Charity

1 Corinthians 13:3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor , and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

What is Charity? In our current lexicon, charity refers to what was known as Alms, the giving of aid to the poor. Charities abound in our society, and it is good to donate money, time, and supplies to them, to help those in need of aid. But, does the giving of money to a charity denote our having the personal virtue of Charity, spoken of in 1 Corinthians, and elsewhere in the holy scripture? According to verse three of chapter 13, no. So, what is Charity?

A quick read of chapter 13 tells us some of the things that Charity is not, and that seems a good spot to start. Charity is not the gift of Prophesy, or understanding of mysteries. Nor is it having perfect faith, so that you can do mighty miracles. Charity is not the gift of speaking with tongues. These are good things, but with out having charity, you are nothing, even if you have all these other gifts.

What is charity?
4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not he own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

The best definition I have found for the virtue of Charity is "The pure love of Christ." (Moroni 7:47) Charity is having that love in your hearts, and seeing others as he sees them. When you have Charity in your hears, the gospel becomes real and vibrant, whole. With out it, with out having that love for yourself, God, and others in you, the whole plan is meaningless. That is why prophest with out Charity is meaningless, why faith without charity is dead.

Not only is Charity of supreme importance, but with it, all other virtues become much easier to obtain. How difficult is it to not defraud your neighbor when you love him as Christ loves him? How hard is it to go out of your way to share the gospel of piece with a stranger when see him as your Brother? How can you sin when love God as he loves you?

The more I study the gospel, the more I am convinced that I must cultivate greater Charity. One of the greatest gifts I could receive would be to see others as God sees them.

Special Collections

On class this Wednesday, instead of having a lecture in class, we went to visit the Special Collections division of the library. Special Collections holds all the ancient to old manuscripts, books, and artifacts. Students are allowed to enter and browse the collection, but only if they have a valid excuse, and only if they treat the materials with care.
The curator of Special Collections gave us a presentation on the history of writing, showing us many fascinating artifacts. I will now try and explain some of what he told us.
The earliest writing we have record of were baked into clay tablets, written in cuneiform (meaning triangular) script. Surprisingly enough, most examples of these tablets are clerical in nature. He showed us a 1.5 inch by 3 inch tablet that contained a beer maker's records.
We also have several examples of metal plates being used to store writing (beyond the religious examples known to LDS). For example, the romans would give their soldiers, when they were discharged from the army, two metal sheets, sealed together, that contained their proof of citizenship and their honorable discharge. If the outside was damaged, the sheets could be opened to reveal duplicates. They knew the value of backing up!
Another ancient form of writing material was Papyrus, which was made from reeds found at the Nile. These were stored as scrolls, as folding them would cause the brittle material to break. Stored properly, papyrus can survive for thousands of years, and has.
For many ages, the premium writing material was Parchment, made from the hides of animals, usually cows (especially the young cows). A calf could be turned into only a few sheets of parchment (4 or 5), and so a copy of the Bible could contain thousands of calves, which lead to the high cost of books during the middle ages. Monks and scribes would spend a good part of their time painstakingly copying out the texts of books onto new parchment (and sometimes old parchment they had erased!) to create books to sell, based on what orders they received.
It wasn't until later, when paper came over from China, the printing press was invented, movable type was developed, and specialized ink was created that books suddenly became cheap enough to be owned by the masses. It was at this time that the protestant reformation first really took off, as the bible was finally able to be read by all. It was translated into new languages, and old doctrines no longer made sense in light of what was read in the holy word. It was questioning like this that lead a young boy named Joseph Smith to question why there was so much confusion in religion, and what church he should unite himself with. The rest of that story, as they say, is history.

Galatians and Circumcision

The people to whom Paul wrote the epistle to the Galatians had been early converts by him to Christ. They had received the Gospel and been baptized. Sometime thereafter, however, certain men, Jews, came among the Galatians and explained that what Paul had taught (Christ) was good... it just wasn't sufficient. They insisted that only those who followed the Law of Moses and Christ could be saved. The Law, to these Jews who professed to follow Christ, was still mandatory in their minds, and they could not understand why Paul would preach otherwise. Paul, rightly, saw this as an attack on the very faith in Christ he had helped nurture in these people, and, like any good missionary would when his investigators are attacked, immediately wrote to them to shore up their faith and correct the false doctrine.

The main point of false doctrine appears to have been Circumcision. The Jews contended that the gentiles who now professed Christ needed to be circumcised to follow the Law of Moses. Paul strongly denounced this doctrine. If one can be saved by the Law of Moses, as these Jews said, then why had Christ been sacrificed by our Father? Circumcision was not necessary, and never would be again. More then not necessary, circumcision, as a ritual, took emphasis off of Christ who should be must be the center of our religion. Several revelations had been received, by Peter and by Paul, showing that the Gentiles need not convert to Judaism to become Christians. If the Christian Church were to insist on circumcision after receiving these revelations, they would have stood condemned.

This issue was a large stumbling block for many early Jewish converts to the Church. Eventually, this lead to a conference in Jerusalem, in which the Church officially made it their policy to not require circumcision from gentile converts or new Jewish children. The church swiftly sent out letters explaining this policy to the Church, and condemning the actions and doctrine of the Jewish trouble makers. One can only wonder if there were some upset gentile converts for whom the correcting letters came to late.