Three ideas and study guide to deepen learning about the temple
Hi Friends!
After updates to the temple recommend interview by the First Presidency, we had had a lot on our minds, so we asked Melinda Brown to talk with us on the Magnify podcast about the temple garment and our covenants. Did you get a chance to listen? The conversation truly broadened our perspective and deepened our understanding.
We have so many notes! In this newsletter, we’re sharing just a few of the many highlights from the episode, plus some study resources recommended by Melinda to deepen personal learning on these sacred subjects.
Podcast discussion notes:
Mindy’s three fundamental ideas for temple worship:
Learning through symbols
How much our bodies matter
We’re meant to be happy right now
Learning through symbols:
Melinda found it’s helpful to look at symbols as we seek to learn more during our temple worship. Symbols provide spiritual connection points to where we’re at on the gospel path.
“The Savior loves to teach with symbols,” Melinda explained. “[Symbols] are rich and vibrant learning tools because they can mean lots of different things, and they can mean different things to you at different stages of your life.”
When we seek to learn through symbols, temple attendance provides opportunities to increase our spiritual knowledge throughout our lives.
How much our bodies matter:
“Bodies are so significant. We have such a strong doctrine of the body,” Melinda says. From the time we are young primary children, we are taught that one of the reasons we came to earth is to get a body.
Participating in ordinances—baptism, taking the sacrament, temple work—requires the use of our bodies. “Think about baptism,” Melinda says. “You actually get in the water and are immersed because there's so much symbolic meaning to immersion. [We] see the symbolism and the [importance of bodies] weaving together there.”
When we’re more conscious of how much our bodies matter, we’re able to better appreciate and learn from them as we do temple work.
We’re meant to be happy now:
Temple attendance can transform us and make a significant difference in our lives for the better every time we go. Mindy reminds us that if it isn’t changing us, we need to ask ourselves why we are doing it in the first place. She shares, “So often we talk about eternity in terms of what comes next, but this [life] is a really important part of eternity.”
The temple is our “happiness project.”
Finding meaning in the garment:
The temple garment pulls together the three fundamental ideas of learning through symbols, how much our bodies matter, and that we’re meant to be happy today. Mindy explains, “The temple garment is symbolic. It’s incredibly tangible. It goes on our body, and we feel it as we wear it. ... Wearing the sacred temple garment is very much a feeling of having the Lord’s arms just wrapped around you—encircled about in the arms of his love.”
Recommendations from Mindy to deepen learning about temple worship, our covenants, and the temple garment.
Study tips:
When reading the scriptures, look for examples of how people use their bodies and how physically participating in something makes a difference.
With the three ideas in mind—learning through symbols, how much our bodies matter, and we’re meant to be happy now—look at the ordinances and practices you’re familiar with such as tithing, baptism, and fasting. Study to understand them better and then connect them to what we learn in the temple. “We have a lot more connection points than sometimes we think we do,” Mindy says.
On the Church’s website, search for a phrase or term that you remember from the temple then study when and how it appears in scripture and conference talks.
Mindy’s advice: “Just open your mind, think expansively, wonder. Go on a walk in nature and look up into the sky and leaves, and listen to the birds and just wonder. It’s just amazing what your mind will open up to and invite the spirit in to teach you.”
Study references:
Let’s Talk about Temples and Ritual by Jennifer C. Lane
“As we participate in temple ordinances, our sinful life ritually dies with Christ, and we emerge victorious through Him, empowered by covenant to live unto God. ‘Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God’ (Romans 6:8–10). Going forth from the temple, as we wear the temple garment, we remember that we have been redeemed from sin and are living unto God.” (p. 58-59)
The Temple Experience by Wendy Ulrich
Temple ordinances depict simultaneously a journey and a destination. The temple is God's map for this journey of healing, his blueprint for a house of personal holiness. The journey involves birthing, bandaging, creating, covenanting, discerning, loving, and receiving. The house requires healing and sanctifying principles and tools for turning the raw materials of our daily experience into a House of the Lord. Along that journey and within that house is a strait and narrow passageway that leads us to the pearl of greatest price. The temple shows us where. (Ch 1)
Other titles to deepen learning:
The Holy Invitation by Anthony Sweat
“While it isn’t necessary to literally see God in this lifetime, what is required is for us to learn the patterns to be in the Lord’s presence spiritually. We must become members of Christ’s kingdom.” (Part 1: A History)
The Holy Covenants by Anthony Sweat
“Regardless of your age or temple experience, understanding and living temple promises is crucial to becoming endowed with heavenly power in everyday life. ... There is a difference, you know, in receiving your temple endowment—or participating in the ceremony—and becoming “endowed with power from on high” (D&C 38:32) in your life. We have to pursue receiving the endowment of power in a similar way we pursue receiving the Holy Ghost.” (Author’s note)
Eve and Adam: Discovering the Beautiful Balance by Melinda Wheelright Brown
“In a profound way, Eve represents all of us. On close examination, we see ourselves reflected in her faith. We each chose mortality, even knowing it would be hard and often painful, because we trusted that Divine Council who assured us we could learn and progress, ultimately not only returning to Them but becoming like Them. Exaltation isn’t just a destination, a grand event that happens once we finally cross the finish line; it’s also a journey, a sanctifying process that happens gradually, line upon line, all along the way.” (Introduction)
The Priesthood Power of Women by Barbara Morgan Gardner
“Since the temple is the Lord’s house, all that we do in the temple—every covenant we make and every ordinance we participate in—reminds us of, is symbolic of, draws us closer to, and helps us become more like Jesus Christ.” (Ch 4)
Let us know your thoughts here, and join in on the discussion on Instagram @magnifycommunity.