“Cleansing the Temple,” Easter Study Plan (2024)
Monday, March 25
Cleansing the Temple
“My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves” (Matthew 21:13).
During Jesus’s time in Jerusalem, He visited the temple. There inside His Father’s holy house, Jesus saw various merchants doing business. He was appalled to see a sacred place of worship being desecrated and turned into “a den of thieves” (Matthew 21:13). Speaking with unmistakable authority, He commanded the merchants and moneychangers to leave.
Jesus Christ invites us to worship and learn of Him in modern-day temples. In the October 2022 general conference, President Russell M. Nelson taught:
Let us never lose sight of what the Lord is doing for us now. He is making His temples more accessible. He is accelerating the pace at which we are building temples. He is increasing our ability to help gather Israel. He is also making it easier for each of us to become spiritually refined. I promise that increased time in the temple will bless your life in ways nothing else can. (“Focus on the Temple,” Liahona, Nov. 2022, 121)
Read and Ponder
How can you cleanse your own heart and mind to prepare yourself to worship at home, at church, and in the temple?
Watch
“Jesus Cleanses the Temple”
Sing
“More Holiness Give Me,” Hymns, no. 131