Referring to the glorious future time of the Millennium, Revelation 7:15 makes reference to the people of the Lord who will “serve him day and night in his temple.” So what are these Saints doing in the Temple all day and all night? Round-the-clock temple work of some kind? Well, we Latter-day Saints may have a few thoughts on this matter. Could it be that the great redeeming work of baptism for the dead and other vicarious ordinances will be done once all the missing records that we can’t find ourselves have been graciously provided so that we can complete the temple work for all of Adam’s family who wish to receive the full blessings of the Gospel?
Sounds like a good idea to me. What a busy time that will be! Without political corruption and ongoing financial crises to worry about, I’m glad that there will still be something for us to do.
Your post brings to mind Orson Scott Card’s definition of ‘the Millennium’ from Saintspeak:
Millennium – A thousand years of genealogy, temple work, proselytizing, and filling out reports, a prospect that can make wickedness and destruction look downright enticing.
There are stakes in So California (San Diego Temple)that start doing temple work at 10pm and work through the night, finishing the following morning. They started with baptisms but now include all ordinances.
anonymous 10:14 AM,
Are you sure about that, or is it just rumor?
That sounds like fun. Sometimes my hubby and I look forward to the “call out” and the Millennium. I think it’s just because he likes to go camping and doesn’t want to study biochem anymore. Ha ha ha.
I haven’t heard anyone comment on this: President Monson announced some new temples and everyone was taken aback by the temple in Rome. Perhaps it was overlooked that Independence Missouri is considered part of the greater Kansas City area.
Let the speculation spread.
Speculation about the temple in Kansas City is spreading like wildfire on other LDS blogs. Just not here.
One of my friends, who peruses said blogs, pointed out the important fact that the actual temple lot in Independence is owned by a splinter sect of the church and they have said they will never sell it to us. And, of course, the Community of Christ is chillin’ with most of the other Independence properties, I believe.
All in all, though, I suspect that there is nothing exceptional to the temple in Kansas City, beyond it being another temple in the Midwest, where more Saints will be able to do the sacred work we do there.
While I definitely look to serving the Lord day and night, I also appreciate being able to access the temple now, and, like many other Latter-day Saints, I realise that I probably don’t take advantage of this privilege like I should.
Do the math. Assume 3 hours for all the temple ordinances. Assume 12 Billion dead and 3 million active temple recommend holders: 36 Billion hours are required. Equally divided each TR holder must do 12000 hours of temple work. An average of 5 seconds per day, every day for 1000 years? Either the math, the assumptions or the “round the clock” is wrong.
How about 5 billion temple recommend holders in the Millennium – and that’s not even counting clones, robots, and VR avatars on holodecks. Or we can adopt existing election technology, and have each temple patron be like a voter casting 20+ ballots per session. Yes we can!
Last May, the Catholic church said that we could no longer extract names from their records. Does anyone know what impact this has made in the extraction work?
I am a worker in the San Diego Temple so I know this to be fact. They come in on Friday at 10 pm and work until the next morning.
Perhaps it was overlooked that Independence Missouri is considered part of the greater Kansas City area.
Yes, the speculation was fun. But more details have been released showing that it will be built in Clay County, MO. Close, but not quite there.
Either the math, the assumptions or the “round the clock” is wrong.
When you think about it, the number of people available for doing temple work will increase with time. Each person whose work is done (and who has accepted it) can get thrown into action on behalf of yet others. The work will start out slow, but gain momentum.
Plus, your initial estimate of 3 million temple-recommend holders is a snapshot of the present, and doesn’t take into account those who died earlier in this dispensation or who lived faithfully in other dispensations, or who have already accepted the gospel and had their work performed for them.
The only thing that surprised me about the Kansas City temple is that it’s so close to the site of the Far West Temple, which was commenced about 160 years ago and has yet to be completed. I suppose we’ll have two in the vicinity someday.