Lesson 36 -- A Charity How-to

“Beloved of God, Called to Be Saints”

Purpose: To remind class members that they are children of God and to encourage them to live worthy of their divine inheritance.

Today’s lesson was centered in Romans.

My initial response to Romans is usually the works/grace problem that Paul was trying to deal with. However, I remember also having read a verse in the French translation of Romans that sounded a lot different than it did in English. It was Romans 15:7. In English, it reads, “Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.” The French version is “Accueillez-vous donc les uns les autres, comme Christ vous a accueillis, pour la gloire de Dieu.”

When I read that as a missionary, the message I got was that we should treat others the way the Savior treated us. Sister Watson explained this morning that acceuiller means to welcome warmly, a thought that seemed most easily expressed by the opening of her arms and closing in an embrace.

Languages other than our own native tongue sometimes help us receive new insights. For example, I have always appreciated the difference between the blessing in the bread on English, which says we are “willing” to accept the covenants of the gospel (implying to me an outside push), whereas the French uses the verb vouloir, which means “wanting” to accept those covenants (seeming to me to be an internal desire to comply).

Sister Silvia H. Allred’s Saturday-night talk on charity at the Relief Society broadcast really struck me. Many people responded to President Uchtdorf’s talk about the forget-me-nots (in French, ne m’oubliez pas). But Sister Allred shared the most practical description of how to practice charity I believe I have ever heard. She was apparently quoting President Monson. She said:

    President Monson wears the mantle of charity. He is kind, compassionate, and generous. He teaches us   that charity is

    •    having patience with someone who has let us down
    •    resisting the impulse to become offended easily
    •    accepting weaknesses and shortcomings
    •    accepting people as they truly are
    •    looking beyond physical appearances to attributes that will not dim through time
    •    resisting the impulse to categorize others.

I encouraged the class to review their marked scriptures to see what in Romans had impressed them. And then I suggested that we all review what Paul says about how we ought to treat each other. It is interesting to see how many of President Monson’s suggestions are reflected in Paul’s teachings to the saints in Rome.

Returning to the theme of the forget-me-nots, we received the assurance that we are indeed remembered by our Savior by rereading Isaiah 49:14-16.