“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple…”
Mormons know this scripture. They use it to say that you should keep your body healthy and abstain from harmful substances. Not a bad message, but this is not what this passage is about. Nowhere in this letter to the Corinthians does Paul ever talk about health.
We need to read scripture in context.
This section of Corinthians, like I said earlier, is all about correcting the church for their comparisons and pride, following certain leaders who are adding to Christ’s gospel, and saying their way is better.
Let’s continue.
“…and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.” (1 Cor 3:16)
Hear that last part?
You together are that temple.
A gathering of Saints.
The body of Christ.
“For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” (1 Peter 1:17-18)
Back to Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians—
“For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones…their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light.” (1 Cor 3:11-13)
Yeah, we are talking about gathering Saints and finding unity.
And how that unity and worship can be achieved without gold, silver, and costly stones. How that addition to his foundation — the simple truths of His real gospel — will actually bring you under condemnation.
But through the precious blood of the lamb, which makes Christ an intercessor for us, making the need of a building built with human hands moot.
“The Most High does not live in houses made by human hands.” (Acts 7:48, read 49-50 also; as well as Acts 17:24 and 2 Cor 5:1)
Jesus explains this to the woman at the well:
“Woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem (the temple)…Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth. (John 4:21-24)
The Chosen portrays this conversation so beautifully. The woman has been cast out of the synogogue, not unlike the poor Zoramites in Alma 33-34. Jesus tells her it’s not necessary to have a special place for God; he can come to her directly. She is so excited as she confirms “No mountains and no temples?” Because now she realizes nobody can cast her out again. Nobody can stand between her and God to judge her worthiness. It is now doable any time she wants to be with the Holy Spirit, to have Him with her.
Alma 33-34 also shows we don’t need a temple to worship; God can be with us anywhere.
This is exactly why our bodies are a temple of God!
Jesus’s mission was about putting the old law and the old ways behind them! Now you can have direct access without the middle man.
And all that gold, silver and expensive stones need to go to the poor anyway!
“They rob the poor because of their fine sanctuaries.” (2 Nephi 28:13)
All I Possess 