COLOSSIANS CHAPTER 1 - 4

THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE COLOSSIANS

This writing of Paul is one sought out well
By those who would destroy Your law and bell
And show the blessèd Sabbath day to be
An empty old Jewish ceremony.
The rudiments of Gnostic thought combine
With excesses unknown to modern wine,
And so each reader who's not caught divine
Act of grace finds a place of stumbling fine.
I follow Paul in his example here
To keep the Sabbath day with heart and ear,
And still recite my Psalms with faithful cheer
And let no man decry or judge my fear.
I judge no man, but turn to find Your grace
Sufficient to reward the human race.

COLOSSIANS 1

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus
By will of God, and not to please us,
And Timothy our brother, 2 to
The saints and faithful brothers who
Are in Christ and in Colosse:
Grace to you and peace in the way
From God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. 3 We give thanks outpoured
To the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, a man of power,
Praying always for you, 4 since we
Heard of your faithfulness to be
In Christ Jesus and of your love
For all the saints, 5 and because of
The hope which is laid up for you
In heaven, of which you heard that’s true
Before and in the gospel word,
6 Which has come to you, also heard
In all the world, and brings forth fruit,
As also among you to boot
Since the day that you heard and knew
The grace of God in what is true,
7 As you too learned from Epaphras,
Our dear fellow servant to pass
A faithful minister of Christ
On your behalf, 8 who has sufficed
Also to declare to us all
Your charity in spirit's thrall.

I doubt that any group of Christians can
In fact be charitable where I scan
The group dynamics that always come in
To play in lieu of wickedness and sin.
The pecking hoarder of the boost is best
Seen in the perch of churchly sort of rest.
But tongue in cheek I trow wee Paul is crest
Arisen to inspire the folk to win.
Beloved, the faithful minister of Christ
Is often among those who chose and sliced
The bread too thin for meals that had sufficed.
Let me be servant of both all and none,
A slave to hope and let my course well run
Find You still basking here under the sun.

9 For this reason we also, since
The day we heard it, do not wince
To pray for you, and ask that you
May be filled with the knowledge true
Of his will in all wisdom and
Understanding at spirit's hand,
10 That you walk worthy of the Lord,
In all pleasing him, and restored
In every good work and increased
In knowledge of God, 11 and released
Strong in all power, according to
His glorious power, and come in view
For patience all and so employ
Always longsuffering with joy.

Let Paul's sweet prayer be sounded in my life
As I step out into the Christian strife,
Condemning actions that I think are rife,
Against the ten commandments by my fife.
Let Paul's neat stair be rounded on my way,
As I think of the knowledge in my sway,
And find the right to do and sue a day
Beneath the glowing of other sun's ray.
Beloved, I join my heart with pagan Paul,
Or Pharisee, or visionary stall,
And place my hand and hope within Your will,
And beg that what I do may rise up still
In motives pure, unwed with hopeful crime,
Seasoned with malt or with the prickly lime.

12 Thanks be to the Father who's made
Us to be partakers and paid
With the inheritance of saints
In the light. 13 He's saved without taints
Us from the power of darkness and
Brought us into kingdom to stand
With the Son of His love, 14 in hand
We have redemption through his blood,
Forgiveness of sins in the bud.

I do thank You, loved Father of the best
And worst of men, among whom I've confessed
To standing in the crowd with yellow vest.
I thank You for inheritance I find
Cake-like upon the wings of those unwined
Who enter in the halls of heaven aboon,
Where I too may go in, though late or soon.
I thank You and Your obedient Son too
Whose blood scattered the Roman army's crew,
And wish above all things it might still do.
Forgive for that or for some other thing
My slight sins and my greater on the wing,
And I shall enter in the divine sting.

15 He's image of invisible
God, the firstborn over in full
Creation. 16 For by him all things
Were made that are in heavenly rings
And that are on the earth, to see
And not to see, whether they be
Thrones or dominions or the seat
Of principalities or treat.
All things were created through him
And for him and set out in trim.
17 And he's before all things, and in
Him all things consist without sin.
18 And he's the body's head, of that
Group of called out ones, who once sat
At the beginning, the firstborn
From the dead, that in all things sworn
He may have the pre-eminence.
19 For it pleased the Father with sense
That in him all the fullness dwell,
20 And by him to reconcile well
All things to Himself, by him, though
They be things on the earthly row
Or things in heaven, having made
Peace through the blood of his cross laid.

I trust the cosmic message that the words
Of Paul lay on the ears of flocks and herds:
That Jesus is before all things in deed,
Or in Word rather, as a divine seed
To be beginning, head, and then decreed
Pre-eminent in reconciling creed.
The peace of his blood makes me stand aghast,
Which was the purpose no doubt at the mast
For coming under fire of Roman blast.
Rome still stands up to shoot at one and all
Who represent Your law beneath the pall
Of power, the necessary evil's state,
As the generic sort of Catholic rate.
Let blood here reconcile me and the mate.

21 And you, who once were set apart
And enemies in mind and heart
By wicked works, yet now he's made
22 You one in the body displayed
Of his flesh through death, to present
You holy, blameless, in consent
Above reproach in his sight meant,
23 If indeed you stay in the faith,
Grounded and steadfast, not by wraith
Moved away from the hope that's sin
The gospel heard to save from sin,
Which was preached to each living thing
Under the sky, of which I, Paul,
Became a minister to sing.
24 I now rejoice in suffering all
For you, and fill up in my flesh
What's lacking in afflictions' mesh
Of Christ, for the sake of his body,
Which is the group of called out proddy,
25 Of which I became minister
According to stewardship stir
From God which was given to me
For you, to fulfil God's word free,
26 The mystery which has been kept
Hidden from ages and where slept
The generations, but now shows
Itself to His saints in their rows.

Though I may here rejoice, here in the swell
Of suffering for myself or others' jell,
I do not praise You that the pain is found
Upon the gentle dew of human ground.
In pain I praise perhaps, but not for pain,
Not even for the princely sort of stain
That touches torture stake of Your dear Son.
I am beyond the tracks that he had won.
I touch instead the secret of the times
That overshadowed all my greater crimes,
The ages hidden by the firs and birches
Instead of parchment creeds of creedal churches.
Reality, I trow, is better meat
Than blind faith at the idol's golden feet.

27 To them God willed to make known what
Are riches of the glory shut
In this mystery among Gentiles:
Which is Christ among you, the hope
Of glory. 28 Him we preach in scope,
Warning each man and teaching all
Men in all wisdom, that we call
Each man perfect in Jesus Christ.
29 To this end I also surpliced
Labour, striving according to
His work which works in me to do
Mightily for the good and true.

The only glory I hope for now in
The afternoon of margin and my sin
Is that drawn from the gentle robe of Christ
Spread on the shore of Galilee and diced
Invisibly upon the rated head
That You forgive for gaining daily bread.
Perfection in Christ is a thing I peek
At with my shame, in consternation seek
To avoid such words in the things I speak.
Perfection in Christ! Whisper if you must
The words to me, but let the liver trust
More in the tale to keep to wicked rust.
So all may live in peace without the mace
Of judgement falling daily in this place.

COLOSSIANS 2

1 For I want you to know what great
Conflict I have for you and those
There in Laodicea’s state,
And for as many as it goes
Who have not seen my face in flesh,
2 That their hearts may be comforted,
Knit together, and in love fed,
Attaining to all riches of
The full assurances of love
And understanding, to the proof
Of God’s mystery, though not aloof,
Both of the Father and of Christ,
3 In whom are hidden and sufficed
All treasures of wisdom and proof.
4 Now this I say lest anyone
Should deceive you, through guile or fun,
With words persuasive. 5 For though I
Am absent in the flesh, yet I
Am with you in spirit, rejoicing
To see your good order and voicing
Your faith’s steadfastness in the Christ.

I thank You, my Beloved, that You have hidden
The treasures that I seek, and seek unbidden,
Of wisdom and of knowledge in a place
That You have told me of and given face.
This human hide and seek that gives no hint
Is too hard for my powers and legs in splint.
But You, when You hide treasures You are so
Excited that You tell me where to go.
In that You’re like a three-year-old, a child
That hides and then cannot be still for wild
And splendid bursts of giggling there behind
The chair. If You have hidden wisdom and
Divine proof in Your Christ, then I in kind
Return the gift and bring my heart in hand.

6 As you have therefore received Christ
Jesus the Lord, so walk in him,
7 Rooted and built up, and not dim,
In him in faith established too,
As you have been taught, always true
Abounding in it with thanksgiving,
Expressed in word and how you’re living.
8 Beware lest anyone rob you
Philosophizing vain deceit,
According to human tradition
By worldly rudiments’ conceit,
And not by beloved Christ’s submission.
9 For in him sits all fullness of
Divinity sent from above,
And bodily, 10 and you’re complete
In him, who is head and not feet
Of power and principality.

The self would be God in Your place indeed
And take both power and princedom in its greed.
How vain such aspirations seem to be
When Christ has all power and divinity
In fullness and for comfort bodily.
Instead of looking for place to control,
As I look deep within my own struck soul,
I find, Beloved, the great I AM speaks there,
Repeating the inspired words bright and fair,
And writing on my heart the Decalogue
In flesh and body, and not smoke and fog
Of Sinai, nor in sapphire tablets’ stone.
The Word made flesh is Christ’s, but not alone.
He shares his fullness with me from the bone.

11You were circumcised in him too,
With handless circumcision true,
By putting off the body of
Sins of the flesh, also their love,
By the circumcision of Christ,
12 Buried with him by what sufficed
In baptism, in which you too
Were raised with him through faith in true
Working of God, who raised him up
From the dead and destruction’s cup.

If I am indeed baptised in Christ’s dunking,
What need is there of one more water plunking?
And if there’s need, then there is also need
Of circumcision made with hands in deed
As was with Christ. I may put off the sins
Of flesh and still stop to count up my wins,
With or without the cutting or the wetting.
And if raised up through faith to life, I’m betting,
I need not die at all, instead live on,
Safe from the cut, the damp, the grave at dawn.
But chances are that I shall die, and so
Along with grave, I take the knife and wet,
Beloved, and since Christ had a body, show
That I too can obey and still not fret.

13 And you, though dead in your trespasses
And your flesh’s uncircumcision,
He’s made you all alive in masses
Together with him by decision,
Forgiving you all your trespasses,
14 Having wiped out handwriting of
Ordinances from push to shove
That was against us, and which was
Contrary to us. And he’s taken
It out of the way, all forsaken
Nailed to the cross for what it does.
15 Having disarmed princedoms and powers,
He made an open show for vowers,
A public spectacle of them
Triumphing in his stratagem.
16 So let no one judge you in food
Offerings or drink offerings that should
Be offered on an annual feast,
Or first day of the month by priest,
Or Sabbath days, 17 which offerings are
A shadow of things that should come,
But substance is of Christ and sum.

These words provide a good excuse to show
The worker less good faith than donkeys know
Who happen to be owned by pious Jew.
Such have their Sabbath rest which is their due.
But since I am no donkey but a man,
The words of Paul deprive me at a scan
Of rights to rest upon the Sabbath day,
Negotiated out and cast away
By Roman crosses set on hill at will
Of those who love the hand of power here still.
Beloved, I stand rebuked upon the week
I had reserved in service to the meek,
And find in seven days of work I seek
Each day the Sabbath blessing that You speak.

It makes but little sense, Paul would aver,
To keep the Sabbath, and yet not appear
To offer fond obedience to that
One You set in the throne where David sat.
The letter of the law has always been
A shadow of the one upon the scene
That You set up as king and ruler here.
Beloved, I obey not the stony coil,
Nor hope to gratify with my hard toil,
But I obey for love of You and him
Who is the hope of righteousness undim,
The Master of the Age, appointed trim.
Let my Sabbaths awaken with the light
Of love to Christ and Mahdi in the right.

18 Let no one cheat you of reward,
Taking delight in false adored
Humility and worship of
Angels, intruding in above
Things which he has not seen, in vain
Proud through his fleshly mind to stain,
19 And not holding fast to the head,
From whom all of the body's wed,
Nourished and knit together by
Joints and ligaments on the sly,
Grows with the increase that's from God.
20 Therefore, if you died on the sod
With Christ from the basic things of
The world, why, as though in its shove
To live, do you subject yourselves
To regulations and like elves,
21 “Don't touch, don't taste, don't handle yet,”
22 Which all concern things which pass by
With use, according to what's met
In rules and doctrines of men sly?
23 These things indeed may seem to be
Of wisdom in self's faith's degree,
While false humility in spree,
And neglect of the soul's body,
Are of no use against the pale
Of living in the fleshly gale.

I understand the rules that men have made
In regulating touch and taste parade
Are not to be grasped as the truth waylaid.
But what about the touch and taste You sent
By hand of Moses to preserve well meant
The Hebrew faithful from the wickedness
That crowns with foul diseases in the dress
Of pork and lobster set in well-done mess?
Does death of Christ make healthful meals of all
That formerly had been made to appal?
The swine flu and the swine flesh at the wall
Are just as evil now as when the call
Was first sent for Egyptian dogs to crawl.
The Christian sort does not stop here to guess.

COLOSSIANS 3

1 If then you were raised up with Christ,
Seek those things which above sufficed,
Where Christ is, sitting at the right
Hand of God. 2 Set your mind with might
On things above, not things on earth.
3 For you died, and your life of worth
Is hidden with Christ in God's berth.
4 When Christ who is our life appears,
Then you'll come too in glory's spheres.

I am raised up at last with Christ to be
Within the sanctuary that I see
In gloried rays before the crystal lee.
I sit down to the banquet and I fall
To eating ham and eggs sent from the stall
Of the celestial mess and so I praise
You that You sent Your Son to die with flays
So that I might without sin raise the cup
And toast the porker upon which I sup.
Without that death atoning, I should find
It sinful to eat bacon with the rind.
But now that freedom's beams are slivered bare
To kindling, I can broil my wicked share
With more impunity than wit and care.

5 So put to death your members which
Are on the earth and in the ditch:
Both fornication, uncleanness,
Passion, evil desire's address,
And covetousness, which is made
Idolatry in such displayed.
6 Because of these things God's wrath falls
Upon the sons within the walls
Of disobedience, 7 in which
You yourselves once walked in your pitch
Among them living in their stitch.

I thought that I was free, Beloved, to make
An end of legal rules before the cake
Of sweet rebellion for Your Son's dear sake.
Now You forbid, after the awful wake
Of blood atoning, fornication and
Abominations falling on the land.
I covet still the recipes of old
And see no wrong in what Your servant told
By Sinai to avoid. Beloved, I hold
My freedom to resent the royal bold.
In vain Your Son has died, if still I must
Conform to the obedience of trust,
Instead of going out in my own way
To live and let live for a briefer day.

8 But now you yourselves are to put
Off all of these: anger, wrath's foot,
Malice and blasphemy, and yet
The filthy talk from your mouth set.
9 Do not lie to each other, since
You have put off the old man's quince,
10 And have put on the new man who
Is renewed in such knowledge true
To the image of the one who
Created him, 11 where there is not
Greek or Jew, circumcised in plot
Or uncut, barbarian or
Scythian, slave or free, what's more,
But Christ all and in every store.

The new man of Christ also held a whip
Before the temple moneyed to the quip.
But if I stand in any place to say
Excesses are redeemed for what they play,
I find my words are hailed into the fray.
The circumcision is a sweeter touch
Than what I find church members give in clutch.
Beloved, save me from the wiles of the free,
And I'll be glad to serve the Jewish spree
Of vast obedience in peace beneath
The skies of dun, the fading, flowered wreath.
I'll remove filth from lip and tongue when You,
Beloved, remove filth from the favoured pew.
Until then I bear witness of the true.

12 Therefore, as the elect of God,
Holy, beloved, put on to prod
With tender mercies, kindness, and
Humility, meekness, to stand
In patience, 13 bearing with each one,
Forgiving one another's run,
If anyone has a complaint
Against another, how so quaint,
Even as Christ forgave you, so
You also must do in your row.

I'll bear, Beloved, in silence patiently
With all the wickedness around I see
In church and synagogue and mosquely spree,
If they will bear in meekness little me.
I shall forgive the unforgiving just
As I receive forgiveness in my dust:
For what I do confess, Beloved, I take
Your mercy and Your grace beyond the stake.
For what I hold in my rebellious heart,
I don't require forgiveness on Your part.
Let those confess the wrong, and I'll be swift
To grant forgiveness in as free a gift.
But while the din of pagan worship sounds,
I'll raise a warning voice on all the rounds.

14 But above all these things put on
Love, which is the bond that is drawn
Of sound perfection. 15 And let peace
Of God rule in your hearts' increase,
To which also you were called in
One body, be thankful to win.
16 Let the word of Christ live in you
Richly in all wisdom, in view
Of teaching and admonishing
Each other in psalms and the spring
Of hymns and songs of spirit, sing
With grace in your hearts and to YHWH.
17 And whatsoever you may do
In word or deed, do all in name
Of the Lord Jesus, without shame
Giving your thanks to God the Father
Through him, and do not fear to bother.

The Psalm is written in David's sweet word,
The hymn is also in that Scripture heard,
And songs of spirit also find their way
As titles of those things in David's pay.
This word cannot be blanket licence here
That anything goes in the sacred ear.
Three phrases all refer to one great task,
The singing of the Psalms is all I ask.
Beloved, let me teach and learn from that spring
And bring no strange fire to my lips to sing,
But only from the altar that sent out
Isaiah's song upon the thin and stout.
With blessing and with curse inspired to treat
I come to give You thanks before Your seat.

18 Wives, submit to your husbands dear,
As fitting in the Lord to hear.
19 Husbands, love your wives and do not
Be bitter to them on the spot.
20 Children, obey your parents in
All things, for this is without sin
Well pleasing to YHWH on a spin.
21 Fathers, do not provoke your spawn,
Lest they're in discouragement drawn.
22 Bond servants, obey in all things
Your masters by the flesh in rings,
Not with eye service, as those who
Work to please men, but in the true
Sincerity of heart, God-fearing.
23 And whatever you do endearing,
Do it with all your strength, as to
The Lord and not to human crew.
24 You know that from YHWH you'll receive
Inheritance, reward in sleeve,
For you serve the Lord Christ, believe.
25 But he who does wrong will be paid
For what he's done, no one is stayed.

After the hint of Gnostic tears and woe,
After the Jewish ways that men might go,
After idolatry and pagan show,
Paul ends his letter with Confucian glow.
The husband and the wife, the child and rate
Of servant caught upon the silver plate,
The role of every ruler and the state,
Subjection of the hopeful to their fate,
All tend at last to make the golden pass
Of Paul's experiment upon the grass.
Beloved, I take Confucius well in hand
If that is what You want after the stand
Of failing Christian vice and cross demand.
But leave me still a voice on rocky strand.

COLOSSIANS 4

1 Masters, give your bond servants what
Is just and fair, knowing in glut
That you too have a Master in
The heavens to keep you from sin.
2 Continue earnestly in prayer,
Be vigilant in it with share
Of gratitude, 3 meanwhile pray too
For us, that God would open to
Us a door for the word, to speak
The mystery of Christ we seek,
For which I am also in chains,
4 That I may make it clear from stains,
As I ought to speak without gains.

The prayers that my heart pours out here to You
Are sometimes without reverence for the crew
Of faithful priests that still earn of their due.
The prayers that my lips utter at the task
Are blasphemous to some ears I could ask.
And yet each day I come before Your word
Complaining of the sort of things I heard,
In vigilance and earnestly I make
Confession of my prayerful act's mistake.
The chains and mysteries about my cot
Are just accessories of my poor lot.
Who knows what truth may yet enlighten me
And come after my prayers to set me free
And brighten my horizon faithfully?

5 Walk in wisdom toward those outside,
Redeeming the time from the pride.
6 Let your speech always be with grace,
Seasoned with salt, that you may face
Each one with the right answer's pace.

My speech is seasoned with both salt and grace,
And no one can deny my rightful place
In keeping up extensively such speech.
To some the bitter nut, to some the peach.
Beloved, as I stand in my tattered way
Before Your simple law's redeeming ray,
Aghast at what I've said and done today,
At least I can rely on this fair tune:
I have obeyed You in one thing in rune.
My speech is seasoned with both grace and salt:
The grace of wit and word despite my fault
In every other rule from night till noon.
So I rejoice today that I succeed
In my obeying You through all my greed.

7 Tychicus, a loved brother and
A faithful minister in hand,
And fellow servant in the Lord,
Will tell you all the news I've scored.
8 I’m sending him to you for this
Very purpose, that he not miss
Your circumstance and comfort your
Hearts, 9 with Onesimus in store,
A faithful brother and beloved,
Who's one of you, though once ungloved.
They will make known to you all things
Which are happening here for stings.
10 Aristarchus my fellow chained
Greets you, with Mark cousin arraigned
Of Barnabas, about whom you
Received instructions, may find you,
If he comes to you, welcome him,
11 And Jesus called Justus in trim.
These are all I have as a friend,
Workers for God's kingdom to tend
Who are of circumcision's bend,
They've been my comfort without end.

Though Paul would always disagree with others,
Sooner or later he would call them brothers.
The one he argued sharply for was Mark,
And left both cousins there to disembark
With Silas in the opposite direction.
Now Paul takes Mark on friendlier inspection,
And calls him comfort and a fellow worker
Who once he condemned only as a shirker.
The stone that’s cast aside becomes the corner,
The early joy and love turns into mourner,
Because illusion covers what is real.
Let me not like Paul take the veil and seal
And trample them in anger and disdain.
What seems like fire may turn out freshening rain.

12 Epaphras, who is one of you,
A bond servant of Christ and true,
Greets you, always and fervently
Working for you in prayers' degree,
That you may stand perfect, complete
In all God's will without retreat.
13 For I bear him witness that he
Has a great zeal for you, and see
Those who are in Laodicee,
And those in Hierapolis' street.
14 Luke the beloved physician and
Demas greet you and out of hand.
15 Greet the brothers all who may be
In Laodicea's degree,
And Nymphas and the group called out
That is in his house and redoubt.
16 Now when this letter has been read
Among you, see that it is read
Also in the group of called out
Ones of Laodiceans' spout,
And that you likewise read the note
From Laodicea remote.
17 And say to Archippus, “Take heed
To ministry which you with speed
Have received in the Lord, that you
May fulfil it in what you do.”
18 This is my salutation writ
By my own hand: Paul where I sit.
Remember my chains once again.
And so grace be with you. Amen.

Nobody thought to save the letter sent
To Laodicea's people You meant
To lighten with the load of Pauline bent.
In waywardness I fall upon the fact
And wonder what he wrote for word and act,
Despite neglecting what things have been kept.
The soul is slumberful, that's why I've slept.
Give me a second chance, Beloved, and I
Will read the words I do find on the sly,
And when I've sipped them to the dregs at last
Then I can show dissatisfactions past.
But until then, I shall kiss every word
Of Paul that I have read and I have heard,
And catalogue the gems that I've amassed.

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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