The School and Temple

There is an important connection between learning through a “school” and learning through a holy temple.  The first nine verses of D&C 97 talk about how the Lord is “well pleased that there should be a school in Zion” and speaks of the blessings that will come because of the school.  The next eight verses then speak of a house which should be “built unto the Lord in the land of Zion” and the great blessings that will come from that house.  Of the first house the Lord tells Parley P. Pratt that he will be able to “expound all scriptures and mysteries to the edification of the school.”  Of the temple the Lord describes the instruction this way: “they may be perfected in the understanding of their ministry, in theory, in principle, and in doctrine, in all things pertaining to the kingdom of God on the earth.” So both of these places—the school and the temple—are to be great centers of learning where the mysteries of God and His kingdom will be revealed to the learners.  In perhaps one way these two houses represent the two types of learning that the Lord speaks of in D&C 88:118 when He tells us to learn by “study” (the school) and by “faith” (the temple).  And what are the requirements to learn at these institutions?  We must be such that our “hearts are honest, and are broken, and their spirits contrite” and we must be “pure in heart.”  All of these reflect the need for the proper condition of our heart—that is the fundamental prerequisite to learning the things of God.