GALATIANS CHAPTER 1 - 6

Most primitive of Baptists, I lay down
The dogma of Predestination's crown,
Affirming that the path of righteousness
Is not in doing but just to confess
The act of grace that You perform in me
By showing my total depravity
To my dark heart, and in that act of grace
Giving me life eternal and a place.
But when Galatians is quoted to make
Your blessèd Sabbath keeping a mistake,
I rise in wrath and sacred joy to say
The return that's exposed in pagan way,
And not rejection of the Sabbath day.
Raise once again Your mighty arm in sway.


1 Paul, an apostle (not from men
Nor through man, but by the great yen
Of Jesus Christ and God the Father
Who raised him up from the dead rather),
2 And all the brothers here with me,
To the groups of called out ones free
Of Galatia: 3 Grace to you, peace
From God the Father and increase
From our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave
Himself for our sins, that from grave
To save us from this wicked world,
According to the will unfurled
Of our God and Father, 5 to whom
Be glory ever and amen.

It’s not yet clear, Beloved, how sending Christ
Saves from our sins and wicked world sufficed.
But it is clear that You alone are God
And Jesus Christ is a man on the sod.
They have not one nature nor substance shared
In secret and apart from what is bared,
But You remain the sovereign of all things,
While Jesus Christ came in rival of kings.
Maybe the question of such power is what
Confuses minds that philosophy’s shut.
You will that I be saved from wicked thought
And act of this age and the world untaught,
And for this sweet Paul gives glory and praise
To You alone for everlasting days.

6 I marvel that you turn so soon
From Him who called you to the room
Of grace in Christ to seek a new
And different gospel that’s not true,
7 Which is not other, but the word
Of some who troubled you and blurred
The gospel of Christ as occurred.
8 But even if we, or one sent
From heaven, preach any gospel bent
To you besides the one we meant
Let him be cursed without relent.
9 As we have said before, so now
I say again, if anyhow
Or anyone preaches to you
Another gospel but the true
That you’ve received, let him be cursed
Because he spoke and did the worst.

I do not marvel that the people turn
Away from truth as soon as they can learn
A false way and a vision they should spurn.
That’s just the way of every heart I know.
I too turn from the deathly gospel show
Of Your own preaching on the mountain peak.
I too leave off the bread of truth and seek
The empty husks as soon as silence breaks
The tinkling melodies that Your word makes.
But what amazes me is that the sweet
Apostle lays a curse before the feet
Of preachers and of priests, not only those,
But popes and bishops and uncovered toes
Of mullah and rabbi, all set in rows.

10 For am I arguing with men
Or with God? Or do I try then
To satisfy men? For if I
Still satisfied men, then would I
Not be a slave of Christ, would I?
11 But I reveal a thing to you,
Brothers, that the gospel which you
Heard preached by me is not of man.
12 For I did not receive the plan
From man, nor was I taught, but it
Came through the revelation fit
Of Jesus Christ. 13 For you have heard
Of my former doings when stirred
In Judaism, how I drove
Out ruthlessly called out and strove
For God to destroy that group’s grove.
14 And I went in the Jewish pay
Beyond many of my own day
And in my own nation’s array,
More zealous for ancestors’ way.

Beloved, You too have shown the better way
To me, a humble servant where I stay,
And given me the heavenly vision’s light
To hear the Gospel of Sinai in sight.
Beloved, I too like Paul have been around
The fathers and the mothers in the sound
Of screech and caw of every Christian hymn,
And turned aside from everything so dim.
Beloved, I turn from everything I’ve kept
Holy apart from You, all things I’ve wept
To lose upon the shore of revelation.
I stand with emptied hand in heart for ration
And find my zeal unbaked until the true
Overwhelms everything I thought I knew.

15 But when it pleased God, who brought me
From my mother’s womb and called me
By His grace, 16 to reveal His Son
In me, so I’d proclaim when done
Among the Gentiles, I did not
Straight off take counsel to be taught
By flesh and blood, 17 nor did I go
Up to Jerusalem to show
To those apostles before me,
But I went into Araby,
Then came back to Damascus free.
18 After three years I went up to
Jerusalem to interview
Peter, staying there two weeks’ time.
19 I saw none of the other men
Of the apostles except when
I spoke with James, the Lord’s brother.
20 As for the things I here infer
To you, indeed before God great
I simply don’t prevaricate.
21 After that I went to the lands
Of Syria and Cilicia’s strands.
22 I was unknown by face to those
Called out ones of Judaea’s rows
Who were in Christ. 23 But they just heard
“The one who used to kick our turd
Now preaches the faith that he once
Destroyed in every place he hunts.”
24 They glorified God in my stunts.

It may be just the problem with the child,
That he went off into the desert wild
To contemplate his vision of the light
Instead of sitting at the feet in sight
Of Peter and of James to get it right.
I’ll not complain, for I too make my way
Among the claimants of the light of day
And turn aside to seek Your face alone
And come before You on Your sovereign throne.
I too am untaught by the inclement
Hand of the churchly justice on a bent.
But few there be who glorify the fact
That I turn from tradition in the act
And meet You in the desert to make pact.


1 Then after fourteen years I went
Up to Jerusalem in vent
With Barnabas, and also took
Titus with me to have a look.
2 And I went up by revelation,
Declaring to them of the ration
Of that gospel which I preach to
The Gentiles, but privately to
Those who were of good name, lest I
In any way might run or fry
In vain. 3 Yet not even Titus
Who was with me, Greek without fuss,
Was forced into circumcised muss.
4 And because of some brothers false
Secretly brought in where you waltz
To spy on the freedom that we
Have in Christ Jesus, to decree
Our slavery, 5 to whom we did not
Submit for even one hour’s slot,
So that the gospel truth might stay
With you. 6 But from those who in pay
Seemed to be great, whatever they
Were makes no difference to me,
God gives no man monopoly,
For those raised high add nothing to
The gospel that I share with you.

There are those visible in church and state
That seem to be appointed to Your rate
Today who do not agree with the word
That You once gave to Peter and the stirred
Apostle Paul. And yet in that time past
It seems there was a disagreement fast,
Despite the presence of renowned to cast
Authority about them everywhere
That light and love shown on the unaware.
Beloved, if in that lovely time of youth
The called out ones could not resolve on truth,
Then how can any now appear to find
The way among the leading of the blind?
I flee to You and Your commandments kind.

7 On the contrary, when they saw
The gospel for uncircumcised
Had been remitted to my paw,
As was that gospel recognized
By circumcised to Peter lent,
8 For He who made effective in
Peter apostleship to win
The circumcised also in me
Favoured the Gentiles to be free,
9 And when James, Cephas, and John, who
Seemed to be pillars, took in view
The grace that had been given me,
They gave me and Barnabas free
Right hand of fellowship, that we
Should go to the Gentiles and they
To the circumcised in the way,
10 Only on condition that we
Should remember the poor in fee,
Which we also did eagerly.

Though James and Peter strove to teach the right
To every faithful Jewess’ son in sight,
The others, Paul and Barnabas, were sent
To teach the Gentiles everywhere they went.
Perhaps the different views these men maintained
Were rooted in the fact Paul was not stained
With imitation of another’s action.
Such independence would result in faction.
Let all men be as enemies together,
Or be at one in any kind of weather,
The thing I choose is not the one or other,
To be or not to be somebody’s brother,
But to submit myself in all to You
Until there is no self but what is true.

11 When Peter came to Antioch,
I came opposing face like rock
Because he was guilty, 12 when he,
Before some men came from James’ See,
He’d eat with Gentiles, but when they
Came, he stopped that and stood apart,
Fearing the circumcised ones’ dart.
13 The other Jews were hypocrites
With him, even Barnabas’ fits
Were carried with their hypocrites.
14 But when I saw that they were not
Honest about the gospel taught,
I told Peter before them all,
“If you, being a Jew in thrall,
Live like the Gentiles and not like
The Jews, why do you want to strike
The Gentiles to live as Jews hike?

Paul, who’s himself a Jew to Jew and yet
A Roman to the Roman when he’s met,
Tells his side of the story as though all
Were in the wrong, he only on the ball.
That in itself makes me suspect his vice
Is he can’t get along since he’s not nice.
A Jew to Jew and Roman to such ones
Ought to mind that Peter kept to his guns
When he was willing to eat with unclean
When with unclean, and when the Jews arrived
Was willing not to offend the survived.
Paul here refuses to accept the truth
That here’s a clash of persons both in ruth,
And not a matter of heresy’s booth.

15 “We Jews by nature born and bred,
Not sinners of the Gentiles’ spread,
16 “Knowing that man’s not justified
By works of the law to deride,
But by the faith in Jesus Christ,
Even we have believed in Christ
Jesus, so we’d be justified
By faith in Christ and not by deeds
Of the law, for by the works’ seeds
Of the law’s no flesh justified.
17 “But if, while we seek to be set
Right by Christ, we ourselves are met
Also as sinners, is Christ then
A minister of sin to men?
Not on your life! 18 “For if I build
Again what I’ve destroyed and stilled,
I turn into transgressor filled.
19 “For I through the law died to law
That I might live to God in awe.
20 “I have been crucified with Christ,
It is no longer I surpliced
Who live, but that Christ lives in me,
And the life which I now live free
In the flesh I live by faith in
The Son of God [Messiah’s win],
Who loved me and gave Himself for
Me to keep me within His door.
21 I do not set aside the grace
Of God, for if righteousness’ place
Is by the law, then the dear Christ
Died in vain when he sacrificed.

Indeed, Christ died in vain, as dear Paul thought,
If by some dying any could be taught
Obedience to You, Beloved, could be
Set to one side and sinners left as free
To fornicate and eat blood without blame.
But why accuse of playing double game,
Denying gospel, and whatever bad?
The one who disagrees with Paul is sad.
The issue was not this or that but whether
The Gentile who believes, though of a feather
Uncircumcised, is thereby found unclean,
And with such ones unlawful to be seen.
Without rejecting law or gospel many
A scholar now says all are clean or any.


1 Foolish Galatians! Who’s bewitched you
Not to obey the truth that stitched you,
Before whose eyes Jesus Christ clearly
Was shown crucified with you dearly?
2 Just one thing I would have you tell me:
Did you acquire spirit to spell me
By deeds of the law or by hearing
Of the faith preached to you endearing?
3 Are you so foolish? Once begun
In the spirit, will you have fun
Becoming perfect in the flesh?
4 Did you go through in vain the mesh
Of suffering, if indeed in vain?
5 So He who gives you spirit’s gain
And works among you wonders’ share,
Does He accomplish it by deeds
Of the law or hearing faith’s seeds?

I must be a fool too, since by my name
I am Galatian or of Celtic fame.
Yet I do not deride the fleshly way
Of moving toward the law in all I say.
What of those men who pull foreskins today
To try and undo circumcision’s sway?
The attitude of flesh comes in a coin
Of two sides, surely, and the twain must join.
Beloved, I see no wonders done in me,
Not by obedience nor by degree
Of spirit poured out on fraternity.
My salvation is not reward nor care,
But only constantly finding You there,
My vision of Your single love’s decree.

6 Just as Abraham “believed God,
And it was counted him in pod
For righteousness.” 7 Therefore know that
Those who are of faith on the mat
Are sons of Abraham out flat.
8 The Scripture, foreseeing that God
Would put the Gentiles right by faith,
Preached beforehand the gospel wraith
To Abraham, saying, “In you
All nations shall be blessed in crew.”
9 So those of faith are truly blessed
With faithful Abraham confessed.
10 As many as are from law’s works
Are under a curse for their quirks.
For it’s been written ”Cursed is each
Who does not continue to reach
All the things written in the book
Of the law, to do them like crook.”

Alright, I added the word “crook”, but see,
Only a crook thinks he can readily
Gain all things by obeying selfishly
The letter of the law, as though set free
From the one You sent to rule faithfully.
The crooks in the established church to be
In Palestine in the first century
Praised the law, it is true, and kept decree,
And yet they did it in abuse to set
Aside Your rule and be the Caesar’s pet.
The law became for them a trap and net,
That should have been a letter of love lost
Not on the ones that You, Beloved, had bossed.
The law alone leaves the soul tempest-tossed.

11 So no one’s justified by law
Before God, that is clear with awe
Because the just shall live by faith,
Or faithfulness to sent one’s wraith.
12 But law is not of faith, but, "He
Who does these things shall live freely
In them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from curse
Of the law, having become worse
For us; for see it has been written,
“Cursed is everyone who’s been bitten
Having been hung on a tree fitting;”
14 That the blessing of Abraham
Might be to the nations in Christ
Jesus, that we might without scam
Receive the promise that’s sufficed
The spirit through faith unenticed.

Justified is by faith and by faith more
No doubt is sanctification in store.
The issue's not obedience at all,
But the inheritance upon the ball.
The blessing does not depend on the rate
Of doing well before the golden gate.
But it were a perversity to state
That for that reason disobedience
Is order of the day in Gospel tents.
Beloved, I doubt the hand that takes the plough
And leave no furrow in the field somehow,
And yet the furrow that I leave, I trow,
Is crooked like a dog's hind leg to see.
Plant spirals of corn to grow up from me.

15 Brothers, I speak as a man might,
A covenant being set right,
Even among folk, no one lays
Aside or adds to it in maze.
16 Now to Abraham and his seed
Were the promises made indeed.
He does not say to seeds as though
To many, but as one to show,
And to your seed, that is to Christ.
17 And I say this, the covenant
That was confirmed by God in Christ,
Beforehand, law, which is extant
Four hundred thirty years in cant
Afterwards, cannot disannul,
That it should make the promise dull.
18 For if inheritance comes in
By law, it's no longer the bin
Of promise, but God gave it then
To Abraham by promise yen.
19 Why then the law? It came to be
Added because transgressions' fee,
Till the seed should come in degree
To whom the promise first was made,
Ordained by angels in parade
Of mediation to be stayed.
20 Now mediator's not for one,
But God is one alone when done.
21 Is law against God's promise, then?
May God forbid, if there had been
A law revealed that could give life,
Truly righteousness in the strife
Should have been by the law and knife.

Paul shows himself a Pharisee at last
In that he would choose law in the last cast
If by that choice he could gain in the blast
Of death the life that he hopes for at mast.
If there had been such a law, he tells me,
That could give life beneath a greener tree,
He would have taken that instead of one
Who tried and failed to make the kingdom done,
As Schweitzer claimed in reading out of Mark.
We might as well all go and storm the park.
Beloved, in love or law, in Gospel tune,
I stand to mark my own marking in rune,
And find the way to sing as well as do
Is still revealed in visions here of You.

22 But Scripture puts all under sin,
So that the promise by faith's bin
Of Jesus Christ might be revealed
Their heritage by faith they wield.
23 But before faith came, we were kept
Under the law, enclosed and swept
Into the faith that should in time
Become apparent to our climb.
24 That's why the law was our schoolmaster
Toward Christ, so that we might faster
Be put right by faith for our crime.

Not true, except in local sphere that Paul
Experienced from the Romans at the wall
And from the Pharisees that make his call.
Many there be without sin at the check
Besides good Job and a man born a wreck,
And his two parents. Many more there be.
Perhaps even Joseph is one to see.
Before faith came to Paul, faith had brought clear
To Abraham and Moses every cheer,
So we were kept under the law before
Only by Sadducean priests in store.
But it is true that law brings to the Christ,
The one to implement what had sufficed.

25 But after faith has come we are
No longer under teacher's bar.
26 For all of you a God's own spawn
By faith in Christ Jesus when drawn.
27 For every one of you baptized
In Christ have put on Christ devised.
28 There's neither Jew nor Greek at all,
There's neither bond nor free to fall,
Neither be male nor female, for
You're all one in Christ Jesus' store.
29 And if you're Christ's then you've become
The seed of Abraham in sum,
Heirs by the promise set before.

If Christ is Your son and all who join him
In dunking in the river to be dim
Have put on Christ, and so are one and trim
In him, without distinction grey and grim,
Then all are heirs of Abraham and take
Eternal life or at least in its wake
A share in the inheritance You make.
The most that I see though are still about
As man or woman despite unishout,
So I guess just the trans is given the lot,
Inheritance in what Your heaven has taught.
The others wait an operation still
Perhaps because no one would foot the bill.
Paul in his guile in his own words is caught.


1 Now I say that the heir, as long
As he's a child can sing no song
More than a servant, though he be
The master of all he can see.
2 But he's set under teachers and
Masters until the time to stand
Appointed at his father's hand.
3 Even so we, when we were small,
Were in the bondage under thrall
Of this world's elements withall.
4 But when fullness of time had come,
God sent out His son made in sum
Of a woman, under the law,
5 Redeeming those under the law
To get adoption as sons' awe.
6 And since you're sons, God has sent out
The Spirit of His son about
Into your hearts come out to cry,
“Abba, Father, don't pass me by.”
7 That's why you are no more a slave,
But a son, and if son, behave
As an heir of God through Christ's wave.

The sons who are heirs of a great estate
Today as any day have as their fate
The bondage to take care of what they hold
In property to come in from the cold.
There are some sons who dissipate the whole
In drink, dames, gambling on their dice of coal.
But such sons are by many fathers sent
Out without their inheritance unlent.
Beloved, let me obey the house rules where
I take adoption on the golden stair,
And in my gratitude or love to share
Not entertain the thought that I might leave
Your law to blow my nose upon my sleeve
Or touch the ten commands to make You grieve.

8 But when you did not know God, you
Did service to those that in view
Are not gods at all in the pew.
9 But now, after you've come to know
God, or rather stand up to show
Before God, how can you turn back
To weak and beggarly in stack,
Wishing their bondage on your track?
10 You observe days and months and times
And years. 11 I fear for you by mimes,
Lest I've worked in vain for your crimes.

Some friends of mine are sure Paul means to say
That You no longer keep the Sabbath day.
But the days mentioned here are the days met
When those Galatians of old time were set
To worship idols, to which they return
By their regard for the days that You spurn.
If any day that's kept today is one
Of those referred to by Paul on the run,
It has to be a day of pagan rites
Such as Sunday, Easter or Christmas nights.
Beloved, though I may not know You, You ken
Me and the works of all my brither men.
Let me take neither idol nor the play
Of celebration other than Your sway.

12 Brothers, I beg you, be as I,
For I'm as you are, your reply
Did not hurt me at all, that's why.
13 You know how through infirmity
Of flesh I preached the gospel free
To you at the first faithfully.
14 And my trial in my flesh you did
Not despise nor reject, but bid
Me welcome as angel of God,
As Christ Jesus upon the sod.
15 Then where's the happiness you claim?
For I bear witness of the same,
That if you could have, you'd have plucked
Our your own eyes to save me trucked.
16 Have I then so become your foe,
Because I tell you straight what's so?
17 They zealously affected you,
But not well, see they'd exclude you,
So you might affect them in view.
18 But it's good to be strongly touched
Always in a good thing that's clutched,
And not just when I'm there with you.
19 My little children, of whom I
Labour in birth again till by
You is formed Christ in you come nigh,
20 I wish to be now there with you,
And change my voice, for I'm in doubt
About you whether in the rout.
21 Tell me, you want to be submitted
To the law, don't you hear law quitted?

What is the image then of Christ that Paul
Wishes to be written on the heart's wall?
Is it a different writing that the law
Writ on the tables of the flesh with claw?
I trow not, since the ten commandments came
As the sound on Your tongue, Beloved, in fame,
And Christ is said to be the word made flesh,
And so Christ and the law must now enmesh.
But every priest I find would take the two
And separate them from each other's view,
As though Paul prayed that law be laid to rest
And only Christ by contrast be the best.
If Christ is contrast, he's imposter's vest,
And I am here among the devil's crew.

22 For it is written Abraham
Had two sons, one a bondmaid's lamb,
The other by a free wife's cam.
23 But the one of bondwoman born
Was after the flesh there to scorn;
But the one born of free wife came
By promise and one without shame.
24 This is an allegory too:
For these are covenants of two;
The one from Sinai's mount in view
Which genders to bondage in pew,
Which is Hagar. 25 For Hagar true
Is Mount Sinai in Arabia,
And corresponds with tooth and claw
To Jerusalem which now is,
And is in bondage with her biz.
26 But the Jerusalem on high
Is free, and mother of each guy.
27 For it is written, “Rejoice now
You barren who bears not in trough,
Break out and shout, you who do not
Labour, for desolate in plot
Has many more offspring that she
Who has a husband she can see.”

The allegory that good St. Paul makes
Between Isaac and Ishmael in the stakes
May have a point to show that Israel then
Had abused law before the Roman den,
But as a guide to Jew in Palestine
It lacks the lustre of the better shine.
Fact is that Palestinian in fate
Is just as much a child of the estate
Of Abraham, and due place under sun.
Faith and the politics upon the run
Are two distinct and clever things in rate.
Beloved, save Jew and Muslim for their brave
Witness that You are One, not in the grave,
And give the Christian too a hand to wave.

28 Now we, brothers, as Isaac then,
Are children of promise again.
29 But as then, the one who was born
After the flesh came then to scorn
The one born after spirit's bourne,
Even so it is now forlorn.
30 Yet what does the Scripture now say?
Cast out the bondmaid and her stray,
For the son of the bondmaid may
Not be heir with the free wife's stay.
31 So then, brothers we're not the spawn
Of the bondmaid, but of free drawn.

Truth is both sons were born in flesh to be
The answer to a promise made freely
By You, Beloved, You promised both to come
As fathers of great nations for a crumb.
So one is not a spirit or a wraith,
The other one's not lacking in his faith.
Of one flesh are the two, one spirit made
The worshippers of One God on parade.
Beloved, though I am neither Isaac's seed
Nor Arab on a faster sort of steed,
Still I take You, the God of both, in need,
And ply the Negev with a motor till
I see the hope of Dead Sea's higher hill,
And come to rest somewhere to foot the bill.


1 Stand fast therefore in liberty
By which Christ has made us all free,
And do not be entangled in
The yoke of bondage which is sin.

By Christian liberty we mean today
Not to be bound by the yoke of Your sway,
Obedience to Your will expressed in law
And in the conscience of men in Your awe.
By Christian liberty today we mean
That we can eat anything on the scene,
No matter how revolting it may be,
The mouse, the serpent and the gross piggy.
Beloved, all Christians praise Your holy name
That You sent Your Son to bear cruel shame
So they could be released from burdens that
Prevent them from eating the good fried rat,
And so permit them to lay obligation
On Sabbath day on every tongue and nation.

2 Behold, I Paul say to you, if
You get circumcised for a chiff
Christ cannot benefit your skiff.
3 For I testify once again
To every man who's in the den
Of circumcision, that he's just
A debtor to the whole law's must.
4 Christ has become useless to you,
Who are justified by the due
Of the law; you've fallen from grace.
5 For we through the Spirit in place
Wait for the hope of righteousness
By faith. 6 For in Jesus Christ's dress
Neither circumcision avails
Nor uncircumcision entails,
But faith which acts of love in sails.

I guess I fell from grace before the time
That I started to speak in metered rhyme.
I fell from grace when just a baby born,
Hardly a week old in the winter's scorn,
When I was circumcised and thus set out
Of bounds of the saved in Christian redoubt.
I'd rather, for my place, take all the law,
Including the small shovel held in claw
To bury excrements, than to join in
The law of jungle and Methodist din
Of pagan worship taught by pagan drum
To shout Your praises out instead of hum.
Beloved, forgive my great rebellion here
As I cling to the Word that I hold dear.

7 You did run well, who hindered you
From obeying the thing that's true?
8 This persuasion does not come from
Him who calls you where you should come.
9 A little yeast leavens the whole.
10 I trust you through the Lord in toll
That you will not intend a goal
Other than this, but the one who
Troubles you shall bear his blame too,
Whoever he may be in view.
11 And I, brothers, if I still preach
Circumcision, why do I reach
Pain of the persecutor's screech?
Then is the offence of the cross
Ended and it has come to loss.
12 I wish that they were cut off who
Come in to trouble all your crew.

I guess that Paul desires his foes to be
Circumcised once more and this time's degree
To take six inches instead of just bit
Of the foreskin between the legs that sit.
He wants to cut off everyone who chides
The freedom of his hopes and hopeful sides.
Beloved, I know You do love Paul as well
As all apostles You've not sent to hell,
And so I let them at it for a spell
To quarrel among themselves while I reap
The benefit of Your Word in a heap.
The circumcision has no weight with me,
Who merely come on Sabbath from the spree
Reciting Psalms and Torah faithfully.

13 For brothers, you've been called to be
Free, only don't use liberty
For an occasion to the flesh,
But by love serve each other fresh.
14 For all the law's fulfilled in one
Word, this: you'll love your neighbour done
As you love yourself on the run.
15 But if you bite and eat each other,
Be careful you're devoured by brother.
16 I say then, “Walk in Spirit's way,
Not to fulfil flesh-lust in sway.”
17 For flesh lusts against Spirit's sway,
And Spirit against fleshly way,
And these are in conflict, so that
You cannot do the good you're at.

Serve or be served, I think the liberty
Not to take chances of the fleshly spree
Is one so rare in modern company
That any who refrains from sin must keep
It secret from the church or learn to weep.
Beloved, let me not serve the flesh, and I
Will serve Your sanctuary writ on high,
And in that service find the smoke and scent
A blessing on a life though fleshly meant.
But when love folds the course of golden days
And takes the carriage out for divine praise,
I'll kneel myself before the quandered maze,
Until the song of liberty rings down
And silence of the darkness quips the town.

18 But if you're led by Spirit, you
Are not under the law to stew.
19 Now the works of the flesh are clear:
Adultery, fornication dear,
Uncleanness, lasciviousness too,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft in view,
Hatred and variance to do,
And emulations, wrath, and strife,
Seditions, heresies as rife,
21 Envy, murders, and drunkenness,
And revellings and like address:
Of which I tell you as I've told
You in times past, that those who're bold
To do these things shall not for rod
Inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But fruit of the Spirit is love,
Joy, peace, longsuffering, gentle shove,
Goodness, and faith, meekness in claw,
Temperance, against such is no law.
24 And those who're Christ's have crucified
The flesh with its attractions wide
And its lusts taken on the side.
25 If we live in the Spirit, let's
Also walk where the Spirit sets.
26 Let's not hope for vain glory then,
Provoking one another's wen,
And envying each other's den.

Paul says we are not under any law,
And then goes on denying it in paw.
He says that those who break the law shall not
Enter into the heavenly sort of plot.
He then describes the fruit of Spirit done,
And says no law prohibits such a run.
In so doing Paul makes appeal two times
To law belaboured for both joy and crimes.
Beloved, I flee the arguments of men,
Of Jews of the first century, again
Of Romans out to conquer every glen.
Instead, Beloved, I take Your Word as true
And telling me the things I ought to do
Whether or not I sit upon a pew.


1 Brothers, if a man's caught in fault,
You who are spiritual in malt,
Restore that one in meek result,
Minding you too in some Gestalt
May be tempted to fall or halt.
2 So bear each other's burdens, and
In that way fulfil Christ's command.
3 For if a man thinks he is great
When he is nothing, blind's his state.
4 But let each man test his own work,
And so rejoice he does not shirk.
5 For every man shall bear his own
Burden of life here and alone.
6 Let him that is taught in the word
Provide his teacher from the herd.
7 Don't be deceived, God is not mocked:
For what a man sows, he'll reap chocked.

I've had a teacher or two that prevailed
To teach me something of Your Word well-scaled.
But the most valuable of such I met
With only thanks and no provisions set.
By the same token, I've taught many here
In this dark world and full of grief and fear
Who benefited from the things I said
About the revelation here outspread.
I've taught with and without a cent in pay,
And given where there was a hope of ray,
Until the coming of the better day.
Beloved, I sit at Your feet now and then,
More than I sit at feet of any men,
And find Your teaching free in forest glen.

8 For he who sows to his flesh must
Of the flesh reap corruption's dust;
But he who sows to Spirit's way
Shall of the Spirit reap the sway
Of everlasting life to play.
9 And let us not be weary in
Well doing; for in due season
We shall reap, if we do not spin.
10 As often as we have the chance,
Let us do good to all who dance,
Especially of household of faith.
11 You see how big letters in wraith
I've written with my own hand's lance.

Well-doing is not something Paul rejects,
Although I get that thought from the suspects
Who claim to be the bishops of the church.
They tell me that the only thing on perch
Is faith in blood of Christ, Tammuz or Baal,
Dionysos before the holy grail.
I let them spout for all they're muddy worth
Until they choke upon their sunken dearth.
Beloved, the spirt and the spirit's way
Is performed in the flesh, let Jesus say,
Since he came in the flesh to make men gay.
No wonder Paul writes big when he makes clear
That doing well is not a thing to fear
But rather reasoned way to go and steer.

12 As many as desire to make
A fair show in the flesh, they take
You to be circumcised; unless
They should suffer at your address
Some persecution for the cross
Of Christ, as though they were at loss.
13 For neither they themselves who are
Circumcised stay to keep the law;
But wish to have you circumcised
To glory in your flesh revised.
14 But God forbid that I should boast,
Except just in the cross at most
Of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom
The world is crucified in room
To me, and I to the world's doom.
15 For in Christ Jesus there avails
Neither circumcision in sales,
Nor uncircumcision, but just
A new creature rose from the dust.
16 And all who're acting by this rule,
Peace be to them, and mercy's school,
And on God's Israel as must.
17 From now on do not bother me,
For I bear marks in my body
Of the Lord Jesus, set me free.
18 Brothers, the grace come down again
Of our Lord Jesus Christ to men
Be with your spirit, and amen.

Paul lashes out with hurt pride and with flesh
Bruised by the persecutions he finds fresh
Amid the Pharisees of his own ilk
Who will not eat the meat while drinking milk.
He lashes out, and then he calls a truce,
Refuses to response to drinking juice.
So I shall let him bear his marks in peace.
The truth is resolution for his fleece
Was never found, the stalemate set the course
For everything in that century's divorce.
It's only later that Paul wins the day
By being taken in the canon's sway,
Despite abuse of exegete and priest,
The ones who pretend flesh is now released.

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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