I THESSALONIANS CHAPTER 1 - 5

FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE THESSALONIANS

This letter in a simpler, early day
Shows how the church should be guided by ray
Of such simplicity without a crown
And without crozier set upon the town.
Paul shows believers in the coming Christ
That there is always work to do sufficed,
And that though some may die before the sweet,
Yet they too will arise to eat the treat.
Beloved, the future state's too much in glee
To calculate beneath my willow tree:
The present, like a mouse, just touches me.
I may rejoice, a doubting Thomas, see,
And then return to Your law and Your Word
To see if I'm still with repentance stirred.

1 THESSALONIANS 1

1 Paul and Silvanus, and the man
Timotheus, unto the span
Of called out ones of those ones called
Thessalonians which are installed
In God the Father and the Lord
Jesus the Christ, the one adored,
Grace be to you, and peace from God
Our Father, and Lord Jesus Christ.

Theology of Paul at early date
Seems not to measure up to the pure state
Of orthodoxy, since pneumatic power
Is lacking in this first epistle’s bower.
He mentions God the Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ, but the Spirit stays unscored.
I reckon Paul was dead before the time
That Constantine called everyone to climb
Into Iznik and write the Trinity
Into the creed and for eternity.
Beloved, if Paul had only known the Three,
I could have turned from You to save the day
For those in Thessalonica who pray
That purity of faith might be their way.

2 We give thanks to God on the sod
Always for all of you sufficed,
Making mention of you in prayer;
3 Constantly minding in your care
The work of faith, the work of love,
And patience of hope from above
In our Lord Jesus Christ, in sight
Of God and our Father of light;
4 Knowing, beloved brothers, that your
Election is of God and sure.

Paul did it once again. He needs to learn
The formula of Roman Catholic urn:
The Pater and the Filius to turn
Into progression of the Spirit’s fern
Unfurling from both Father and the Son
To lie in its immaterial fun
Upon a world no innocent of Rome,
That calls the Vatican its hearth and home.
Beloved, I turn to You alone and pray
That I might be led on the straighter way,
Where those who bear no wrath from You may pray
And day and night are never led astray.
For that I too call on Your name of grace
And mercy in this earthly sort of place.

5 For our gospel, it did not come
To you in word only in sum,
But also in might, and in state
Of Holy Spirit; you can relate
What kind of men who were among
You for your sake in act and tongue.
6 And you became our followers,
And of the Lord, as it occurs
Having received the word in pain,
With joy of Holy Spirit’s vein.

Too late the good Paul makes final appeal
To Spirit in the gospel come to heal.
The formula is twice set without it,
And so the Spirit’s out when others sit.
The gospel of sweet Paul is one run rife
Against the Jewish hopes in Roman strife,
Against accommodation to the dust
Of Roman temple and the arms of trust.
Beloved, I take Your Spirit well where I
Am treading on an iron earth to spy
A brazen dome above my head, or try.
Beloved, Your Spirit is still sweet to me,
Despite denial of the Trinity
That rests upon my lips eternally.

7 So you became examples to
All those who believe in the pew
Of Macedonia as well
As Achaia, the truth to tell.
8 For from you sounded out the word
Of the Lord not only those stirred
In Macedonia as well
As in Achaia where they dwell,
But also in every place your
Faith toward God is spread out in store;
So that we do not need to speak
Anything of the things you seek.
9 For they themselves show about us
What kind of entrance without fuss
We had to you, and how you turned
To God from idols at last spurned
To serve the living God and true;
10 To wait for His Son from the sky,
Whom He raised from the dead to view,
Jesus, who delivered thereby
Us from the wrath to come to fry.

I turn from idols to Your blessed throne
Set on the heavens where You reign alone
As the Almighty God, I turn from stone.
I turn to You, the living God and true
With the same faith that rocked the folk upon
The Thessalonian beaches and lawn.
I turn to You, Beloved, with my prayer too.
The reason is, I’ve sounded out the word,
I’ve drawn the bath and kept the baby stirred,
And so I leave the bleating, babbling herd
And turn my back on lovely Babylon,
Its hanging gardens, the veils overdrawn,
And take the desert way where Ahmed stood
To worship You, Beloved, if any could.

1 THESSALONIANS 2

1 For you yourselves, brothers, know our
Coming in to you, that with power
It was not vain. 2 But even then
After we’d suffered in our den
And were treated so shamefully,
As you know, there at Philippi,
We were bold in our God, you see,
To speak to you the gospel of
God with much strife as well as love.
3 For our exhorting was now drawn
In some deceit, nor unclean spawn,
Nor in guile: 4 But as we were given
Permission from God and were driven
To be put in trust with the word
Of gospel, even so we stirred
To speak; not as for pleasing men,
But God, who tries our hearts again.
5 For neither at any time did
We use flattery under bid,
As you know, nor a cloak to hide
Covetousness; there is to bide
God’s witness for such things in stride.
6 Nor did we seek glory of men,
Neither of you, nor yet again
Of others, when we might have been
A burden, as apostles win
Of Christ. 7 But we were gentle there
Among you, even as in care
A nurse holds her children in lair.

The gentleness of those in den and lair
May be proverbial and taught with care,
But I have seen the bear cub at the door
Not knowing where the mother kept her store,
And had to chase Your chosen from the lot,
When it was so attracted to the spot
By smell of breakfast frying and the pot
Of tea for two or three upon the floor.
I trust the books of revelation here,
Both of the word and nature without fear,
And yet prefer some distance from the game,
And peace beside the stuttering of flame.
Keep Yours in their own place and me in mine,
And we shall strive to get along just fine.

8 Since we appreciated you
So much, we were willing in due
To give you not just Gospel true
Of God alone, but render too
Our very souls, because that you
Were dear to us among the few.
9 For you remember, brothers, our
Labour and work, done in the hour
Of night as well as day, because
We did not want to stain our paws
With debtedness to you at all,
But preached to you the gospel call
Of God. 10 You are witnesses, and
God too, how holy, justly and
Unblamably we came to stand
Among you who believed the band.
As you know how we preached and sought
To comfort and exhort the lot
Of you as does father his spawn,
12 That you would act worthy as drawn
Of God, who has called you into
His kingdom and His glory due.

The gospel and the call are God’s alone,
Paul does not mention Jesus on the throne.
That may be proof enough this letter’s old,
And written before the time of the bold,
Before the time when Christ was elevated
To Deity eternal and elated.
If so, Beloved, I grasp the early plot
And honour You alone for what You’ve got,
But still wait for the judgement to be filled
And for the Christ to return and unkilled
Rise in the resurrection or the light
Of glorified in body and in sight.
In all I keep You only One and true,
The God of everything I have in view.

13 That’s why we also constantly
Thank God, because when by decree
You got the word of God which you
Heard from us, you did not take view
Of it as the mere word of men,
But as it is in truth again
The word of God, which succeeds in
The work it does in you to win
By what you have believed in bin.
14 For you, brothers, followed at last
The called out ones of God to cast
Which in Judaea are in Christ
Jesus: for you also surpliced
Suffered the same thing at the hand
Of those living in your own land,
Just as they have by the Jews’ band,
15 Who killed the Lord Jesus and their
Own prophets too, and have in share
Been persecuting us; and they
Did not please God, but are in sway
Contrary to all men today:
16 Forbidding us to speak aloud
To the Gentiles that they in cloud
Might be saved, to fill up their sins
At all times: for the wrath that wins
Has come upon them in full bins.
17 But we, brothers, once taken from
You for a short time in space done,
But not in heart, tried all the more
To see your face great hopes in store.
18 So we would have come to you then,
I Paul too, once and once again,
But Satan hindered us like men.
19 For what’s our hope, or joy, or crown
Of our rejoicing in the town?
Are not you in the presence of
Our Lord Jesus the Christ in love
Of his return from heaven above?
20 For you remain our glory here
And joy in what you shall appear.

If Satan hinders Paul, Beloved, just see
What he can do to hinder little me.
When some do evil things and wicked deeds,
Satan comes in to justify their needs.
While I do not support others in claim,
I might justify my own self from blame.
That’s normal for the human sort of race,
Beloved, but You just keep me in my place.
Despite Satanic wonders and excuse,
Beloved, let me bask in the wise abuse
Of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ
If that is not in cornered conflict diced
In waiting for the second coming when
He shall appear again before all men.

1 THESSALONIANS 3

1 So when we could no longer bear,
We thought best Athens to stay there,
2 Sent Timothy, our brother and
Slave of God, and our helping hand
In the good news of Christ to set
You firm, courageous, faithful yet,
3 So no one might in faintness fall
Through these afflictions on the ball,
Since you yourselves know it’s our call.
4 Indeed we told you early on
When we were there that there would dawn
On us a tribulation, so
It did happen as you well know.
5 That’s why, when I could bear no more,
I sent to find out of the store
Of your faith, if the tempter had
Seduced you to do something bad,
And our work might be vainly sad.

There’s always something hard to bear alone,
Or even with a friend or two like stone,
But Paul is right to look for reasons for
Rejoicing on the Parthenon’s dry shore.
He sends out Timothy to find a thing
To bring him joy and happiness in ring
Of sorrow, and with good news on the wing
His spirits soar above his questioning.
Beloved, I too turn from the daily mess
That would confront me with dose of distress,
And take wing like a seagull on the lake
Above the choppy waters for Your sake.
No Timothy brings me the news, I make
Your love alone My hope and song and guess.

6 But now when Timotheus came
From you to us, and brought in claim
To us good news of your faith and
Your charity, and that your hand
Holds good remembrance of our stand
Always, desiring with demand
To see us, as we also hope
To see you in a briefer scope:
7 So brothers, we were comforted
Over you in all that we hid
Of our affliction and distress
By your faith and noble address:
8 For now we live, if you stand fast
In the Lord and not as outcast.
9 For what thanks can we render God
Again for you, for all the prod
Of our joy wherein we rejoice
For your sakes before our God’s choice;
10 Night and day praying earnestly
That we might see your face freely,
And might perfect that which may be
Lacking in your faith’s symmetry.
11 Now God Himself, our Father too,
And our Lord Jesus Christ, to you
Direct our way. 12 And the Lord make
You to increase and abound in
Love one toward another’s stake:
13 To the end he may come to win
Your hearts unblamable and in
Holiness before God, who is
Even our Father, at the whiz
Of our lord Jesus Christ’s arrival
With all his saints for our survival.

Twice Paul might have increased the load of sense
From God and Christ to include Spirit’s tents
And failed again to affirm what is true
According to the creedal point of view.
Twice Paul calls You our Father, but he fails
To recognize the Lord Jesus Christ’s sails
Beyond what he does for the cherished ones
That all remain before You as Your sons.
Beloved, let me believe in You alone,
The Father, God of all, upon Your throne,
And follow Jesus to abound in love
Toward all others coming from Your glove,
Until the day when Christ shall once more come
To fill the earth with glory, end the sum.

1 THESSALONIANS 4

1 As for the rest, now brothers, we
Beg you and exhort earnestly
By the Lord Jesus, just as you
Received from us how you should do
To please God, keep up the work due.

My fine and friendly foes by Luther’s name
Used to confess that there is naught of blame
In anything a man can do or gain,
But only grace to make one just and vain.
Yet here the great apostle of that crew,
St. Paul says that there’s something we can do
To please You, my Beloved. If that is true,
Then churchly manners are alas a stain.
Beloved, let me please You in what I am,
And what I say and do without a sham.
And if I do not keep up the good show
That makes You happy in a divine glow,
Then work in me a better weal and woe
Where I am busy or not, where I go.

2 For you know what injunctions we
Gave you through the Lord Jesus, see.
3 For this is God's will, that you be
Sanctified, so that you abstain
From fornication, an act vain.
4 Each one of you knows how to keep
His body holy, in the sweep
Of honour, 5 not in passion’s lust,
Even as do nations of dust
Who do not know God as they must.
6 Also not to cheat other folk
In business, because all the stroke
Of vengeance for it is the Lord’s,
Just as we told you in accords
Of solemn witness of rewards.

I read the ten commandments front to back
And round again to see what thing I lack.
You got your good man Paul to leave a track
Of fine injunctions beyond the ten stack.
Not only prohibition in the whack
Of gross adultery, but here I find
That fornication too will make one blind.
Beyond the prohibition I should steal
He makes it crooked also in the weal
Of chance at business not to drive a bargain
Unfair to friend and neighbour or foe’s noggin.
With twelve commandments now instead of ten,
I go out to encounter fellow men,
And still find I’m hit in the head again.

7 For God did not call us to be
Impure, but live in purity.
8 That’s why despisers despise not
Man, but God, even in His plot
To give us holy spirit’s lot.
9 Now as for brotherly love, you
Have no need that I write to you,
For you yourselves are taught by God
To love each other on the sod.
10 For you also do so toward
The Macedonian brothers ward.
But brothers, we exhort you now
To do it with a stronger plough.
11 Earnestly strive to quietness,
And mind your own business and dress
The work of your own hands as we
Enjoined you, 12 that becomingly
You act toward strangers, and that you
May lack for nothing of the due.

St. Paul’s a Quaker, that I see full well,
When he ignores the ringing of church bell,
The sound of shophar and the call in spell
Of muezzin from the minaret and tell.
St. Paul would have the congregation strive
To be in silence, though they’re still alive.
I say that silence in the grave will do
For length, now let me raise a wry and hue.
That’s not to say I’ve never found the hour
Of Quakerdom in silence without power,
Or that the social gospel at its best
Is of a colour not to fit my vest.
The Quaker silence is fine enough if
It harbours keeping Your law to the stiff.

13 I do not want you ignorant,
Brothers, of those who sleep in plant,
So that you do not grieve as those
Who have no hope from head to toes.
14 For if we believe Jesus died
And rose again, just so beside
God will also bring with him all
Those who fell asleep in the thrall
Of Jesus. 15 For we say this to
You in the Word of the Lord true,
That we the living who remain
At the Lord’s coming not in vain
Will not rise up before those who
Have fallen asleep in the dew.
16 Because the Lord Himself shall come
Down from the sky with shout and hum
Of the archangel’s voice, and by
God’s trumpet. and the dead who lie
In Christ will rise up again first.
17 We who remain alive uncursed
Will be caught up on the cloudburst
With them to meet with the Lord there
And riding far upon the air.
We’ll always with the Lord take share.
18 So, then, comfort each other now
With these words spoken anyhow.

The coming of Christ is set forth here nearly
As premillenial, visible clearly.
Paul also makes the point that the dead sleep
And are caught up together with the sweep
Of living to meet Jesus in the air.
A flying saucer cult, the first to share
The page of history, perhaps this is.
It sounds to me like an exciting whiz.
Beloved, I do not argue for the trumps,
Nor for the resurrection nor the humps
Of angels against Sadducean bumps.
I only care that Your kingdom in sway
Is not put off for ever in this way
Of tribulation, but is a hope’s ray.

1 THESSALONIANS 5

1 But of the times and seasons yet,
Brother, you have no need I set
Down in writing such things to you.
2 For you yourselves know perfectly
That the day of the Lord’s decree
Comes like a thief in the night’s lee.
3 For when they’ll say “Peace and safety”,
Then sudden destruction shall be
On them, as labour pains upon
A woman with a child in spawn,
And they shall not escape outdrawn.
4 But you, brothers, are not in dark,
But that the day should come in stark
To overtake you like a thief.
5 You are all children of belief
In light, and children of the day:
We are not of the night in sway,
Nor of the darkness far away.
6 So let us not sleep as some do;
But let us watch, sober and true.
7 For they that sleep sleep in the night;
And those who are drunken in sight
Are drunken lying in the night.
8 But let us, who are of the day,
Be sober, putting on in sway
The breastplate of faith and of love;
And for a helmet worn above,
The hope of salvation to stay.

The way to prepare for the coming tide
Is clear: do not sleep on the other side;
Do not drink of the cup of drunken sweat,
The wine of wrath and of false doctrine met.
Let me be sober rather, without taint
Of any toxic thing for my complaint,
With breastplate of both faith and love to know
That You are the one guiding all the show.
Give me the helmet of the hope I bear
Toward salvation coming from Your care,
And I shall hope indeed beneath the air,
Upon the gate of earth that all men share.
Let me creep through the open gate by light
And see behind me only the dark night.

9 For God has not appointed wrath
To us, but to obtain the path
Of salvation by him our Lord
Jesus the Christ, the one adored,
10 Who died for us, that, whether we
Wake or sleep, we should come to be
Alive together in his fee.
11 So comfort yourselves everyone,
And edify each other won,
Even too as you’ve always done.
12 And we beseech you, brothers, know
Those who labour among you, so
They are over you in the Lord,
And so admonish you restored;
13 And to esteem them highly praised
In love for the work that they’ve raised.
And be at peace among yourselves.
14 Now we exhort you, brother elves,
Warn the unruly, comfort those
In feeble mind, support the rows
Of the weak, be patient toward all,
Even to Tom McElwain’s stall.

Esteem the ministers of gospel power
Is one thing to exhort, but at this hour
Those who claim to be ministers of life
Are really just the harbingers of strife.
The creedal power is broken in the heart
Of those who seek You only and Your part,
But lives indeed in hand of every priest
And every one who takes the tainted yeast.
There is no labourer now in the field,
No sweeter angel at the altar’s yield,
But every one takes on the papal crown
And offers bread and wine to all the town.
So I esteem not one of them as true,
And turn from every church, Beloved, to You.

15 See that none render evil for
Evil to any; but restore
What’s good, both among you, and to
All. 16 And so rejoice evermore.
17 Pray constantly in what you do.
18 In every situation give
Thanks: for this is the way to live
According to the will of God
In Christ Jesus upon your sod.
19 Do not extinguish Spirit’s rod.
20 Do not despise the prophet’s word.
21 Prove all things; hold fast what you’ve heard
Of good. 22 Abstain from what appears
To be of evil and of tears.

Hold what is good and turn quickly away
From what appears in evil or its sway.
Such advice may sound good, Beloved, and yet
It must assume criterion be set.
What is the measure of the good that I
Should hold when proven here beneath the sky?
What is the mark that tells the human heart
Whether the thing is evil for its part?
The heart is one deceitful, so it seems,
And this advice goes only on in dreams.
Unless, Beloved, You have a better way,
I must rely on the ten words You say
To tell me what is right and wrong and why
To hold and how to abstain on the sly.

23 And may the very God of peace
(Or of Islam in its increase)
Make you entirely holy too,
And may your whole spirit in view
And soul and body be preserved
Blameless indeed and so unswerved
Until the coming of our Lord
Jesus the Christ, the one adored.
24 Faithful is He who summons you,
Who also will remain to do.
25 And so, brothers, pray for us too.
26 Greet all the brothers with a kiss
Of holiness and not to miss.
27 I command you by the Lord that
This letter be read where you sat
Where all holy brothers are at.
28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
Be with you all and be sufficed. Amen.

The sweet Christian and Jew perhaps who strays
Thus far to read or listen to my lays
May take offence that I translate the peace
You give as Islam to provoke the fleece.
Islam means peace with You, submission to
Your will alone among the creedal crew.
The fact that Muslims who do so are few
Does not mean that the words given are untrue.
Give peace in Islam to my soul and all
Men here upon the drunken earthly ball
That we may leave the mosque and church to call
On You alone. The greeting at the gate
Of truth is still mistaken for Your hate,
And sky mistaken for the earth of late.

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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