Entry to the Temple through the Principles of the Beatitudes

Last updated on: July 3, 2026 at 3:24 pm by Dan Peterson

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Entry to the Temple through the Principles of the Beatitudes 2026-07-03T15:24:36-06:00 Dan Peterson

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A view, from the traditional Mount of Beatitudes, of the Sea of Galilee with the Golan Heights in the background. (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)

A new article went up today at Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 69 (2026): 129-182. It was written by C. Thomas Black, and its title is “Entry to the Temple Is through the Principles of the Beatitudes”:

Abstract: The significance of the Beatitudes, particularly their relationship to the remainder of the Sermon on the Mount, has long been debated. The Sermon has been shown to possess close similarities to certain instructions delivered in the temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Participation in temple ordinances is regulated by a series of sixteen questions regarding beliefs and behavior that are known as the Temple Recommend Interview Questions. Fourteen of these questions are asked of an individual desirous of initial entrance into the temple and participation in specific ordinances therein. The topics of these questions appear to correlate closely with the topics the Lord introduced in the Beatitudes as recorded in the New Testament and particularly in 3 Nephi 12. The two questions omitted in the initial interview, but asked of returning applicants, pertain to the keeping of temple covenants previously entered. Keeping covenants is also discussed in the Sermon but not in the form of a beatitude. Evidence shows that, through the Beatitudes, the Lord gave a preview of the qualifications needed by an individual for initial admission to the temple and participation in temple covenants; those same qualifications exist today. A clear association exists between the Beatitudes and the Sermon that follows.

Dr. Black’s article is accompanied on the Interpreter Foundation’s website by “Interpreting Interpreter: A Beatitudinal Interview,” written by Kyler Rasmussen:

This post is a summary of the article “Entry to the Temple Is through the Principles of the Beatitudes” by C. Thomas Black in Volume 69 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. All of the Interpreting Interpreter articles may be seen at https://interpreterfoundation.org/category/summaries/. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter series is available at https:/interapreterfoundation.org/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought/.

A video introduction to this Interpreter article is now available on all of our social media channels, including on YouTube at https://youtube.com/shorts/57utu2lhQQ0.

The Takeaway: Black argues that the Beatitudes show potential similarities (some clear, some less so) with our modern Temple Recommend Interview Questions, suggesting that the Beatitudes help outline the attributes we need to start our journey back into God’s presence.

“Abinadi before King Noah,” by Arnold Friberg (LDS Media Library). When I do podcast interviews, am I playing a role more like that of Abinadi or more like that of King Noah?

An interview that I recently did with Nathan Gwilliam on Why We Believe is now live, and here is a set of links that was sent to me where I suppose — I haven’t checked most of them — all, or part, or at least something about my episode might be accessible:

VIDEO

Website Video

Youtube Video

BLOG

Website Blog

LinkedIn

PODCAST

Website Podcast

Apple Podcast

Spotify

iHeart

Amazon Music

Podcast Addict

Pocket Casts

JioSaavn

Podchaser

Podcast Index

SOCIAL CLIP 1

Youtube Shorts

LinkedIn

X

Instagram

TikTok

SOCIAL CLIP 2

Youtube Shorts

LinkedIn

X

Instagram

TikTok

SOCIAL CLIP 3

Youtube Shorts

LinkedIn

X

Instagram

TikTok

QUOTE

X

Linkedin

Instagram

James Madison (1751-1836) served as the fourth President of the United States from 1809 to 1817. He is often referred to as the “Father of the Constitution” for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting both Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.
(Wikimedia Commons pubic domain image)

As we in the United States celebrate the 250th anniversary of our nation”s birth, many are focused on the sins and flaws that mark our history. This isn’t illegitimate. The denial of the franchise and of other rights to women, slavery and the segregation that followed it, abuses and thefts and land-grabs aimed at the Native Americans, the Japanese internment camps during World War Two, our somewhat belated and sometimes halfhearted ventures in colonialism — these and other wrongs do genuinely mar our history.

But a focus on the negative can become unhealthy and obsessive, and it can easily distort the truth. Moreover, while comparing our reality to our ideals is salutary and should be a frequent exercise, singling the United States out as if our failure to live up to a perfect model were unique is a profound mistake. Over the past 250 years, which nation has a better record? France? (Think, for a moment of the Napoleonic Wars, the Dreyfus Trial, and French Indochina.) Germany? (Please, be serious.) India, with suttee and its caste divisions? Nigeria? Mexico? Türkiye? Russia? Peru? China? Bolivia? Iran? South Africa? Of all the nations to which the United States can be compared, my sense is that the Anglophone countries offer the closest competition. But we shouldn’t forget such matters as the treatment of the Aboriginals in Australia or of the Maori in New Zealand, or the often-oppressive and stultifying class distinctions in eighteenth-, nineteenth, and even twentieth-century Great Britain, to say nothing of its once-vast empire. Every country and every national tradition has its flaws and its embarrassments. We are, after all, human.

America has done quite well, on the whole. Remarkably so.

The Hale Centre Theatre, in Sandy, Utah, is (as I’ve often said before and will certainly say again, barring unforeseen catastrophe) a local, state, and regional treasure. (Photo from the Hale Centre Theatre website)

Speaking of class distinctions: My wife and I attended a performance of Lerner and Lowe’s My Fair Lady last night at the Hale Centre Theatre in Sandy. It’s one of the greatest of all musicals, and the Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday cast did it extremely well. Scout Smith made an excellent Eliza Doolittle, and all of the rest of the cast were very good, too. We thoroughly enjoyed the performance and were quite pleased. We had hoped to catch John Donovan Wilson — who portrayed Brigham Young in Six Days in August and who is one of the co-hosts of Becoming Brigham — in the Monday-Wednesday-Friday role of Freddy Eynsford-Hill, but we were unable to make that work with our schedule. I’m confident, though, knowing him, that he did a fine job.

The socialist rulers of Venezuela didn’t inherit poverty. They achieved it. Now, though, a major natural disaster has made things substantially worse there. (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph of Caracas)

After the massive twin earthquakes that occurred recently in Venezuela, surely the innocent suffering people there already have enough to cope with. But, as students of the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™ will scarcely be surprised to learn, zealous religious fanatics have found it flatly impossible to just leave them alone. Instead, at precisely this difficult and vulnerable time, meddlesome theists have inserted themselves into this crisis in order to make the victims’ already-difficult situation even worse: “Church supports 23,000+ people after devastating earthquakes in Venezuela”

And, of course, this recent toxic event has also shown up in the Hitchens File: “Tabernacle Choir Returns to Hollywood Bowl as Beacon of Hope and Humanitarian Good: All revenue generated from benefit concert will help three nonprofits care for women and children”

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"The Physicality of the Small Plates"