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In the trilogy of movies around JRR Tolkien’s book, The Hobbit, one of the chief bad guys is an orc bearing the name and title, Azog the defiler. As in all good stories, evil meets its end, but not before causing as much damage as possible. In the personal realm, the scriptures teach us to not defile your temple, to not be defiled.
While listening to scriptures on my way to work this week, I happened to pull up Doctrine and Covenants section 93, one of my favorites. This section contains powerful promises and some of the deepest concepts in scripture. I’m not going to attempt to explain this section, but wanted to explore a word in verse 35 which stood out to me:
What does it mean to be defiled? Initially it sort of reminds me of the Savior’s teaching that we are the salt of the earth and if we lose our savor we are good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men. Salt never loses its composition or flavor enhancing ability. The way salt loses its savor is by dilution from contamination. That can be stepping outside our covenants, keeping one foot in Babylon while trying to have one in Zion. That feels a little like this defiling but not quite. Lets take a closer look.
The word defile contains these definitions in Webster’s 1828 dictionary:
To make unclean, to make impure, to soil, to pollute, to corrupt, to taint, tarnish the purity of character by lewdness, to render impure with sin, etc…
There is a certain element in those meanings that is similar to contaminate, but it feels to me like it has more intention. Regardless, lets look at what the scriptures say about it.
I started off with a search for “defile” and discovered there are 28 references in the Old Testament and 8 in the New Testament and that’s it.
Then I went with the wildcard search for “defil*” (without quotes) and discovered it was still extremely heavily weighted toward Biblical verses. There are 117 verses with a form of defile.
Sidenote:
If you wanted to see the other non-major words being used, you would do this:
Search for:
Defil* -defile -defiled
That will net you 11 results taking out the most common forms of the words. Remaining words include: defiledst and defileth.
Then I was curious to find verses that mention how you defile your temple so I tried a search for:
Defil* and templ*
This only resulted in 4 verses so I definitely didn’t want to limit my study to just those results.
So I returned back to the main set of results for “defil*”. I now create a collection note from the search results because I want to save my study notes associated with these verses, and then closed all my other panes.
I expand the pane clicking on the right pointing arrow and press ctrl/cmd-F in my browser to search for “defil.” That highlights all the words in the verses for me.
My main question is what kinds of things do the scriptures teach defile us? I want to have a pure temple so God can dwell with me. What are the activities I have to beware of to keep my temple holy?
I titled my note “Staying holy, avoiding things that defile us” and gave it tags of Defile, Holiness, and Temple.
After reviewing a number of verses and starting to take notes, I decided I would create a table in the master collection note and put things that defile us on the left, and the solutions on the right to stay in an undefiled state. You are welcome to copy/paste this table into your note if you want.
Most of these defiling actions appear in multiple verses but I didn’t want to try and record all the verses into a category.
| Things that defile us, the land, the temple | How to stay holy |
| Adultery/Sexual immorality/Bestiality (Gen. 49:4; Lev. 18:23) | Sexual purity |
| Put to death if you defile the Sabbath. (Exodus 31:14). | Keep the Sabbath day holy |
| Being in a state of disease (Lev. 13:46) | Keep yourself healthy (D&C 89) |
| Touching uncleanness (Lev. 5:3) including dead bodies (Num. 19:13) | Keep physically clean |
| Wickedness defiles the land which then rejects its inhabitants (Lev. 18:25-30) | Keep the commandments. |
| Seeking for familiar spirits and wizards (unholy revelation) (Lev. 19:31) | Seek revelation only from God. |
| Sacrificing children to false Gods (Lev. 20:3) (Modern day abortion, materialism, vanity, etc…) | Protect your children. They are an heritage of the Lord. Teach them correct ways. |
| Don’t eat meat of beasts that die of themselves or are killed by other animals. (Lev. 22:8) | Eat clean foods prepared with holiness of heart. |
| Murder. The land is defiled and requires the blood of the murderer to be made holy again.(Num. 35:33) | Keep the commandments. |
| Don’t marry outside the covenant and defile the priesthood (Nehemiah 13:29). | Honor the priesthood. |
| Do not abuse the physical temple of God. (Psalms 74:7; 79:1) | Keep the temple holy and clean. |
| Earth is defiled by people transgressing laws, changing ordinances, breaking covenants (Isa. 24:5) | Keep the commandments, ordinances, and covenants |
| Don’t lie or utter perverseness (Isa. 59:3) | Speak truth and holiness. |
| Nations (Babylon) defile nations (Israel) by polluting them with their wicked ways. (Ezekiel 23:17) | Reject wicked ways of outsiders. Strictly stay within the covenant. |
| Reject food and drink that violates the laws of God (Daniel 1:8) | Keep the Word of Wisdom (D&C 89) |
| Higher law: it’s not what goes in but what comes out of a man that defiles him. (Matt. 15:11) The tongue defiles the whole body (James 3:6). Impure thoughts defile a person (Jude 1:8). | Purify your heart and mind. Watch your thoughts, words, and deeds to keep them holy. |
| God will destroy defiled temples. (1 Cor. 3:17; D&C 93:35; 97:17) | Keep your temple that houses the spirit of God, holy. |
| Nothing is pure to the impure mind and conscience. (Titus 1:15) | All things are pure to the pure minded. Keep your mind and conscience undefiled. |
| Bitterness defiles (Hebrews 12:15) | Contentment and gratitude are protections. |
| Pride and envy defile. (Mormon 8:28) | Be humble, meet the needs and wants of the poor, don’t envy others. |
| All unclean things that enter God’s house defile. (D&C 97:15) | God’s glory rests upon the holy temple (D&C 97:15) |
This gives us a pretty good flavor for what it means not to defile your temple. Doing this exercise was good enough for me to get what I wanted out of it, but if you wanted to go further, you could look up some of the verse meanings in Strong’s concordance, other commentaries, and the LDS Citation Index.
I would like to remind the reader that the purpose of these blog posts is to first and foremost, teach how to approach studying the scriptures, and hopefully share an insight or two about the topic being discussed. I’m not a scholar of the scriptures, but a student and learning all the time about things as I feel led to them. I hope these exercises are useful to you to just demonstrate ways to study and use the Scripture Notes software. There are more resources coming to the Scripture Notes program that will further enhance your ability to quickly find insights and meaning in the scriptures. If you want a robust program to help you with your study of the scriptures, I hope you will consider subscribing and supporting a platform that will continue to grow.
Addendum:
Immediately after finishing this blog post I saw D&C 124:24
“24. This house shall be a healthful habitation if it be built unto my name, and if the governor which shall be appointed unto it shall not suffer any pollution to come upon it. It shall be holy, or the Lord your God will not dwell therein.”
Yet another example of taking care that spiritual things (even buildings) do not become defiled or the Lord will not dwell there.
(Featured Image (c) Darryl Brooks @123rf.com)
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Thanks Brother Norton for sharing your wonderful insights on how to approach studying the scriptures.
Funnily enough, my Hebrew tutor who is a lovely Jewish lady, responded to something I had shared with her about not being sealed in the temple to my husband…yet, and in that sense, denying our marriage certain covenantal blessings that we might otherwise receive. She replied that she did not like the absolute-ism of many religions, that it’s this way or you get punished, and what kind of God would want to punish you. We live in different time zones, it’s 3am for me, and I’m a day ahead. But I told her I would reply earlier but life got busy for me with evening sports and rangling the kids in for dinners, baths abs bedtimes. I don’t know why I decided to open my email. I usually go straight to my Ancestry app when I wake up at this time. When I opened my email app, I your post was still open from when I had started reading it earlier in the day. I had only read your opening blurb. I decided to finish reading it in my web browser just now. I wasn’t expecting your point-by-point list of what things defile the Spirit, Lan and body, according to both the law of Moses and the higher law of Christ (including what was revealed further to Joseph Smith).
Who knew (God did of course!) that the answers I would need to help my Jewish friend understand my perspective in the language of her own Jewish law, would be in this email, just as I was preparing to finish my earlier reply to her?
My faith journey has leveled up over the years, and can I share that because I took a step off the covenant path for a time, I really struggled to get back on it. I was living a double life, not realizing the significance of the things I had been taught growing up in the Church. It had become a cultural experience for me, not a faith-stimulating experience, and so my roots were very shallow and easily scorched by the sun, and choked out by weeds.
The first time I received the sacrament worthily after over a decade of not being worthy, was transformational. It meant everything to me to understand what it meant to partake of that sacred ordinance worthily, to understand what it meant to be spiritually clean, to understand what it means to be covered by the blood of the Lamb of God. I have been on a journey to holiness ever since. My quest was heightened during the heart-wrenching ordeal of discovering our unborn daughter would not survive birth, 9 years ago this June/July. Against the odds she lived for 5 1/2 precious days, and then returned home to the Spirit world where I know she awaits the Millennium when we can be reunited again, and when I might have that opportunity to raise her.
Receiving my temple endowment on her first anniversary opened up a new line of communication with heaven that I had not been able to tap into before. It’s like suddenly heaven is everywhere now and revelations flow down on the “pour” setting, not sprinkle. This email being an example of a real-time answer.
Wasn’t it one of the old testament prophets (Zechariah?) who explained the layout of the temple, that the Priests even change their garments the closer they move through the different sections of the temple, to demonstrate the idea of becoming more holy? And exhorting the people to teach their children the difference between the holy and the profane?
This is an ongoing challenge in my home being a split-faith family. The Lord is gracious and merciful every day. I know He understands my situation. I pray daily that my husband might soften his heart to desire to join my children and I on the covenant path. It is difficult when you have never had faith in God. But I know God knows him better than I do. He knows how to reach his heart. And I hope when that happens, that he’ll remember the faith he has seen in our example, and choose to believe over doubt.
For now, my goal ever remains, to learn how to become holy, even as God is holy. Thank you for this timely reminder, but also for specific examples of why this is crucial in our covenant walk, that I can share with my Jewish friend.
I’m so glad you found this helpful. On the clothing, check out this video I just posted last week:
Part of the “pour” setting of inspiration I have received these past 8 years since receiving my endowment, is learning by the Spirit teaching me in the early hours of the morning (usually 3am) how to level up my study of the scriptures.
This wonderful app (which I cannot access because I’ve been without a computer for a year) is precisely how I’ve been led to study by the Spirit. Through key word searches. Deep diving in Judaism to understand “the manner of the Jews” has also opened up the scriptures in new ways. It has given me context that was missing for years in my understanding of scripture.
To the word search, I would also add the words, “profane” and “holy”, maybe even “pure” or “purity”?
I’m thinking opposite word searches would be quite helpful in understanding.
I also utilize Jewish teaching (the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh) to understand their knowledge on the subject, including the Hebrew words and their breakdown. (I’m still in the process of learning Hebrew, very slowly!)
Sefaria.org
Chabad.org
My Jewish Learning
etc..etc.
I try very specifically to keep an open mind, whilst being hyper-vigilant around being led into strange paths. It’s a wrestle, like Jacob wrestled, like Enos wrestled in prayer, but my Hebrew tutor says that’s what it’s supposed to be like with G-d. I think nothing lost, nothing gained. There has to be tension in order for true growth to occur. If we’re too comfortable we’re not learning and growing.
Sharon, if you don’t have a computer, you must have a cell phone to be posting here. Get the mobile app and watch the training videos on the home page and you’ll have similar functionality for studying.
I am currently fasting which includes meditating on scripture. I wanted to find what defiles the temple your blog was perfect for my studies! Thank you for listening to God, doing the research and sharing this! May God continue to bless you!