Joshua Carter, grandson of President Jimmy Carter, was among the speakers at the state funeral for the former president held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., Jan. 9.
Here is a verbatim transcript of his comments.
My grandfather started teaching Sunday school when he was a midshipman at the Naval Academy. He taught the Bible every Sunday from World War II to COVID.
For all of my grandfather’s travels, he structured his life so that he was home in Plains to teach at Maranatha on Sunday. It was central to his life. Every time I went to church with him, it was packed. The line started before sunrise and I was always very thankful that I got to walk in with my grandmother. And as soon as we sat down, Sunday school would start.
My grandfather always began by asking if anybody had been in his church before. My grandmother and I raised our hands and almost no one else did. And then my grandfather would poll the congregation and we quickly found out that the church was full of people from all over the country of all different backgrounds and beliefs, and my grandfather would address the most diverse Sunday school class ever assembled. Again.
Visitors line up for photos with Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter at Maranatha Baptist Church. (Facebook)
Before he delivered his Bible lesson, my grandfather talked about his week. If he monitored an election, he’d talk about it. If he stopped a conflict, he’d talk about it. If he eliminated a disease from a village or a country, he would talk about it.
When my brother Jeremy died, he announced that news in Sunday school. In fact, I remember that my brother died on a Sunday because it was the only time my grandfather was ever late to teach.
When my grandfather won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Sunday school class learned first. At the end of his Nobel Peace Prize lecture, he stated the most serious and universal problem on our planet as the growing chasm between the richest and poorest people on earth. For the next two decades, as the problem compounded, he returned to this theme with stories from the Bible, with stories from today of the richest people in the world using their enormous wealth to buy a nation’s poverty.
Many of the people that my grandparents helped lived on less than $1 a day. My grandfather spent the entire time I’ve known him helping those in need. He built houses for people who needed homes. He eliminated diseases in forgotten places. He waged peace.
“Anywhere in the world, wherever he saw a chance, he loved people.”
Anywhere in the world, wherever he saw a chance, he loved people. And whenever he told these stories in Sunday school, he always said he did it for one simple reason: He worshiped the Prince of Peace, and he commanded it.
The bedrock of my grandfather’s faith comes from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, 8:1-18, 38-39.
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation — but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
Now if we are children, then we are heirs — heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.