Author: Bryce Haymond

Our Daily Focus Should be Eternal

Leave a Comment

The temple is like a great lens. It’s a reflector and a magnifier, a redirector and a viewer. Many have said how attending the temple allows us to leave the world around us and enter a different sphere. It is a place where time and fashion disappear. It is the nearest to God that we can come on earth, but how much nearer can you come when you are in His house?

As such, the temple allows us to redirect our attention and refocus our lives on those things that really matter. If we attend the temple often enough, the things we learn there will spill over into our daily comings and goings.

Sometimes we get too caught up in the world to notice those things that are the most worthwhile. We get so preoccupied by satisfying the world that we forget that we ultimately need to satisfy God. In the October 2000 Conference, Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught,

Maxwell

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

Many individuals preoccupied by the cares of the world are not necessarily in transgression. But they certainly are in diversion and thus waste “the days of [their] probation” (2 Ne. 9:27). Yet some proudly live “without God in the world” (Alma 41:11), with gates and doors locked from the inside! . . . Let us adopt the attitude recommended by President Brigham Young: “Say to the fields, . . . flocks, . . . herds, . . . gold, . . . silver, . . . goods, . . . chattels, . . . tenements, . . . possessions, and to all the world, stand aside; get away from my thoughts, for I am going up to worship the Lord” (Deseret News, 5 Jan. 1854, 2). There are so many ways to say to the world, “stand aside.” (“The Tugs and Pulls of the World“)

Running from place to place, buying this and that, [Read more…]

John Tvedtnes on The Sacred in the Temple

2 Comments
John A. Tvedtnes

John A. Tvedtnes

John A. Tvedtnes, senior resident scholar with the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University, recently authored an article for Meridian Magazine entitled, “Secretive Mormonism.” He had some great comments about the esoteric versus exoteric nature of the LDS temple practices (emphasis is my own):

Commentators frequently refer to Mormon temple rites as the heart of secret goings-on. It is true that some elements of the temple are so sacred that we do not discuss them publicly, but most of what goes on in the temples is well-known.

One need not look far to learn that the most important such rite is the solemnization of marriage for time and all eternity and that vicarious ordinances (sacraments in Roman Catholic parlance) are performed for deceased ancestors, beginning with proxy baptism.

Even the endowment ceremony, the one most commonly held in Latter-day Saint temples, is mostly public knowledge. Most of the teachings presented during that time derive from the Book of Moses, published in the Pearl of Great Price. During an endowment session, we are reminded of our responsibility to obey the basic laws given mankind by God, such as the law of chastity (including fidelity after marriage), the law of obedience to God’s commandments, the law of sacrifice (which culminated in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross), the law of the gospel (salvation through Christ), and the law of consecration of one’s time, talents, and other divine blessings, to building up the Lord’s work on the earth.

Elements that are not discussed openly include ritual elements of temple prayer and the actual endowment or giving of signs, names, and tokens designed to enable one to pass the angels and ultimately to enter the presence of God. These may seem strange to most modern Christians, but they were common in early Christianity, as I have discussed in some of my published articles on ancient temple rites. ((See especially “Temple Prayer in Ancient Times,” in Donald W. Parry and Stephen D. Ricks, The Temple in Time and Eternity (Provo: FARMS, 1999). Also posted on the Maxwell Institute web site at http://farms.byu.edu/publications/bookschapter.php?chapid=105; “Early Christian and Jewish Rituals Related to Temple Practices,” in First Annual Mormon Apologetics Symposium: Proceedings (Ben Lomond, CA: Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research, 1999), also posted on the FAIR web site at http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/1999_Early_Christian_and_Jewish_Rituals_Related_to_Temple_Practices.html; “Priestly Clothing in Bible Times,” in Donald Parry (ed.), Temples of the Ancient World (Salt Lake City: Deseret and FARMS, 1994).))

Read the rest of this excellent article at Meridian Magazine.

[via A Soft Answer]

What Good are the Scattered Fragments?

2 Comments
Hugh Nibley

Hugh Nibley

Since the first day I picked up a book by Hugh Nibley I have been fascinated by the parallels which he taught exist between our practices and those of the ancients.  Many critics of the Church claim that Joseph Smith made this all up, that he was a charlatan, a deceiver, and a con-man.  However, making that broad claim that Joseph invented it all from his fantastic mind (for even our critics offer him that), or that he plundered the practices from others, still fails to explain why parts and pieces of the gospel structure are to be found scattered around all the world in almost every time, place, and culture.

But what good does it do us in studying the ancient practices?  Why is it so interesting and pertinent to our modern-day Church?  Why does looking back help us look forward?  Nibley gave a good explanation:

Latter-day Saints believe that their temple ordinances are as old as the human race and represent a primordial revealed religion that has passed through alternate phases of apostasy and restoration which have left the world littered with the scattered fragments of the original structure, some more and some less recognizable, but all badly damaged and out of proper context. . . .

Among the customs and religions of mankind there are countless parallels, many of them very instructive, to what the Mormons do. . . . But what about the Egyptian rites? What are they to us? They are a parody, an imitation, but, as such, not to be despised. For all the great age and consistency of their rites and teachings, which certainly command respect, the Egyptians did not have the real thing, and they knew it. . . . in the words of Abraham, “Pharaoh, being a righteous man,” was ever “seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first patriarchal reign” (Abraham 1:26), for he “would fain claim [the priesthood]” (Abraham 1:27). If the Egyptian endowment was but an imitation, it was still a good one, and we may be able to learn much from it, just as we may learn much about the early church from the vagaries of the gnostics. But it is not for a moment to be equated with the true and celestial order of things. . . . What these few bits of added information do is to supply a new dimension to . . . [our temple] experience, along with the assurance that a wealth of newly found records confirms the fundamental thesis of its antiquity and genuineness. (Hugh Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, xxvii-xxix)

Visit the Temples, with Google Street View

2 Comments

Google Maps
Google announced today the addition of “Street View” to the Salt Lake City area of Google Maps. What does that mean? You can now virtually visit any street across the entire Wasatch Front, from Pleasant View to Santaquin. You can drag the panoramic photos around with your mouse and look in 360 degrees, click the arrows on the street to move up and down the street and walk around the block, and click the zoom buttons to zoom in and out. You can even use the arrow keys on your keyboard to virtually drive down the streets. It’s fantastic.

I thought it would be fun to visit all eight temples in the valley which have Street View enabled. Now anyone in the world can feel like they’ve seen and walked around these temples in person. See all the interactive temple views below. (Works best in Firefox): [Read more…]

The Power of Heaven – Inside the LDS (Mormon) Temple

2 Comments

Here is another short video of the inside of LDS (Mormon) temples.  This video was found shared by Mike Batie, and was compiled from official published photographs by the LDS Church of the inside of temples.  Usually these photos are taken by the Church during its public open house, and before the dedication, after which the temple is closed to the public and set apart for performing sacred saving ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The excellent music is entitled “The Power of Heaven,” with words and music by Steven Kapp Perry, arranged by Greg Hansen, and from the 1999 album “As Temples Fill the Earth.”  The vocalist is Tammy Simister Robinson.  You can buy the album at the BYU Bookstore or at Deseret Book.