[Trophimus was an Asiatic Christian, a friend and travel companion of the apostle Paul. He is mentioned in Acts 20:4; Acts 21:29; 2 Timothy 4:20.]
Sick, in Miletus
Write, friend, my overdue missive
For my son, who’s been dismissive
Of his now ailing father’s God.
Perhaps the Lord will give me nod.
Sick in Miletus left to be
In bed unhealed physically.
Speak! Speak now my ever weak frame
With the Spirit’s fire aflame.
First Encounter with Paul
Long morning habits have me stroll
Jew's quarters on the western knoll.
So by fluke or intention I
May be blessed with the god's delight
And meet with a sage who might
Tell how my thirst is satisfied.
Son, recall that day I came home
And told the family 'bout my roam.
When I passed the synagogue’s door
I heard Paul speaking Jewish lore.
"Vow keeper, ha!," thought I was he.
"Peripatetic pharisee!"
But drawn was I to his preaching
"A Rabbi! Who speaks of freeing."
My name is Trophimus, son, it means
"Foster child," my identity?
I'm Gentile, with propensity
Unprovoked by my family
To ask the Jews' Divinity
That He would somehow favor me.
So on that day I probed the Jews
About this Paul and what of the news
He brought. But the Jews turned their backs
On me. “Uncircumcised! You lack
God’s blessing.” They scolded me for
Presuming that I, pagan, poor
Could pray and fast on Yom Kippur
And lose my shame forevermore.
I bore their moral tyranny
And asked Paul himself to teach me.
With his surprise response he showed
A signpost on the Calvary Road:
"Not this time, shall we be my friend,
Parallel wheat rows that contend
The year’s winds with hopes for harvest.
This city’s souls like soil in August.
No, now like corn that sows its seed
With each kernel’s death harvest speeds.
Yet in planting, the corn bereaved,
I thus with my preaching take leave.
If God wills that I shall return,
By Zeus’s bolt, have no concern.”
So he left us, ha!, with our thirst.
And this departure would be his first
Of many leavings, though people
Begged him to stay. With no evil
He displayed a true disciple’s
Mark, in tune with Christ’s example:
That though his love with them stays
His love for unreached lands remains.
There was a greater vision than
The Gospel to our Asian clan.
Yes, God’s angels blazed and blared
At Christ’s birth good news of joy, where?
To all men with whom his favor rests
Of Ephesus and the world no less.
2 Years Stay
After a while our sage returned.
And by preaching Christ he soon learned
The Jews of Ephesus had closed
Their hearts to the good news proposed.
For they repelled in obstinance,
Cheap slurs their hollow contrivance,
To vilify the Way this Paul
Proposed, a Way, the Way, God’s call.
What Paul then did, I thank God for:
Withdrew he from the Jews and more
To Gentiles now.
So two years hence
At Tyrannus's school, at Paul's expense
He taught many seekers like me.
Paul preached ev’ry day just one creed:
"Jesus Christ the Resurrected
High King, Lord, with death rejected
Sin's wages, our wages. Now He
Adopts foster children like me
And breaks the wall of enmity
‘tween God and man, and Jew and Greek.
By death his work now all complete.
He enthroned on His Victor’s seat.
Forever his promises 'yes!'
Jew-Gentile equally blessed."
Recall my son how I used to wake
Pre-dawn so learning I may take
From Paul at Tyrannus’s school
With a cohort of Gentile fools
Who braved the stubborn Jews' scorn
That we may ponder God’s first born.
Paul shunned not the slightest word
Of counsel from God’s Word. Preferred
Paul to teach night and day, each hour
Exhibiting God’s present power.
He healed the lame, the cross obsessed,
In the Name he freed the oppressed,
Made glad the Gentiles, and some Jews.
No power of darkness could refuse.
Christ’s cross he preached above all,
Humbly worked among us, this Paul.
The sons of Sceva who tried to mimic
Paul’s power. Demons to gimmicks
Cry ha! and devour.
I dreamed
Of the future, if ever it seemed
Right to Paul’s Jesus to heal such
As me. In Miletus, God’s touch,
Now on this dying bed, goes
Not To my plan. For, His “no's"
To Paul’s prayer for healing for me
Fits me in this world for leaving.
Leaving Ephesus
Soon, too soon, Paul left us again.
His fate beyond Jerusalem.
Adolescent, our church confused;
Why would Paul leave us young and enthused?
Left us once before, his return
We thought would end our concerns
And we’d rely on Paul’s leading.
He'd guide our church through his teaching.
Yet, Paul’s vision we learned was not
Ephesus, alone, for God bought
People’s beyond our Asian homesteads.
In Rome! Spain! Past our ships’ mastheads!
But his farewell altered my thought.
I was not knowing what God sought.
Brother Paul looked at my Greek frame
And saw a man called by God’s Name.
He asked me go to spread Christ’s fame,
And joy of nations set aflame.
Had I known then all that would come,
My care for dear Paul might have won
And kept me far. Curse I’ve become!
For fate made me Paul’s broken thumb.
Remember, my grown Son, I left
You to be. Recall how bereft
I was that you, my son, my horn,
Had despised my Christ and scorned
Me with him because He stood first
For me, before my son or worst.
Before our home, our great city,
Our Artemis, our family.
Oh how I wish not this great cost!
My son’s cold back to me, my loss!
Great Father, once more do I plead
To give me my son, him with me!
Well, we now with Paul took our turn.
My keen, Greek eye caught his pattern:
To vast cities we were planting,
The Gospel to the believing.
But not long after our seeding,
We sowers were to be leaving!
I charged Paul with my objection
That he’s forsaken discretion
And left many churches needy
Which need his services plenty.
"Put Syria, Rome, Spain aside!"
To which Paul sternly replied:
"Leaving means cleaving to greater
Treasures. For dumb men cater
To pleasures of short term leisure.
But forever gaining treasures
Which never, ever displeasure
A believing man, is measured
As favor from the Creator,
Who’s Name is Just Vindicator."
Humbled, quieted, I resumed
My position as pupil. What loomed
Ahead I shall never forget.
For almost to Miletus yet,
Paul asked me to get his men plus
Elders of Ephesus to discuss
His pathway to Jerusalem,
Where mad Jews would imprison him.
And God might surely take him home
But not until he sojourned Rome.
Through tears and wails, Paul explained:
"I modeled how a Christian strains,
Through careful word and deed no less,
To preach the faith and repentance.
In the Spirit I am constrained
To go to Jerusalem pained
There by chains, affliction, and what-
Ever the Lord, my Rock, might wrought.
But my life I do not account
As precious or of some amount,
If only to finish my course
And preach Christ Jesus my Lord,
Whose Gospel is grace and truth
Which rescues the old and the youth
From good works and bad works both.
Christ’s blood, my lone atoning oath.
Take heed, therefore, tested pastors
To yourselves and flocks you master.
Wolves shall surely come from within.
Protect the sheep, let them not in.
Make sure to not covet a thing,
But work hard - be blessed by giving."
And with that Paul ended his speech.
So the elders wept and clung each
To him that he would not soon go.
But in leaving, again, Paul spread
Seeds of the church, with Christ the head.
After Ephesus
After that things are a mere blur.
For that scene in Asia recurred
In each new city we traversed.
The good people tried to coerce
Him to stay, more than once, clinging
To him to the cities edge - weeping
Both that they without their parent
Will be, and that they might inherent
The struggles of overseeing
The church.
Sometime before reaching
Jerusalem, I asked Paul why
Such leaving. Then he with reply:
"A builder’s boredom births with his
Building’s habitation. This
Is the curse of the workman: that
Visions of completion beget
Homes with their residents absent,
Of pictures with builder present.
Why? Because the builders’ ascent
Starts with land without compliment--
Beyond dreams of urban aspirants.
There, in sharp hopes, the apostle’s bent
To settle, to wrangle, to arouse
First foundations of Christ’s house."
It’s unlikely that you’ve not heard
Of scandals from then that occurred
With Paul and his traveling band.
Conspiracy did we withstand!
Think not, not now, shall I rehearse
Those trials, save some simple verse.
The Jews, obtusely, accused
Paul saying that he abused
The Jew’s high law by bringing me,
A once pagan Ephesian Greek,
Into the temple. We then prayed
Knowing what would come. Thus Paul made
His descent, no ascent!, To Rome.
His plans to bring shalom
To Rome and then of course to Spain.
"Lord Christ crucified!" his refrain.
The brothers from Jerusalem
All the way to Ilyricum
Knew that Paul was leaving them.
Once for all, for he’d become
Raptured by a much greater prize:
Reconciling the world to Christ.
Leaving them was love’s cleaving then
To Christ and His global mission.
Departing is the destiny
Of Christians who are sojourning
From Ephesus, to Rome, to Spain.
Even this bed, God does not disdain.
For if God ordains now my death,
Well then soon I’ll take my first breath.
Son, with leaving there is grieving.
And in grieving there is sieving
Of deep loves first and last. Death's might,
As a stern and ungrateful light
On each man's deepest affections,
Reveals God's perfect election
Of those whose love for Him makes them
Despise (oh son! even their kin!)
Thus, if you read my words and frown
On your father, let it be known:
My allegiance to Jesus stays.
And I pray my Lord's future praise
Of my Ephesian kin, not yours,
Would be that their first love endures.
AMAZING!!!! You are gifted.