Transcription
Hi everyone, welcome. My name is Megan Farner. I am the host of Hidden Wisdom, formerly the Latterday Disciples Podcast. And I am so thrilled to be sharing with you for the first time, House of Learning, Understanding the Doctrine of the Temple.
This was an online course created by myself and my great friend Corey Jensen a couple of years ago, and we are releasing it publicly for the first time. Uh, we will be doing one episode a week as a miniseries over the next several months. Um, and I'm just really excited to share this content with you. I think it's incredibly important for you to have this not just as temple education, but um, as your spiritual foundation, right? As you are continuing to learn who you truly are and how to embody your highest self, your relationship with God, um, this course is inviting you into a living relationship with Jesus Christ, not just a symbolic understanding of one.
My understanding and love of the temple is in seeing it as a blueprint for transformation, not just a place that we go to complete religious activities, right? I really see it as teaching us something that we can be going home and living. Um, something that is supposed to be happening in the temple of our body. And so this course is meant to widen our vision and deepen our understanding and begin to see things more symbolically so that we can take it home and become what we are invited to become.
Um, this class is I would say more for an intermediate level of understanding for people who have attended the temple for a long time and who are wanting to deepen their understanding and their discernment. Uh, this course is overall it is an invitation to experience the temple and your spiritual life not as a checklist of ordinances but as a living pattern of transformation that teaches you how to become a temple for God in your own body.
Um, now a couple of things to be aware of just upfront. This is our first episode. We do recommend starting here at the beginning and walk walking sequentially through the course. That's going to be the most understandable. Um, but in terms of who this course is for, again, this is intermediate level content, people who are familiar with the temple, who have um, gone there for a while, who love Christ, and who are wanting deeper intimacy with God. If you are feeling like I want a more personal relationship with my heavenly father, then this is what is available for you. Um, if you have the feeling that maybe maybe temple worship is supposed to be more than just what you've been taught, um, this is definitely for you. If you're open to again understanding symbolism and archetypes, uh, and how they play into your experience in the temple. We encourage you to be willing to hold your questions with humility and discernment. Not in such a not suggesting that you're not going to find answers, um, but rather just being willing to ask questions. So much of the time we are so bent on having a degree of certainty and saying I know. Um, this is an opportunity to say maybe I don't know what else is there. Right? If we're not asking questions God can't give us anymore. And of course this is for anyone who wants their spiritual life to be experiential and not just intellectual.
Um, it should be understood that this is coming from a very faithful perspective um while at the same time bridging into greater places into more truth. Uh, this is not for casual entertainment. It's not for um casual consumption either. Rather we are presenting this with a lot of spiritual maturity and personal responsibility. Corey my friend who produced this with me is an absolute expert on the temple. We've had him on the show before. We've had him in other podcast episodes. He's written three books on the temple. Um, one of the most well-ressearched people that I know about the temple. Um, and he and I both took this very seriously, this opportunity to present this information. Um, we will say upfront, we do not share anything in here that we have promised not to share. So, that is something to be aware of as well. Um, that we are keeping the information here that is sacred. Um, also information that we feel deserves to be shared and deserves to be known by you.
So, as far as actually working through this, again, this was originally produced as an online course and so it progresses in that way. It's not just kind of a random series of episodes. Um, they are meant to build on one another. So, a couple of things that we would recommend just if you are wanting to engage with this series. Um, having a particular spiritual posture, meaning you're watching it, um, maybe from a place of stillness or a prayerful attitude. Be willing to pause and to think about the things that are being presented. Maybe you journal or take notes about some of your impressions. Um, and trust God to be your teacher more than us. Uh, I'll come back to that in a moment, but that is the most important role.
Uh, again, we're going to be releasing these weekly episodes on Friday for the next several months and each episode builds on the last. Feel free to go back and watch things again. Um, and definitely I recommend you to invite other people to watch this if you have other family members and friends who are who are LDS who are wanting to go to the temple or who are wanting to understand the temple. Um, I think it would be really wonderful if you even had watch parties and watched it in community with other people. Um, this should be a wonderful opportunity for that.
Now once you are going through the class or as you are going through the course and as you are coming to the end of the course especially please know that this is just the tip of the iceberg for things that we are offering this community hidden wisdom for deeper integration deeper searching um starting to develop an appetite for spiritual meat and be able to have the internal capacity to hold that. Um, we are producing the hidden wisdom app which is available. You can download it for free. Um, and it has a lot of resources. It has a community. It has daily invitations. Uh, it has awakening pathways if you're wanting to learn more not just about the temple but about all sorts of doctrine. Um, that will be the place for you to go.
Um, again, remember that everything that is presented in this we're discussing symbolism. We're dis we are talking about our interpretations of things. Um, this is not meant to represent um institutionalized doctrine. It's not meant to be a um we're not affiliated with the LDS church directly in any way in any cap in that capacity. We're not producing materials for them. Um, so just see this as our interpretations and our lived experiences. Right? And so everything that you hear, we invite you to go to God directly and ask God. Ask God to teach you what is true, what is not true, how is it true. Um, and really seek that personal revelation. And uh, that is our biggest recommendation throughout this whole thing. Don't just take our word for it. Um, but really go to God and let God teach you.
Um, again, we have a lot of different avenues for you to pursue after this, but for right now, we just invite you to engage with this course. Um, maybe seeing it as the doorway to something bigger that um can that can open for you in the future. Uh, thank you so much for tuning in and we are so excited for everything that is waiting for you in House of Learning.
Hi everyone, welcome to House of Learning, understanding the doctrine of the temple. My name is Megan Farner. I am the host of the Latterday Disciples podcast, who is co-sponsoring this event with my partner, Corey Jensen, who will introduce himself in a moment. But to give you guys just a little background on me, I am a wife and a mother. I am a student of the gospel and a seeker of truth. And one of the things that I have actively been trying to understand over the last little while is the doctrine of the temple. And through the podcast and through many resources that the Lord has provided, he has given me so much more depth of understanding and background to truly value the house of the Lord. Um, I am still learning. I'll be the first one to tell you that. So, as an instructor, perhaps I won't have a ton of value for you. But I do believe that the message that we want to share in this course will be incredibly meaningful if you allow it to be. So with all that said, I want to turn it over just briefly to my partner Corey Jensen to introduce himself as a co-instructor.
>> Well, thank you, Megan, and welcome. We're really happy that you're um here with us and that you're taking time out of your busy life to uh to to go through this course. We feel it'll be very very beneficial. But we've spent a lot of hours working on this and um and feel like this would really be uh helpful. So to tell you a little bit about me, I'm um I've been attending the temple regularly for the past 38 years. I've written three books on the endowment um and uh on the temple and I'm um I've been a diligent student for a long time and I'm still continue to be a student and still continue to learn. But I'm excited to share with you um some of the things that have been helpful to me in coming to really understand what the Lord is trying to teach us uh in his house.
Thanks Corey. So in addition to sharing some of those doctrinal points that we have learned which we will throughout this course uh we want to talk in this first module about a few [clears throat] about a few paradigm shifts that we hope you as the student will experience as we work our way through the class together. So, we want to give you kind of an overview, kind of begin with the end in mind, right? So, um as I as I sit back and look at everything we have in the church, um it's really geared to helping us from baptism up through receiving our own uh temple ordinances, our own endowment, and being sealed. And once we've completed that, um, we leave the temple on that day. Then, you know, we return to do work for the dead, but we're really kind of left on our own as to, um, progressing from there. And it can be easy to feel like, well, I'm I'm done. I'm good. And instead, um, and I used to feel that way, but at, um, at this point in my life, I see the temple now as a beginning point and not an ending point. And we hope that u that will make more sense to you as we go through this course. Our objectives is to really help enrich your temple worship, enrich the experience that you have there and to help um maybe spark some new learning or or maybe open opportunities where the spirit can further enlighten you um and maybe present some things that you haven't considered before. We'll also be sharing a number of additional resources and tools um of of necessity. We have to be kind of brief and and a lot of these things will be kind of an overview, but we will provide resources for further in-depth um study if you if you choose to pursue that. And then the last finally we we hope that this will allow you to approach the the temple with new eyes that there will be some paradigm shifts and some things that uh perhaps you haven't considered before. Some of them may even be ideas that are new and that may you may be a little resistant to at first. But we would uh humbly ask you to approach this with an open heart and an open mind. It's uh we're coming at this from a faithful believing perspective and these are truths that the Lord has u taught and shared with us over many years and um we feel will be very beneficial to you. So plant the seed in your heart and see where it goes.
>> Yeah. No, I just want to add that testimony too. We're going to review five primary paradigm shifts that we hope you experience working through this course. Um, hopefully there will be many many more. I believe that the Lord can teach each of us on an individual basis and perhaps you will experience a paradigm shift that we can't even perceive right now. Um, that's meant just for you as an individual. But there are five that we really hope collectively students of this course will enjoy. And as Corey said, our prayer is that you can be open-minded and soft-hearted and allow the spirit to be your teacher. If something strikes you as strange or you haven't heard before or it's a little bit hard to believe, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's false. Um, in fact, I think a lot of times when we're presented with truth that we're maybe not familiar with, um, it can seem a little bit repugnant and a little bit hard to swallow. Um, but as we work through that, the Lord works with us to soften our hearts and open our minds and he'll teach us truth in his own way.
>> I was just going to say, you know, as you're talking, Megan, it reminds me of the there's a story in Acts. Um, it's a beautiful incident where uh, Philip's walking along and the spirit there's a there's a man in a carriage, a unic that's reading Isaiah and the spirit prompts um, Philillip to go talk to him. and he walks up to him and he says, you know, do you understand what you're reading? And the guy looks at him like, you know, this is Isaiah we're talking about here. Are you kidding me? How do I understand this unless somebody can teach me? And so we hope that this course will be a little bit like that for you. Hopefully that it'll really open your eyes um with the temple.
>> Thanks for that thought. So the first paradigm shift we want you to experience is that you are the temple of God. This is scriptural. Think about Paul and his writings saying, "Know ye not that you are the temple of God?" And a lot of times I think that we read that and we think, "Oh yes, we need to be clean. We need to be pure. We need to be a home for the spirit." But what if it means much more than that? What is a temple of God? If the temple is the house of God, what does that mean about you and about who you are and what you are meant to become? Uh, I think that there is great depth here and as we work through this course perhaps the spirit will enlighten you on ways that the Lord anticipates you as a person uh becoming his temple.
>> I love this Megan and I don't think Paul we we often take his statement figuratively. Um, I think he meant that literally exactly what he said and that changes things that changes everything. Um, the word endowment to be endowed is to one definition is to receive a gift or to be given a gift. And if we think about this perspective um, our gift, our endowment, one way to look at that, it's our mortal life. It's this experience. It's this whole thing that we're that we've been given. This is an endowment from God. And we are to become a holy temple of God. And with that in mind, as we go to the temple, then what we're receiving, what we're being presented there is a blueprint on how we become the temple of God. This was a big one for me. And it took me 20 years to go into the temple before it dawned on me. And I'm just a slow student, I guess. But I went for 20 years and just thought, "Wow, we're really looking at the story of Adam and Eve over and over again, the creation, an awful lot." until I I woke up and realized and the spirit uh opened my eyes and helped me see the endowment is not history. It's our story. Each one of us there they are symbols. They're archetypes. They're um symbols of each of us in the journey that we make through this life. And the endowment is teaching us about that uh experience and about the things we need to do here.
>> Beautiful. I know. I I had a similar experience the first time I went through the temple. I entered the celestial room after going through the veil and my mom was there and she gave me a big hug and I was like, "Oh, so that's it. That's what happened. That was the that was the real creation right there." Um, and it took me quite a long time before, as you said, I began to see, no, this isn't meant to be a history that we're reviewing. It's meant to be a pattern that we are applying. So that shift um again something that we'll jump back to throughout the course um really really powerful for beginning to apply the lessons of the temple and step into that archetype of um picturing ourselves as though we are Adam and Eve as we are meant to.
All right. The third shift I would say is perhaps one of the most life-changing ones for me personally. Um, that the Lord taught me over the last year, year and a half as you know through the podcast and through people that I had the pleasure of meeting who taught me um and this changed everything for me. The idea is that ordinances are not salvific in and of themselves. meaning receiving the physical ordinances of the temple are not the things that equal salvation. Rather, our ordinances are symbolic of actual gifts of grace that we receive from Jesus Christ in our mortality. They are um they have components that are meant to symbolize actual spiritual experiences that we are designed to have in our life. And that perspective shift made a lot of other things make sense. Uh, the Book of Mormon made a lot more sense to me once I understood that. Um, because people say how is it that we say that the Book of Mormon contains the fullness of the gospel when it doesn't have anything about the temple in it. Well, once you realize that the ordinances of the temple are symbolic and then you find out that the Book of Mormon is describing what they are symbolic of. Uh, well, that changes everything. All of a sudden, the Book of Mormon is a temple text and it does contain the fullness of the gospel. So, this was a huge one for me personally. This will make a lot more sense to you as we move on uh through the course too. So if it's um if it doesn't make sense right now, just hold on to the thought and I think by the end of the class, you'll understand this in a whole new way.
Um, we see examples in history of of people particularly the ancient Israelites and the law of Moses and the ordinances that they had. They you know there were two different approaches. Some of the people really understood what was being taught and the intent of those ordinances and participated in them understanding that intent and others really missed it. Um, and we have the same risk. We can go and we can go through the motions and participate in these things and really miss what it is the Lord is trying to teach us. Once we see that and understand that, then the experience becomes significantly more meaningful because we we know and understand what we're participating in. And sometimes that takes a long time. Um, and there's nothing wrong with going through the motions just based on faith. We see that with Moses. You know, Moses or excuse me, with Adam. Adam offered sacrifices for many days, probably many years before an angel came to teach him what those sacrifices really meant. But then once he unders and so he was doing that as an act of faith. But once he understood what that meant, now I imagined that that act in the future had a whole greater depth of significance and meaning to him. It wasn't just wrote wrote obedience. It was now um a very meaningful act and I hope that by the end of this course that some of the things you've accepted in faith at the temple instead become very beautiful and very purposeful and meaningful.
This one's uh this one is a is another one it took me a long time to see. I attended the temple for 20 30 years. Um, I knew that, you know, the scriptures teach us that all things testify of Christ and this is his house and we should expect that everything there would point to him. But I had a very difficult time making the connection between um the endowment specifically and and how that connected and testified of Christ. Um, I mean some of it is obvious, but to me, uh, but I made that a subject of diligent prayer and study for a long, long time. And I believe now that the temple has contains probably the most beautiful testimony of Christ that we find anywhere in the restoration. But it took me many years to see it. And we're going to share that with you uh later in this course. and hopefully you'll find it uh very meaningful and very beautiful to you as well. Megan, do you want to add anything?
>> Yeah, I think this shift is one that I personally am still making just because, you know, this content is fairly new to me as well. I've been a benefactor of Corey's 30 40 years of temple attendance um because I'm not there yet and he's learned a lot more than I have on that. But um I do think and I and I want to say that the more that I learn about the temple symbolism in everything, every single bit of the temple, the ceremony, the clothing, the architecture, um the ceremonies, it all does testify of Christ even and maybe especially the things that don't seem to on the surface. Um, and I think that's a true pattern. You know, as we talked about earlier in this lesson, sometimes truth when you're presented with it for the first time, it can be a little bit repulsive even. Um, and I think that that's a natural reaction of of our natural man. And and certainly the adversary wants us to be put off by truth that we haven't heard before because he knows how eternal lifechanging it can be. Um, and I think that we're going to share some things in our lessons that perhaps will be that way for you that initially you might encounter something that tastes kind of off and it's perhaps a little bit uncomfortable for you to accept. Um, but as you dig in and allow the spirit to teach you and and have that humility as a child, um being willing to be taught, uh, then I think you'll experience that shift as well.
Okay, the last shift that we want to talk about, shift number five, uh perhaps the most profound one and one that I so desperately hope we all can achieve is the understanding that you can return to the presence of Jesus Christ in mortality. Um, Adam testifies of this in the endowment. And he says, uh, you know, Adam and Eve were talking and Eve says, "Were it not for our transgression, we never would have had seed and never would have known the joy of our redemption that God gives to all the obedient." And Adam says, um, because of this, I know that I can, um, what what's the phrase, Corey? I'm losing it. It's
>> Oh, you caught me off guard, too. [laughter] I'm losing it. Well, he says to the effect of um
>> in this life I shall have joy and again in the flesh I shall see God.
>> And I think we tend to associate that with the resurrection. And certainly that's true. Um, but more importantly, as you go through the endowment, you will find that there is no representation of death. We've associated the veil with death for a long time, and certainly death is a veil. However, we learn in the temple with recent changes and and we will learn throughout scripture that veils are actually representative of many many things and we'll discuss several of those throughout this course. Um, but one that you don't see really represented is veil as a death or death as a veil. Instead, you see the veil as Christ. So, what does that mean? Well, it means that the blessings that are represented in the endowment, the covenant relationship that we hope to have, the close association with Jesus Christ that we hear o and read and study in scripture over and over again. Well, God is not a respector of persons. And the fact is is that the endowment is teaching us, each of us, how we can have the same experience as those great men and women. And indeed that is the essence of redemption and exaltation is that blessing of returning to the presence of Jesus Christ. Not waiting until we die. Not waiting for the second coming but instead living the pattern of the temple becoming a temple ourselves so that Jesus Christ will come speedily to us.
>> I just want to reiterate and admire witness that this is possible. We have witnesses from Joseph Smith um and other modern prophets. We have testimony after testimony after testimony in the Book of Mormon and in the scriptures. And we have in the Temple Endowment another profound testimony, not just testimony, but a road map um and a guide to help prepare us for this experience. And we'll discuss this more in detail. It's one of those that's a little hard sometimes for us to accept because we sense so keenly our own mortality, our own weakness, our own fallen nature, our own fraileness. But that is what Christ came to fix. And um this is the heart of the gospel. It's the essence. It's God reaching down to redeem man, to bring him back into his presence and um to to lift man back, fallen man and woman back to into the presence of God. And so we will um we'll examine this in a lot more detail in the in the throughout this course.
>> Well, that concludes this first module. We hope that this was um thought-provoking and interesting. And we really hope that if any of this resonated with you or if you want it to resonate with you that you will continue with us that you will choose to take the full class um house of learning, understanding the doctrine of the temple in our