Welcome to temple study. My objective is to learn and share more of the symbolism and temple imagery within the scriptures. My potential audience is all of you who love and hunger for the peace, power, and solace provided in the holy house of God. My intention is to try to keep pace with the Come Follow Me study chapters of our 2026 outline. Thus, this blog will focus on the Old Testament (at least for this year).
I just finished reading President Henry B. Eyring’s General Conference talk, “Proved and Strengthened in Christ,” as he addresses topics like fear, apprehension, and discouragement and how to experience God’s love despite these challenges. I must confess that the idea of reading the Old Testament provoked such dreadful feelings in my younger years, but after years of inactivity in the Gospel, absence from the temple, and having had the scriptures and the temple come alive for me through the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit, I have come to realize that to understand the temple, you have to understand the Old Testament.
One of the challenges of the Old Testament and the temple itself is finding Jesus Christ in the symbolism. Recent changes in the temple endowment ceremony have helped to make this task somewhat easier, but the symbols themselves have not changed. I am excited to approach the temple and the scriptures as a treasure hunt. And if my heart is right, I know my treasure will be there too, as promised by the Savior in Matthew 6:21.
There are inherent risks with such an endeavor like this. This is a touchy subject due to the sacred nature of the temple. I have always heard that the things of the temple are not secret but sacred, but I will endeavor to show that there is a secret aspect of temple ritual as defined in the scriptures, and this will occur when we get to chapters like Job 29, Psalms 25, 55, 89, 111, and Jeremiah 23.
So, I will follow the counsel of the apostles and prophets and not discuss the things we have been asked not to discuss. It will be the responsibility of you, the reader, to see the parallels between symbols and temple covenants and ceremonies.
But perhaps the bigger risk lies in the nature of the symbolism itself. I have been blessed with brilliant gospel teachers, who seem to magically appear in my life at just the right moment. This has been a testimony builder for me. I know the Lord is in the details of our lives. I was assigned as a home teacher to one of these great teachers. Seriously, I was the learner. He once said that anytime you tell someone what a symbol means, then that is the one and only meaning it can ever have for them.
Why does the Lord teach with symbols? Because they can have multiple meanings and infinite layers. I have seen and felt this in the temple. The takeaway is that personal revelation is the key. The Holy Ghost is the teacher here. If I discuss a certain symbol, and you go to the temple and feel or have impressed upon your mind something else, then always go with the Holy Ghost.
I have two other confessions. President David O. McKay once spoke of a niece of his who had recently received her temple ordinances. She commented how her initiation into a college sorority was more meaningful than the temple ceremony. President McKay continued by saying, “Brothers and sisters, she was disappointed in the temple. Brothers and sisters, I was disappointed in the temple. And so were you. There are few, even temple workers, who comprehend the full meaning and power of the temple endowment. Seen for what it is, it is the step-by-step ascent into the Eternal Presence. If our young people could but glimpse it, it would be the most powerful spiritual motivation of their lives.”
President Spencer W. Kimball once said, “If you understood the ordinances of the House of the Lord, you would crawl on your hands and feet for thousands of miles in order to receive them!” (See Andrew F. Ehat, “Who Shall Ascend Into the Hill of the Lord,” Temples of the Ancient World, 58-9).
As for my first temple experience after receiving my endowment, I wanted to check the sign as I exited the temple to see if I was still in the right church.
The other confession is that while I still want to share these ideas with others, there is a somewhat selfish motive lurking in the background. I just retired about a month ago, and the challenge of filling that void has seemed like a whiplash. My mother used to say, “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.”
I invite you to study (along with me) to learn more about the grandeur of the temple.