Utter nonsense and not Biblical. You can pray anywhere and Israel has. Check God's own words in Ex. 25:8 or John 2:16.
You're taking the verses out of context, per usual. Recall that the Pharisees and Chief Priests of that day demanded a miracle to prove the authority of Jesus Christ to act in his Father's House, clearing them out. He then explained his coming death and resurrection. That incensed them as their apostate status had lost the truth by that time. They were utterly bling to the truth that stood clear as the sun before them.
Jesus answers Philip with a sort of Physics lesson, telling Philip that all he can see of God The Father Almighty is what Philip and the others could see of God in Jesus. Put in modern meaning, Jesus told Philip that he was not able to see that which is beyond his sensing abilities, so where God intersected Philips sensing abilities is the only place where Philip can see and sense God directly.
Jesus was telling Philip that He, Jesus, was God with them and all they could see of The Father Almighty was where He intersects their senses, The Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in The Father.
Mormonism apologetics is based upon seeking to sow doubt as to the truth and authenticity of the Bible, and into this doubt they then try to inject their blasphemies and deceptions, just as this 1010 poster is trying to do. The Bible contains passages where the three in one nature of God is illustrated for us, without saying 'this, 1010rd, is evidence of God in three persons being One not a troika as Joseph Smith asserted blasphemously.'
In fact, in our day with our greater understanding of the Physics of the Universe can better comprehend the triune nature of the One God because of our knowledge. The following is my feeble effort to illustrate this more to the point ability:
The One God evidences Himself in the work He is doingThe following will be 'a way' to understand the notion of the trinitarian nature of the Deity, not a strictly Biblical explanation, but one which is applicable to the teaching of the Bible. Here goes:
God The Father Almighty is greater than His creation, thus greater than dimension time and dimension space, thus we may think of The Father Almighty as beyond time and space but not prevented from touching and indeed penetrating His creation.
The universe of space and time is likened to a bubble: what is inside the bubble is in time and space. But the nature of what is inside the bubble is only partially understood in modern Physics.
The Bible relates scenes which defy our simplistic notions, but let us make the statement that God The Father Almighty is as comfortable outside the bubble of our spacetime as He is inside the bubble.
Modern Physics has discovered that the balance of forces and tensions sustaining the universe necessary for human life to arise within the universe is extremely delicate, on the order of a mathematical improbability, represented as a 'one in less than' fraction so tiny that a one over a one followed by more than one-hundred zeros [1 / 1x10100] defines the probability that the whole thing remains in balance! Such a delicate balancing act is but one of the continuing 'works' of the Holy Spirit of God. It is by the Spirit of God, The Word, that the universe came into existence and it is said in the Bible that by His Spirit the whole is maintained.
But the Bible also states that The Word was with God in the beginning and was God. In John's gospel we find that Jesus is The Word made flesh Who dwelt among us. So, inside the bubble Created by The Father Almighty, sustained by God The Holy Spirit, is the Word, God made flesh Who dwelt among us. The Creator does not stop being greater than His creation bubble, nor does His Spirit cease to sustain it all in balance, when Jesus comes in the flesh to dwell among us.
When one reads the Tanakh/Old Testament, one finds scenes like the fifth chapter of Daniel where a being is in one spacetime 'where/when' reaching into another 'where/when' to write on the palace party central wall of king Belshazzar. Just the forearm/hand is seen in the where/when of Belshazzar and the party folks, the rest of the being remains in 'another' where/when.
God The Father Almighty created this 'other' where/when, His Holy Spirit maintains its balance and separateness from our where/when, and Jesus has moved in and out of this other where/when: as shown when He resurrected from the tomb without rolling away the stone, just passing out of the tomb where/when, into 'another' where/when; then back into our where/when as He spoke to the women come to the sepulchre; and when He appeared in a locked and shuttered room with the disciples present; or appeared suddenly with the disciples walking on a road and broke bread with them then left our where/when to go to the 'other' where/when.
The trinitarian nature of God is shown in the Bible, even in the Tanakh. Trinity IS the nature of God as we have been given to know. Even in the Old Testament/Tanakh, we do have instruction on the Three nature of God as Creator, Sustainer, and Deliverer. God Is manifested as three yet one, seen identified by the 'work' He is doing/'action' He is taking.
With each manifestation, we are given to realize His presence simultaneously as Creator--because we exist in the realm He created, as Sustainer--because the balance is too delicate to stand alone without His sustaining the separation and interdependence, and as God with us in the person of Jesus our Lord and Savior.
The usual response from Mormonism apologists when I post that essay is 'so why would God pray to Himself as when Jesus prayed to The Father?' That is changing the subject and seeking to confuse the issues at hand n order to stop the realization of what it means that God is One yet manifesting in three identities based upon what He is 'doing'. Mormonism began with abject rejection of Christianity and evolved into a cult seeking to be accepted as the most accurate form of Christianity. To do this the ism apologists work to sow doubts and their deceptions and twists of scripture.
Utterly nonsensical. A holy place is a specially set-aside place. The temple was such a "set aside" for prayer -- and not just any type of intercession...but intercession for ALL NATIONS...
The same "ALL NATIONS" Jesus' Great Commission focused on discipling (Matthew 28:18-20) -- a little bit AFTER that Matthew 21 comment...
And, in citing that Matthew verse -- where Jesus cited part of Isaiah 56:7--isn't taking that out context at all: all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant—7 these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
The context there begins talking about the Holy Sabbath, yet another "set aside" -- done on a weekly basis.
Besides. Your Johnny-come-lately Mormon superimposition is an anachronism:
And for LOTS of reasons:
* You can marry a couple anywhere and Christians -- and Jews -- have been. (You don't need a Mormon temple to do it; and the Jews didn't do it, either...neither did the Book of Mormon characters...Even the early Mormons did that all thruout the 1830s!)
* You can also perform ALL baptismal rites outside of the temple (You don't need a Mormon temple to do it -- even for "the dead"...hey...just dig up the corpses @ your local cemetery, 1010, & immerse them yourself if you're so eager to "Mormonize" the dead!)
* 1010...they also didn't have "temple recommends" back then, now did they?
* Lastly, go back to the "house of prayer for ALL NATIONS"...including Gentiles!
Yeah...here the temple was intercession for the Gentiles...and here Mormon temples have signs that effectively say, "No trespassing! Gentiles, keep out!"