LOVE Poem: The People in My World According to the Didache, by Ian Bruce Johnson

A guide used long ago by many in the church
Tells me of people with needs of different kinds
All these my Lord for my good in my world has placed:
The one who has things and accolades that tempt me,
My neighbor, and the one who my soul and heart hurts;
Those I would kill with my words and those I would hate;
The ones whose bad and harmful deeds I must reprove;
The ones for whose growth into full life I must pray;
The ones I shall love more than I love my own life.

For these people I never need labor to search
As to me all these the Lord in His wisdom binds
In them I will find his will for me now is based
Because of them to learn more like my Lord to be.
The ones who in me his abundant love alerts
Following its voice both of us to elevate
That those who see may that same love in me approve
And some may therefore near to him in their love stay
And thus, with us be made one with the Lord in life.

There will be those whose wealth and notoriety tempt
Me to want what they have with a greedy desire
To envy them and to speak of them jealously
To seek to be like them because it seems that theirs
Is the way to money, acclaim and true success.
Oh, how much I often wish to run after them!
But I must not! To be content with what God gives
I must show them the grace to keep all that is theirs
While I for love of them keep the Lord who is mine.

My neighbor is one who needs me, none is exempt
Let not my neglect of some prove me a liar!
But reach out to each fearlessly and zealously
Like Jesus’ good Samaritan who, when he nears
The injured man who his people would never bless
By love overcame all his people’s hate to come
And does what the religious men would not: forgives
The enmity of the victim’s people and shares.
In the story of his love God’s love still does shine!

What can I say of the one who deeply hurts me?
Who hurts my body or takes away what is mine
Or, worse, violates my heart and injures my soul?
The ancient text counsels me “you shall bear no grudge.”
The one who hurt me so much remains my neighbor
One God has placed in my life to show me Himself
One to whom I am still to show the love of God
Though I must ask God to give wisdom to know how
My grudge must not cut off God’s love for them in me.

By some I am told I must now to hate be free
My friends and all the world say I must have a spine
The strength to hate those we tell ourselves wrongly stole
Our peace, our friends, our things, or those who us do judge.
But the counsel is clear, though it takes great labor
“Hate no one,” it says, as I must remind myself
When fear and rage me to contempt and hate do prod
Instead to ask God and work with the Spirit now
That we may together set free His love in me.

Hurtful words to my lips come all too easily!
Sometimes carelessly, sometimes plunged like a dagger
Into the heart of a friend of God, beloved
Or recklessly as gossip shot into the soul
Of one with whom I quarrel not, to make myself
Look good by degrading one made in God’s image.
I too know the pain of being spoken against.
Those in my world who speak evil I must still love
Speak well of them and not seek to retaliate!

Some in my world may need reproof, said lovingly.
Things that cause harm, errors in which they still stagger,
Must be set right by those by whom they are well-loved
But faced gently, by those who share with them the goal
To take the life of Jesus in them off the shelf
And let Him be seen by others now, in this age
His grace and love to all those they love well dispensed
That we together will show power from above
And the power of evil among us negate.

Some will need my prayers so that their needs will be
Met from the great treasure the Lord has given us.
Some needs we can see, but I must never neglect
That our need to know Him better we cannot see
To know His power, and the full depth of His love
That we, his people, are His abundant treasure
In our oneness he shares his abundant riches
Within each of us with others in His body
That His love will govern each in all of their life.

Only then do I see those given to teach me
The most how I am to be like my Lord Jesus.
They may not be friends; some may despise and reject
As some of His own nailed him to the cruel tree!
He gives me some to love as he did, from above
Although they made His pain their source of great pleasure,
He forgave, knowing some would join in His riches.
The one who teaches me most about His body:
The one I shall love more than I love my own life!

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Explanation: The Didache (the “teaching”) is a short text — it fits within five pages of ordinary book text — that was written by an unknown author most likely sometime in the last quarter of the First Century, C.E. It was written as a treatise or “church order” on Christian ethics and church observances. It is not included in the Canon of Scripture, but nevertheless contains some interesting, useful and even beautiful ideas. My poem was inspired by this passage from the end of the second chapter, in which the last line appears to tie together all of the ethical statements that precede it:
“You shall not covet the things of your neighbor;
You shall not swear;
You shall not bear false witness;
You shall not speak evil;
You shall bear no grudge;
You shall not take evil counsel against your neighbor;
You shall not hate anyone;
But some you shall reprove;
And concerning some you shall pray;
And some you shall love more than your own life.”
Didache (Tr. Roberts) on earlychristianwritings.com.

Poem © 2025 by Ian Bruce Johnson.