only children before wonder,
The worker, guest and cattle in the gate.
He must mean something else not to be late.

Paul sets the woman under man and man
Beneath Christ who himself is set by plan
Beneath God. It seems strange indeed to me
That some make both God and Christ equally
Persons of great and holy Trinity,
And yet continue to demand the state
Of woman is beneath man’s. Let’s relate.
If God and Christ are equal, so are man
And woman. Following consistent plan,
Then so are man and Christ, which surely makes
The woman equal to God in her stakes.
I’ve seen such women, sitting in a pew,
With painted faces and bespangled shoe.
Gold turns all flesh to deity for shakes.

4 Praying or prophesying each
Man with head covered in his speech,
Dishonours his own head by breach.

Has Paul not read the law in which is said
That Aaron wore a mitre on his head?
Or does the priest not pray and prophesy,
Reciting the divine words by and by?
Both Muslim and the Jew cover their heads
In prayers and everywhere outside their beds
Despite their being male and right or wrong.
With head uncovered I replay my song,
My slender psalms in praise of You and yours,
And quash complaint that Paul’s word still outpours
More questions than he answers quill and pen.
It is no comfort Peter complains when
He reads Paul’s words since he too is awake
To write in oracles dark and opaque.

5 But every woman then who prays
Or prophesies by nights or days
With her head uncovered allows
Dishonour on her head and bows,
For that is even all the same
As if her head were shaved in shame.

Or perhaps it’s not shame to shave the head
Of woman, despite many things I’ve read.
Paul sets the woman up like the high priest
Who has a mitre on at divine feast.
Who does not pray or prophesy in word,
In cantillation sweet though not absurd
For being in the sacred Hebrew tongue,
It seems may sit uncovered on the rung.
Her only dishonour with head bared so
Is if she prays or prophesies below.
Dishonour rather I find to forget
To murmur day and night Your law and get
Its blessings poured out on uncovered pate,
Both male and female know how to be late.

6 For if a woman is not covered,
Let her also be shorn uncovered.
But if it be a woman’s shame
To be shorn or shaved, for the claim,
Let her be covered without blame.

The woman who does not wear cover on
Her unshorn head’s a disgrace to the dawn.
Two ways there be to step around the trap.
To right one covers all one’s hair in wrap,
To left one cuts it off and curls and dyes.
Two ways lie equally before my eyes,
But one leads to the left and one the right.
There may be some left-handed in Your sight,
Beloved, who choose the road untravelled by
The thoughtless and the dreary and the shy.
Beloved, two women sit beneath my roof,
Both loved and neither one of the aloof,
Though one bears scarf and one bears shorn off curls.
May both be taken up as gems and pearls.

7 A man indeed ought not to put
A cover on his head or foot,
Since he’s God’s image and his glory,
But woman is indeed man’s glory.

The feminist Paul states surprising story,
That without woman man has not a glory,
A single glory to his meagre name.
Without a woman every man’s a shame.
This is a bitter pill to take for us
Who always thought that women in the bus
Were lesser creatures and the weaker sex.
The only glories a man’s got perplex.
Let me learn now, Beloved, the humble way
That there’s no pride in man to have his say,
But all a man has to be prideful in
Is just a wife whose lovely, without sin.
And knowing so the man too can become
In God’s image Your glory and its sum.

8 For man is not from woman, but
Woman from man, and then flesh shut.
9 Nor was the man created for
The woman, but the woman for
The man, it seems there’s more in store.

The being before You divided it
Was called the man, Adam, and they were fit
For being both the male and female sides
As stated in the verse that coincides
With Genesis one and verse twenty-seven.
That ought to be enough to open heaven.
But no, Adam sees all the animals
Have mates, where he has none and that appals.
And so You split the Adam into two,
The one a human and the other too,
And closed the flesh against the coming night.
The woman was from Adam, that is right.
But Adam was the both before the sleep,
And men today have only half to keep.

10 For this reason the woman ought
To have authority she’s got
Upon her head, because there are
Around her angels on a par.

Paul here talks of the angels who, it’s said,
In Jubilees took some women to bed.
It’s not that shining hair distracts the prayers
Of human beings on the heavenly stairs,
But rather, it seems, that the angels find
Uncovered woman too seductive kind
To go about angelic tasks unmoved.
Beloved, this is a theory yet unproved,
But I take Paul’s word for it and submit,
That women ought to cover and keep fit
Because the beauty of their heads entices
The unaccustomed angels to new vices.
Such power is given to womankind
That would make even good angels go blind.

11 Nevertheless, neither is man
Without the woman, nor woman
Without the man, in the Lord’s plan.
12 For as woman came from the man,
Even so too man through woman,
But all things here from God began.

The human was once one, and split in two,
And now has two names and two things to do,
One male and one female, one Adam and
The other Eve, the  mother of the land.
So You too, my Beloved, show dual name,
To be not lesser than humans for shame,
But like the male, You are exalted in
The name of Ælohim, for foot and fin,
The highest and supreme, but also known
More often by the secrets dark and grown
In the essential being, You’re called YHWH.
Thus You are the original that knew
The plan of making all things pairs and shares
Reflected in the universe that dares.

13 Think for yourselves if it’s decent
For a woman, though eloquent,
To pray uncovered before God?
Such praying is not worth a pod.

Not only are the angels sorely tried
By seeing women’s hair bare and untied,
But You Yourself, it seems, in Paul’s relation
Get flustered by a woman’s coiffeuration.
So much so, it seems everyone can know
This truth even without the slightest show
Of revelation to enforce the fact.
It’s something pure reason attains by act.
Paul’s view of the reality seems strange
To me, who am so humble in my range.
But I rejoice that Paul at once reveals
That there is meaning in what thinks and feels
An ordinary person on the go.
He tells me to judge for myself below.

14 Does not nature itself teach you
That long hair on a man is true
Dishonour to him? 15 But long hair
For women is her glory there,
For her hair was given to hide
And cover any shame beside.

The ancient Semites it seems had long hair.
Perhaps it was a shame they had to bear.
And even Absalom, so proud and bold,
Fell prey to his long hair that stopped him cold.
My hair was also fairly long one time,
I keep it short now not for shame or clime,
But just because I am too lazy to
Use a comb for what combs were made to do.
If You did not want men to have long hair,
Why did You create it in the same share
As women have? Ah, yes, I had forgotten
That men go bald, and what they have is boughten.
That’s proof enough that the external shame
Is still a thing of universal blame.

16 But if anyone seems to be
Contentious, we have no such way,
Nor do those called out in God’s way.

Paul’s worldview is almost mythology,
At least as regards hair and coiffeury,
But his last principle is surely best.
It may indeed matter how well one’s dressed,
But by the same token, there is a need
To drop contention along with my greed.
To cover her hair in her modesty
May be the woman’s glory and may be
The glory of both man and Deity,
Praised by the angels from their lust set free
By every humble Eve’s untrumpery,
Yet greater glory still arises when
Contentious spirits fly away from men.
Beloved, in sweetness let my heart agree.

17 In giving these instructions I
Do not praise you, since you come by
Together not for better but
For the worse. 18 And I hear it cut
First of all when you come together
With the called out ones, you see whether
There are division among you,
And I almost believe it’s true.
19 For there must also be among
You heresies in what you’ve sung,
Such as approved appear in rung.
20 When you gather into one place,
It’s not to eat Lord’s meal in grace.
21 For when you eat everyone takes
First before others and their sakes
His own meal, and one’s hungry while
Another’s drunken by his guile.
22 Don’t you have houses where to eat
And drink? Or do you want to treat
The called out ones of God with shame
And so humiliate by name?
What shall I say to you? Shall I
Praise you for this? I’d rather die.

The heresies that separate the crowd
Of called out ones St. Paul repeats aloud.
They are the heresies of common meal
That crystalize and separate the keel
Of Christian churches to this day and heel.
The Transubstantiation meets the note
Of Consubstantiation in the vote,
While the Reformed, though symbol, is the real.
Beloved, I hie me from the better way,
The churchly roach and churchly sort of day,
And temper at the mosque and synagogue,
Though I'm not more welcome there than the frog.
The Eucharist I eat, I eat alone
In secret with You here before Your throne.

23 For what I’ve received of the Lord
That I also give as reward
To you, so that Sir Jesus that
Same night when he was betrayed sat
And took bread. 24 And when he gave grace,
He broke it and said “Take a trace
And eat it, this is my body
Which is broken for you to see,
Do this in remembrance of me.
25 In the same way also the cup
When he had finished with the sup,
Saying “This cup is the new pact
In my blood, this is how to act,
As often as you drink it do
It in remembrance of me too.
26 Because as often as you eat
This bread and drink this cup for treat,
You mind the Lord’s death till he come.
27 Therefore who eats this bread in sum
And drinks this cup of the Lord not
Worthily, shall be guilty caught
Of the Lord’s body and his blood.
28 Let a man examine himself
And so let him eat from the shelf
That bread and drink that cup of delf.
29 The unworthy one who will eat
And drink, eats and drinks to defeat
Of himself and not seeing there
The Lord’s body and the Lord’s share.
30 That’s why many are weak and sick
Among you, and some sleep in trick.
31 For if we’d judge ourselves, then we
Will not be judged in time of fee.
33 Therefore, my brothers, when you come
Together to eat, wait in sum
For one another on the run.
34 If any one is hungry let
Him eat at home, and do not set
For condemnation when you get.

Beloved, I am a hungry one, so I
In greed take at home the celestial pie.
Like Zeus upon his rape, I cannot wait
To get to church and hear the priestly rate,
But must in trempling eagerness avail
Myself of flesh and blood hung in the pail
Beside my porch and on the flowered rail.
Beloved, I am a hungry sort of mate.
Judge me not that I find no priest to give
The word of life to me so I shall live,
But take it quickly from the Psalter cast
Upon my sleep before the night to last,
And with Your judgement or its lack I run
Into the heavenly meadows full of fun.


1As for things of the spirit now,
Brothers, I don’t want anyhow
For you to be ignorant now.
2 You know you were Gentiles and caught
Away with these dumb idols’ rot
Even as you were led by naught.
3 That’s why I’d have you understand
That no man speaking by the hand
Of God’s spirit calls Jesus cursed,
And no man can speak to say first
That Jesus is Lord, but by leading
Of the holy spirit and heeding.

It seems St. Paul was never faced by this
Idolatry of the sweet Christian bliss.
There are today the millions who call Christ
The Lord and mean by Lord the second spliced
In person of the blessèd Trinity.
So they both engage in idolatry
And in admission that Jesus born free
Is Lord. Beloved, “forgive our fevered ways”
And lead us back from Soma and its praise.
But then to reconsider, is it not
The greatest of all curses to be wrought
To blasphemously make of Jesus god,
When he bows to his Father on the sod?
Let holy spirit be born in the pod.

4 Now there are many kinds of gifts,
But the same spirit when it lifts.
5 And there are different offices,
But the same Lord that owns as His.
6 And there are many kinds of tasks,
But it’s the same God in all basks.
7 But the spirits appearing comes
To every man for profit’s sums.

Like every leaf upon the tree of life
Is different and sings to a different fife,
So every person born into the world
Is a unique flag of creation furled.
But in each heart lies one spirit alone,
The greatest of divine gifts on the stone,
The consciousness of being I, the string
That is the direct tie to divine thing.
You speak directly, my Beloved, to each
Within the consciousness that You must teach
To everyone directly on the peach:
I am that I am both beyond the reach
Of all things made, and yet most intimate
Being of humankind and of God’s rate.

8 To one by the spirit the word
Of wisdom is given and conferred,
Another gets the word of knowledge
By the same spirit and not college.
9 Another gets faith by the same
Spirit, to another the gifts
Of healing by same spirit’s shifts,
10 Another gets the power to work
Miracles, another to irk
With prophecy, another knows
Discerning of spirits that chose,
Another different kinds of tongues,
Another to translate such rungs,
11 But all of these work for the one
And selfsame spirit when it’s done
Dividing to each man his own
Different gifts as it wills alone.

Beloved, I have no gift of spirit here
That called by knowledge or by faith in fear,
Nor healing (when I pray the man gets worse),
Nor miracles to pronounce, bless or curse,
Nor prophecy, discerning spirits’ choice,
Nor speaking in tongues with a human voice,
Nor translating for others (see how I
Have mutilated You words from the sky).
Beloved, my only gift’s to babble more
Rhymes out in love and love’s hate and to pour
On You my hopes and fears and sometimes joy:
My gift is just to appear a bad boy.
And yet with all my heart and breath I hope
To partake of Your spirit and not rope.

12 For as the body is one, and
Has many members and all stand
As members of that body as
Many and so also Christ has
One body. 13 By one spirit we
Are all baptised into the spe
Of one body, whether we be
Jews or Gentiles, whether we be
Slave or free and have all been made
To drink into one spirit stayed.
14 The body’s not a member one,
But many members under sun.
15 If the foot says “Because I’m not
The hand, I’m not of body wrought,”
Is it thereby not of the same?
16 And if the ear shall say “Because
I’m not the eye, so under laws
I’m not of the body, is it
Therefore not of the body fit?
17 If the whole body were an eye,
Then what of hearing, not to spy?
If the whole were just ears where were
The sense of smelling like a cur?
18 But now God has set every one
Of the members in body done
As it has pleased Him on the run.

I always wondered why the dog could smell
Much better than the human in the dell.
I always wondered why the eagle goes
In paths of sight beyond what human knows.
And now I see that You, Beloved, give gifts
To each one in creation that uplifts.
There’s always something better in the other
Than what I find in my own heart and brother.
To recognize the spirit in its ways
Is just to give to You Your due in praise.
It’s sure that I am better than a dog
In some way undiscovered in the fog,
And so by faith I grasp my higher estate,
Although it seems I always have to wait.

19 If they were all one member then
Where would the body be of men?
20 But now they’re many members, yet
They are in just one body set.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand,
I have no need of you in band,
Nor again the head to the feet,
I have no need of you to seat.
22 No, all the more for body parts
That seem to be weak in their arts,
Are the more needful in their hearts.
23 Such body parts that we think less
In honour, on these we confess
More honour, and uncomely set
Will more abundant beauty get.
24 That’s because our fine features need
Nothing, but God has set indeed
The body well to give more grace
Of honour to what lacks in place.
25 So there should be no breach in all
The body, but the members call
The same care for them each and all.

St. Paul who speaks of foreskin openly
When angry with the party who freely
Would cut it off from all sons and sundry,
At last becomes too coy to speak the name,
But covers it with terms of blushing shame.
Because he sees the hidden body parts
As each having a gift of spirit arts,
He makes perhaps the judgement that the penis
Is also great in every part to wean us
From looking down on those in the assembly
Who come to evoke You in voices trembly.
Beloved, if that is what good many hopes,
I leave him in my admiration’s ropes,
And flee to You from St. Paul’s saintly scopes.

26 And if one member suffer pain,
All the members will feel amain,
Or if one member’s honoured then
All members will rejoice as men.
27 Now you are Christ’s body as such
Members in particular touch.
28 And God has set some there among
The called out ones and those who’ve sung
First the apostles and to come
The prophets, thirdly teachers hum,
After that miracles and then
Gifts of healings, and helps of men,
Administrations, and then tongues.
29 Are all apostles? And are all
Prophets? Are all teachers to call?
Do all work miracles? 30 Do all
Have gifts of healing? Do all call
With tongues? Do all interpret drawl?
31 But covet earnestly the best
Gifts and yet I show you the rest
Of a more excellent way’s test.

Since the divine I’s in each heart and mind,
St. Paul thinks that we all ought to be kind.
The same I is hurt by the body’s pain
In every creature bum or with the reign
Of reason, all are equally in part
Of pain, and so all ought to share the dart.
Beloved, at times I feel the pain the seers
The other with its spikes and sordid spears,
But still do not think that the height of power
In spirit is perfection in an hour
To feel the pain of everyone on earth.
Those who seek advance spirituality
Are ignorant of the great price and fee.
Give me, Beloved, a humbler sort of berth.


1 Though I speak with the tongues of men
And angels and have no love then,
I’ve become merely sounding brass
Or tinkling cymbal that will pass.
2 And though I have the prophecy,
And understand all mystery,
And have all knowledge and though I
Have all faith even so that I
Could remove mountains, but not love,
I’m nothing for all the above.
3 Though I give all my goods to feed,
And though I give my body’s weed
To be burned, but have no love, then
It is no profit among men.

St. Paul thinks it’s a better way to speak
Of love, rather than knowing at the peak
That all who are aware of being I
Share in one divine spirit on the sly.
Indeed, the concept is a simpler one:
Just love everyone and go and have fun.
But fact is every time I hear the word
To love I find that soon or late they’re stirred
To slip a knife into my back, and that
Is why I always run away from cat
Who talks of love while sitting on my mat.
I’d rather have the empty angel’s tongue,
And clamour of the cymbals when they’ve rung,
Than all the Christian lovers with their dung.

4 Love’s patient, kind, love envies not,
Love does not vaunt itself big shot,
Is not puffed up, does not conduct
Itself unmannerly when chucked,
It does not seek its own in fame,
It’s not quickly provoked to flame,
It thinks no evil of the claim.
6 It does not joy in wickedness,
Rejoicing in truth to confess,
7 It bears all things, believes all things,
It hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails, but if there are
Prophecies they shall not go far,
And if there are tongues, they shall cease,
And if there is knowledge increase,
It will vanish like falling star.
9 We know in part and prophesy
In part. 10 But when what’s perfect’s nigh,
Then what’s in part is done away.

In fact, after the pretty words are spoken,
And the bread and wine given for a token,
All fails, both faith and knowledge when awoken,
And certainly the love of a life broken.
After the fainting trials St. Paul awards,
I merely go back to the trusted swords
Of cantillating Psalms no matter how
Much hate they express for enemies now.
Cathartic, hateful liturgy of Psalm,
Avoided by the Christian for the bomb,
Remains the best I find to release all
Aggressions from the heart and hand in thrall.
Give me the sword of David and the tongue
To sing his deprecations on the strung.

11 When I was a child, then I spoke
As a child, understood awoke
As a child, I though as a child,
But when I grew up reconciled,
I put away things of a child.
12 For now we see things through a glass,
Obscurely, but then in the pass
As face to face, and now I know
In part, but then I’ll come to know
Even as also I am known.
13 And now here abide three alone,
Faith, hope, and love, but of these three
The greatest of them’s charity.

St. Paul himself goes back to seeing straight,
Reality barked in the mart of fate:
The realizing that the I I know
Is but the tip of the divine in show.
And so I leave the childish praise of love,
And get back to the job with hand in glove,
Reminding heart and eye that every man
Shares in the being of Your I by plan,
And should I harm the other on the shelf,
I harm as much or more my own dear self.
One cannot love the neighbour as one should
Love self until the Self is known for good.
That way alone Paul’s love can still abide,
After the children run away and hide.


1 Pursue the charitous, desire
The spiritual, with greater fire
That you may come to prophesy.

Saint Paul is talking to the folks he’s got
To believe in the Christ that he has taught.
So what does he mean here by prophecy?
He does not want to turn them into great
Leaders to represent humanity
Like Moses or like Abraham in state.
I doubt he wants to turn them into such
Tale-bearing palm-readers some use as crutch.
If producing Torahs and crystal ball
Scams is not what he’s talking of at all,
Then what is prophecy? It’s clear he takes
A Scripture meaning for the work he makes:
A prophet’s simply one with harp or not
Who cantillates the Scripture as it’s taught.

2 For who speaks his own tongue, he speaks
Not to men but the God he seeks,
For no one understands him, yet
In spirit speaks secrets to get.
3 But who prophesies speaks to men
In edification again,
In exhortation and comfort.
4 One speaking his own tongue’s resort
Edifies himself, but he who
Prophesies edifies the crew.

The recitation of Torah and Psalm
Is prophecy beneath both fir and palm,
And that is edifying to those who
Hear what the Scripture says for them to do.
But from old time there have been those who don’t
Have skill or knowledge to recite, or won’t.
They want to squeal a melancholy tune
Of their own thoughts and feelings to the moon.
The Pentecostal church is filled with those,
But they’re not the only ones out who chose
The text and thoughts of individual pose,
Such as of Fanny Crosby or the priest
Who writes collects of Anglicans at least.
The choice is Your Word or some sloppy prose.

5 I wish that all of you could speak
As many languages a week,
But rather that you prophesied,
Because it’s greater on the ride
To prophesy than speak with tongues,
Except in a translation’s rungs,
So called out ones are edified.

On day of Pentecost You gave the skill
To speak in languages run of the mill
As listed in the Acts, and these were not
The mystic utterance of foolish sot.
They were true languages to preach the word
That Jews from all around the world once heard.
But speaking languages for motives grand
In teaching and in preaching round the land
Is not so great and worthy a command
As cantillating Torah and Psalm with
The melody transmitted without myth.
The public recitation of the line
Of Hebrew songs sent down by the divine
Is better than skill in ten tongues that shine.

6 Now, brothers, if I come to you
Speaking in foreign tongues on cue
What shall I profit you, except
I speak to you by an adept
Revealing or knowledge or yet
By prophecy, or doctrine get?
7 And even things without life giving
Voice whether pipe or harp unliving,
Unless they make distinctive sounds
How can it be known on their rounds
What is piped or harped in their bounds?
8 For if the trumpet gives unclear
Sound, who will prepare for war here?
9 So too are you, unless you speak
By the tongue words easy to keep,
How shall it be known what you speak?
Your words are just a breeze to sweep.
10 There are perhaps so many kinds
Of voices in the world of minds,
And none of them is without sense.
11 But if I do not know the sense
Of the voice, I shall just commence
To be barbaric to the speaker,
And he himself will appear weaker
To me. 12 So you too, since you are
Zealous for spiritual things’ star,
Seek to excel in edifying
The group of called out ones not vying.
13 That’s why the one who gives his own
Personal witness to atone,
Let him pray to make better known.

Who wants to bear a tongue in witness to
What he’s experienced of love and You
Ought to pray that he learn to cantillate
Your Word in order to bring to relate
Something of value to the hearer’s life.
But too often laziness is more rife.
Prayer’s not enough, indeed, it takes some will
To learn to read and sing the Torah’s bill
And touch the harp of Psalm with artful tongue
In lays that for centuries have been sung.
Who cry aloud that You love and forgive
Should rather stop to learn a man may live
Not by bread and by crooning to the moon
But by cantillating Your Word right soon.

14 For if I pray in my own words
My spirit’s praying like the birds,
But my understanding is nil.
15 How is it then? So now I will
Pray with the spirit and I will
Pray with the understanding too,
I’ll sing with the spirit in view,
I’ll sing with understanding too.
16 If you bless in spirit alone,
How shall another in the room
Who has no knowledge of your boom
Be able to agree abloom
Not understanding what you say?
17 Indeed your giving thanks there may
Be good, but the other as should
Receives no edifying good.
18 I thank God for languages I
Speak more of them than any vie
Of all of you there who may try.
19 Yet among the called out ones I
Had rather speak five words reply
With understanding that I might
Teach others also for the right,
And ten thousand words in a tongue
Giving personal witness sung.
20 Brothers, don’t be in understanding
Mere children, but in malice standing
Be immature, in understanding
Be grown-ups. 21 In the Torah stands
“With other tongues of other lands
Of lips I’ll speak to this folk’s bands,
And yet for all that they will not
Hear me,” says YHWH and not forgot.
22 That’s why foreign languages are
For a sign, not to faithful star,
But to those who do not believe,
But prophesying’s not for them
That don’t believe the diadem,
But for the ones that do believe.

I can believe indeed, Beloved, the song
Of prophesying Scripture all along
In cantillation is not for the weak
In hesitating faith who do not seek.
And yet I find many who claim to be
Full of faith in Your Word and grace and see
No difficulty in promoting wrong
In every kind of music or in strong
Witness of personal wit and emotion.
They rather take the sweet and sun-tan lotion
Than the hard meat of reading Torah in
The very language it’s set to begin.
They prefer the tongue of Wesley to that
Declaimed on Sinai the one time You sat.

23 If therefore the whole body of
The called out ones gather in love
In lone place, and all speak in tongues
Foreign and there come in the rungs
Unlearned or unfaithful ones,
Will they not say upon their buns
That you’re insane to vent such lungs?
24 But if everyone prophesies,
And unbelievers come to rise,
Or one unlearned, he is convinced
Of everything for words not minced.
25 So are his heart secrets revealed,
And falling on his face he’ll yield
Worship to God and tell abroad
That truly among you is God.
26 How is it then, brothers, when you
Come together, then each of you
Has a psalm, teaching, tongue and yet
A revelation and to get
Interpretation. And so let
All things be done to edifying.

The service Paul envisages is set
Upon the basis of the Psalm well met.
And so I try my own grandmother’s way,
And try to recite at least every day
A Psalm of teaching, tongue and revelation
Interpreting Your nourishment and ration.
The formula is good for me alone,
Or for a crowd come in before the throne,
It serves for one and all, which is why I
Wonder why any on the churchly sly
Must take a Siddur or a mass made up
Of other texts beside Davidic cup.
I come with two or three and do not fail
To raise a Psalm of David and a wail.

27 If someone give personal note
In witness, let it be by rote
Of two or at the most of three,
And that in turn, and let there be
Interpretation of the fee.
28 If there is none to interpret,
Let him keep quiet where they’re set
Among the called out ones, and let
Him speak to himself and to God.
29 But let the prophets two or three
Utter the Scriptures faithfully,
And let the others judge and see.
30 If revelation come upon
Another sitting by and drawn,
Then let the first one hold his peace.
31 For you may all there in increase
Prophesy one by one that all
May learn to cantillate the call
And all be comforted in stall.
32 The spirits of the prophets are
Subjected to the prophets’ star.
33 God’s not for confusion but peace
Among all groups called out release.

St. Paul in inspiration here predicts
The coming of peace or Islam’s relicts
To replace the confusion that arose
Not only when the Jews Christians oppose,
But when the Christians divided in store
Of Christologic battles hard and sore.
But if Islam arose to meet confusion,
The result as been just more sects’ profusion.
Where seventy-one were not enough to show
The Jewish way in straight and narrow go,
The Christian seventy-two rose up to glow.
Islam was worse than all those come before
In making seventy-three on Makkah’s shore,
And all before the Protestant intrusion.

34 Let your women keep quiet in
The groups of called out ones from sin,
It’s not permitted they should speak,
But in obedience to seek
As also Torah says a peek.
35 And if they will learn any thing,
Let them ask their husband to sing
At home, for it’s a shame for them
As women to speak in the stem
Of the called out ones’ diadem.

The called out ones may have been well called out
Into new faith, new works, new words no doubt,
But they were called out from a thing or two
That suggests why Saint Paul puts gals in stew.
The synagogues that I have seen around
Keep women high sequestered from the ground
Where they can hear the hum of Scripture read
Over familiar words not to be led.
But when they started to preach new things there
Was every reason to dip in the share,
And ladies calling down to husbands for
An explanation for what’s on the floor
Was like to cause disorder at the door.
Ask at home rather than increase the care.

36 What? Did the word of God come out
From you? Or do you wish to doubt
And say it came only to you?
37 If any man thinks that he is
A prophet or a spirit’s whiz,
Let him acknowledge what I write
To you is from the Lord in sight
Commanding you to do what’s right.
38 If any man is ignorant,
Let him remain as ignorant.
39 That’s why, brothers, covet the best
To prophesy, allow the rest
To speak in languages of test.
40 Let everything be done the way
Decency shows in order’s sway.

Both decent and in order’s a tall order
To give to merely a small church recorder.
To keep things in order requires the sale
Of violence upon some victim’s tail.
But violence is not a decent thing.
I wonder if the New Testament ring
Is possible to put to test at all.
It’s too conflicting from the starting wall.
Beloved, I pray that I at least might be
Both decent in behaviour orderly,
Although my nature is to cause a spill
And run a racket from the nearest hill.
But above all I’ll try to prophesy
In Psalms in Hebrew yet and still defy.


1 Moreover, brothers, I declare
To you the gospel which I preach
To you, which also you took fair
And in which you stand, all and each,
2 And by which also you are saved,
If you hold fast that word, not waived,
Which I have preached to you for fear
You had believed vain, insincere.
3 For I delivered to you first
Of all that which was not the worst
What I also received: that Christ
Died for the sins we were enticed
According to the Scriptures, 4 and
That he was buried in the sand,
And that he rose again the third
Day according to Scriptures’ word,
5 And that he was seen by Cephas,
Then by the twelve, witness to us.
6 After that he was seen by more
Than five hundred brothers in corps,
Of whom the most remain till now,
But some sleep beneath the grave’s bough.
7 After that he was seen by James,
Then by all the apostles’ claims.
8 Then last of all he was seen by
Me also, as by one born dry
Out of due time. 9 For I’m the least
Of the apostles, not increased
As worthy to be called as such,
Because I persecuted much
The group of called out ones of God.
10 But I am by the grace of God
What I am, and His grace toward me
Was not in vain, abundantly
I laboured more than all of them,
Yet not I, but the diadem
Of God which was with me. 11 Therefore,
Whether it was I or their store,
So we preach and so you believed.

Some doubt that Jesus died at all, and yet
It is affirmed in Scriptures that are set.
But for what sins did Jesus die by Paul?
It cannot be for every sin and all,
Since some sins were forgiven and were purged
By divine grace at Sinai when they dirged
The worship of the golden calf. Some sins
Had not been done yet, such as gains and wins
When Paul himself fought and flayed a just folk.
The sins are clearly those known at a stroke
Complying with Rome for survival when
You had sent Christ into a world of men.
Let me not comply with Rome here today
And so bear no sin for the cross’s sway.

12 Now if Christ is preached unrelieved
That he has been raised from the dead,
How have some among you there said
There’s no resurrection of dead?
13 But if there is no resurrection
Of the dead, then Christ has not won,
Is not risen. 14 And if Christ’s not
Risen, then our preaching is nought
And so your faith is also nought.
15 Yes, and we all are found to be
False witnesses for God to see,
Because we have borne witness of
God that He raised up Christ for love,
Whom He did not raise up, if so
In fact the dead do not do so.
16 For if the dead do not rise, then
Christ is not risen for all men.
17 And if Christ is not risen, your
Faith is futile, still in sins’ store!
18 Then also those who are asleep
In Christ have perished from the sweep.
19 If in this life only we’ve hope
In Christ, we, of all men, must grope.

The argument of Sadducee for death
Against the Pharisee for life and breath
Still rages in the followers of Paul.
That shows that they are not a Gentile call,
But still turn on the Jewish thought to date.
Anachronism takes Paul for the hate
The Christian bears to faith and truth and life.
Paul settles for his own party and strife
That risen Christ proves resurrection’s true.
He also shows that sin and death and cross
Could not turn the Imamate into dross.
Therefore, Beloved, I still come back to You
With praise for those that You have given me
To show the way to life’s eternity.

20 But Christ is risen from the dead,
Of death’s firstfruits become the head.
21 For since by man came death, by man
Also the resurrection can
Come for the dead. 22 As in Adam
All die, so too in Christ the lamb
All shall be made alive again.

Paul flattens out the Sadducee’s vain hope
That this life on the earth’s the only dope.
Thus he shows himself here to be a great
Proponent of the Pharisee’s last fate.
He uses Christ and resurrection not
To prove the Christian church’s evil plot,
But rather to maintain the doctrine that
He learned in Jewish seminar and sat
At feet of loved Gamaliel to spin
A line against the Sadducees and sin.
Alright, he says, to rise up from the dead
Is not a doctrine that is surely spread
In Torah, but Christ proves it once for all
By rising from the gravestone at Your call.

23 But each one as a citizen
In his own order: Christ the head
Of firstfruits, afterward those said
To be Christ’s at his coming. 24 Then
Comes the end, when he renders God
The Father the kingdom, when he
Makes end of all authority
And all rule and all power to be
In heaven and upon the sod.
25 For he must reign till he has put
All enemies under his foot.
26 The last enemy that will be
Destroyed is death. 27 For “He has put
All things that be under his foot.”
But when He says “all things are put
Under him,” it is evident
That He who put all things to be
Under him is excepted free.
28 Now when all these things are made fast
Subject to him, the Son at last
Himself will also be subjected
To Him who put all things selected
Under him, that God may be all
In all always without recall.

The best description of Imamate comes
When Paul brings out his verses and his sums.
Imamate is authority and true
That’s sent to men, established here by You.
All things indeed You put under the foot
Of the Imam You give, and so You put
Christ as ruler of all, but You as God
Are an exception to his rule on sod.
And even death is subject to the rule
Of the one sent by You to stay the fool.
The great last goal of the Imamate is
To give up all authority not his
To You and lead me to proclaim Your name
Over all things, over each human claim.

29 Otherwise, what will they do who
Are baptised for the dead on cue,
If the dead do not rise at all?
Why then are they baptised at all
For the dead? 30 And why do we stand
In jeopardy on every hand?

Paul takes each argument that he can find
To make the Sadducee both deaf and blind.
He sees them bathe the dead and wrap in shroud
And then go to the miqwe and uncowed
Return washed from defilement of the dead
As says the law that all should bathe the head
To toe when having touched in hope and honour
The ones departed. So Paul laughs upon her
Who follows the Torah, the Sadducee.
If there is no rising from death to be,
Then why have funerals at all, says he.
That argument is vain, I say, because
What Sadducee does from the divine laws
Proves nothing of life and reality.

31 I affirm, by boasting in you
Which I have in Christ Jesus too,
Our Lord, I die daily. 32 If, in
The manner of men, I could win
The fight with beasts at Ephesus,
What advantage is it to me?
If the dead do not rise, what fuss?
“Let us eat and drink now freely,
For then tomorrow we shall die!”
33 Do not be deceived by the by:
“Evil companions corrupt good
Habits.” 34 Awake to righteousness,
And do not sin, for some who should
Do not have the knowledge of God,
I speak to your shame on the sod.

Paul calls the former Sadducee in Christ
A latent hedonist whose earth sufficed.
I understand his argument and yet
I think it is not fair. There’s more regret
In Sadducean thought, but this is right
That Sadducean reduction of night
And day to what the surface words of law
Repeat is only a vain and weak straw
Thrown to the Romans. Paul still does not see
The same can be said of the Pharisee.
Yet he is right again that Christ is much
And is the thorn in Caesar’s side as such.
Beloved, I take Your Christ, but pray strip me
Of cloak and baggage of my human scree.

35 But some might say “How are the dead
Raised up? And with what body bred
Do they come?” 36 Foolish one, what you
Sow is not made alive and true
Unless it dies. 37 And what you sow,
You do not sow body to grow,
But mere grain, perhaps wheat or some
Other seed. 38 But God gives it done
A body as He pleases, and
To each seed its own body spanned.
39 All flesh is not the same flesh, but
One flesh of men, another gut
Of animals, another of
Fish, another of birds above.
40 Also celestial bodies run
And earthy bodies under sun,
But the glory of that above
Is different from the earthly glove.
41 There is one glory of the sun,
Another glory of the moon,
Another glory of the stars,
For star differs from star in boon
And glory. 42 So particulars
Also in resurrection of
The dead. The body’s sown in love
Though by corruption, it is raised
In incorruption to be praised.
43 It is sown in dishonour and
It is raised in glory to stand.
It is sown in weakness, but raised
In power. 44 It is sown a phased
And natural body, it is raised
A spiritual body; there
Is a natural body fair,
And there’s spiritual body rare.
45 And so it is written, “The first
Man Adam became not the worst
A living being,” while the last
Adam life-giving spirit fast.
46 But the spiritual is not first,
But first the natural, afterward
The spiritual comes at His word.
47 The first man was made of the earth,
Of dust, the second man of worth
Is the lord from heaven. 48 As of dust,
So also those who’re made of dust,
And as the heavenly, so also
Those heavenly in the heavenly glow.
49 And as we have borne image of
The dust, we’ll bear image above
Of the celestial. 50 Now I say,
Brothers, that flesh and blood cannot
Inherit God’s kingdom as taught,
Nor does corruption become heir
Of incorruption and the fair.

Paul answers Christian Sadducee who asks
How can the body rise from earth to tasks
Of heaven, once the body’s dead and gone?
Paul’s word’s a masterpiece of balance drawn.
The gauge of resurrection is the act
Of making Adam of clay into fact.
The resurrection of the Christ makes true
The possibility of raising stew.
As Adam once of clay brought for all men,
So Christ in waking once wakes all again.
Not logic but structure makes argument
And Paul is most modern in his dissent.
Beloved, I care not for the future state.
Awaken from sleep and death as I wait.

51 Indeed, I tell you mystery:
We shall not all sleep, but go free,
We shall be all changed 52 in a trice,
The twinkling of an eye suffice,
At the last trumpet. For the trump
Will sound, and the dead hear the bump
And be raised incorruptible,
And we shall be changed to the full.
53 For this corruptible must put
On incorruption head to foot,
And this mortal also put on
It immortality at dawn.
54 So when corruptible has put
On incorruption, and this mortal
Has put on at the dawning’s portal
Its immortality, then shall
Be brought to pass the pivotal
Word written: “Death is swallowed up
In victory.” 55 “O Death, speak up,
Where is your sting? O Hades, where
Is your victory on the fair?”
56 The sting of death is sin, the strength
Of sin lies in the law at length.
57 But thanks to God, who gives sufficed
The victory through Jesus Christ
Our Lord in all his power and strength.
58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be
Steadfast, immovable, to see
Always abounding in the work
Of the Lord, knowing not to shirk
That your labour is not in vain
In the Lord whether sun or rain.

The sum of all the argument that stands
Among the sects under Roman commands
Is that all labour done for Your sweet name
And for Your glory on earth just the same
Is not vain, despite petty griefs and words,
The veils of darkness that prevent the sherds
From being visible to traveller’s eye.
The arguments are phantoms passing by.
Yet stones there be, both concrete and the sharp
That injure foot and make me play my harp
A sour note among all the heavenly joys.
Beloved, look not on human toys and ploys.
Steadfast, immovable, I stand beneath Your rain
And count my meagre losses and my gain.


1 About collecting money for
The saints, as I have said before
In orders to the groups of called
Out ones of Galatia installed,
So I say you must do also:
2 On the first of the week or so
Let each one of you lay aside
Something, storing up to divide
As he may prosper, that there be
No collections when presently
I shall arrive. 3 And when I come,
Whomever you approve in sum
By letters I will send to bear
Your gift unto Jerusalem.
4 But if it is fitting that I
Go also, they will go with me.

The laying aside must take place at home,
And not in church under steeple or dome.
There is no evidence, least of all here,
That taking up an offering of the gear
Is part of Pauline liturgy and dear.
The laying aside takes place on the first
Day of the week, after the Sabbath burst
Has celebrated and been paid for, so
Collection will not detract from the show
Of Sabbath celebration, but be drawn
From what is left after the first day dawn.
Beloved, I leave a gift here once again
In mind only, since I’m not in the den,
For the poor of Jerusalem now gone.

5 Now I will come to you when I
Pass through Macedonia (for I
Am passing through Macedonia).
6 And it may be that I’ll remain,
Or even spend the winter rain
With you, that you may send me on
The journey that I set upon.
7 For I do not wish to see you
Now on the way, but I hope true
To stay a little while with you,
If the Lord permits me to do.
8 But I will stay in Ephesus
Until the Pentecost hits us.
9 For a great and effective door
Has opened to me, on the floor
Are many adversaries’ fuss.

It seems that St. Paul remembers the date
Of Pentecost if not to celebrate.
He could not follow calendar of Rome,
Because there was no Julian at home.
He could not follow that of good Hillel,
Because he was not found in Israel.
He may have counted by the Jubilees,
Or by that of the cunning Pharisees
In calculations round the moon in store.
One just does not know what he did before.
Beloved, my choice is Jubilees, since I
Have taken that book from Axumic sky,
And it above all shows the Sabbath day
To be central in everything You say.

10 Now if Timothy comes, see that
He may be with you without fear,
For he does the work of the Lord,
As I also did where I sat.
11 Therefore let no one despise here
Who girds him with the Lord God’s sword.
But send him on his way in peace,
That he may come to me, surcease,
For I expect him with the brothers.
12 Now about Apollos, for others
I strongly urged him to come to
You with the brothers or a few,
But he was unwilling to come
At this time, but he will in sum,
When he has a convenient time
Unfettered by my prose and rhyme.
13 Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave,
Be strong. 14 Let all you do or crave
Be done with love. 15 And I urge you,
Brothers, you know the household of
Stephanas, that it is the first love
Of Achaia, and that they have
Devoted themselves all to serve
The saints, 16 that you also not swerve
Submitting to such, and to all
Who work with labour on the ball
17 I’m glad about Stephanas’ coming,
Fortunatus, and Achaicus rumming,
For what was lacking on your part
They supplied with a loving heart.
18 For they refreshed my spirit and
Yours also, therefore recognize
All such men’s working as a prize.

The four gates Paul expresses here are law,
And loving way, awareness, and the paw
Of truth. For law he would be watchful and
Faithful and brave and strong upon the land.
For tariqat he follows that all should
Be done in love, each action kind and good.
For ma’rifat he praises those who serve
The faithful in all hospitable verve,
Submitting to each other being ware
Of the divine I that is each one’s share.
For haqiqat he brings us down to earth
To give alms to the needy, alms of worth.
Beloved, I follow St. Paul in the way
Of loving You and Yours from day to day.

19 The groups of called out ones of Asia
Greet you. Aquila, not to phase you,
Priscilla greet you heartily
In the Lord, with the artily
Group of called out ones that is in
Their house where they meet without sin.
20 All the brothers greet you. Greet one
Another with holy kiss done.
21 Greetings in my own hand, from Paul.
22 If anyone loves not at all
The Lord Christ Jesus, let him be
Accursed. O Lord, come, set us free!
23 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
Be with you, 24 and with my love spiced
Remain you all in Jesus Christ. Amen.

The master of the age was Jesus Christ,
And lord indeed upon the earth surpliced,
Despite the fact that earthly powers of late
Have usurped government in house and gate.
Rome ruled its centuries and after that
Ten kingdoms in its seat and place have sat.
But through it all the master of the age
That You, Beloved, appointed has been sage,
And each in his own time and place reigned well
To teach the true child if not infidel.
Though masters of the age in occultation
May seem to leave the world without a ration,
It still remains that all are cursed who say
Invisible is gone and passed away.


The Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians

St. Paul lays his soul bare before the crowd
That's listened to newcomers and the proud
Who claim a better place upon the cloud
Than Paul. He's strong to make a strong defence
Of his authority for the more dense,
And to attach it to the Gospel light,
As though to reject Paul beneath Your sight,
Beloved, is to reject the Gospel might.
I do not doubt the message, I say true:
The one who stands opposing in the pew
The underdog, will find on closer view
That he neglects the very sight of You,
Who peer out from the eye and brain of each
Man, woman, child and slave or freeman's peach.

AUTHOR: THOMAS G. MCELWAIN

Copyright © 2007 Adams & McElwain Publishers and Thomas McElwain First Published in two volumes, The Beloved and I 2005, and Led of the Beloved, 2006. Second Edition, 2010 Third and revised edition, 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this verse commentary on the sacred Scriptures may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from publisher.

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