A More Excellent Way

President Hunter told a story about a fifteen-year-old young man named Vern Crowley who caught a thief in the act of repeatedly stealing from his father Vic’s wrecking yard.  Vern was “full of anger and vengeance” and was ready to “get his just dues” by turning the thief over to the police.  But Vern’s father intervened, and to the astonishment of his son he talked with the young boy who had been stealing from him, showed compassion on him, and ended up  giving him for free more than he had tried to steal.  The former thief turned into a regular volunteer at the wrecking yard and “voluntarily, month by month, he paid for all of the parts Vic Crowley had given him.”  Ultimately he learned about the Crowley’s Latter-day Saint beliefs and became a member of the church.  Vern commented later, “It’s hard now to describe the feelings I had and what I went through in that experience. I, too, was young.  I had caught my crook.  I was going to extract the utmost penalty.  But my father taught me a different way.”  President Hunter then added this comment to the story, “A different way? A better way? A higher way? A more excellent way? Oh, how the world could benefit from such a magnificent lesson.” 

                That higher and more excellent way of course is charity.  The phrase was used first by Paul when he spoke about spiritual gifts.  After explaining some of the great spiritual gifts that are in the church of Christ, he wrote to the Corinthians, “But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31).  This more excellent way was then described in 1 Corinthians 13, the famous chapter on charity, “the greatest” of the spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 13:13).  The phrase is used one other place in the scriptures.  In the middle of his abridgement of the Jaredite record, Moroni wrote, “Wherefore, by faith was the law of Moses given.  But in the gift of his Son hath God prepared a more excellent way; and it is by faith that it hath been fulfilled” (Ether 12:11).  So here Christ Himself is the “more excellent way” instead of charity, but this is not surprising since Christ and charity are really synonymous—charity is the pure love of Christ.  Later Moroni connected the two as he spoke to the Savior, “And again, I remember that thou hast said that thou hast loved the world, even unto the laying down of thy life for the world….  And now I know that this love which thou hast had for the children of men is charity” (Ether 12:33-34).  He then invited us to seek both charity and Christ, saying, “Except men shall have charity they cannot inherit that place which thou hast prepared in the mansions of thy Father….  I prayed unto the Lord that he would give unto the Gentiles grace, that they might have charity….  And now, I would commend you to seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written” (Ether 12:34, 36, 41).  Part of coming to the Savior means that we must come to charity; to follow Him we must develop the kind of love He has in our hearts.  This is exactly what the Savior taught: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35).  We are taught also in John that Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).  His way to live is indeed more excellent than any other—“there is none other way” that can save us—and if we are to follow it then like Vic Crowley we must be filled with the Savior’s love (2 Nephi 31:21).