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- [00:00]
A
When you want to look smart in Sunday school, if you want your friends to think you're cool, when you want to seem wise and not a fool. It's Christie's Corner.
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B
Today we're going to talk about one of Joseph Smith's most well known revelations, especially to Latter Day Saints, the word of wisdom. So, Garrett, where does this revelation come from?
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A
Well, I mean, you said it, you hit the nail on the head as far as how well known it is. I mean, I would guess that the word of wisdom is, it is certainly one of the most well known aspects of Latter Day Saints. I mean, if you meet someone who doesn't really know a Latter Day Saint, you know, they've heard of them, that they'll say things like, oh, I know you guys can't dance. And they think like religiously we're not allowed to dance. But what they really, what they should mean is that I've been to a steak dance and you guys really can't dance. That's what they, that's what they should mean. But. Or I heard you guys aren't allowed to play the violin. You know, I mean, there are all these kind of holdovers from other radical Protestant groups that people attribute to Latter Day Saints. But one, one of those things that has become this, this great marker is that Latter Day Saints don't drink and they don't smoke. Fewer people know that we don't drink coffee or tea. But it, it certainly is something that becomes a more well known aspect of, of, of the faith.
- [01:27]
B
So in my speaking from personal experience, in business, in my career, it's really the only thing people know about Latter Day Saints or Mormons, as they would say. It is one of those things that does make us a little bit of a peculiar people is that every event that I have ever attended, ever in the history of ever relating to business has a tremendous amount of alcohol. And so it's one of those things that.
- [01:58]
A
Now I see why you went into business.
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B
That's the main reason I went into business because everything.
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A
And it's free food. It is, it's everywhere. It's flowing like it's coming out of the garden. Milk and honey. Yeah, it's the real problem.
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B
But it is so. But no, but that, that's one of those, that's one of those things that, that's really. Multiple wives and also then.
- [02:19]
A
Drink it.
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B
Drinking.
- [02:20]
A
I was actually just traveling with a group out in the Midwest and we went to a hotel for a catered dinner and the only drink that they had was, was iced Tea. And it was a, you know, a whole group of Latter Day Saints and, you know, several of the hotel workers, you know, made comments to the effect of, wow, no one, no one's thirsty in your group. They're thirsty. They're thirsty. They just, yeah. And they're like, well, what do you want us to do with this? You can do whatever you want with, but they're not going to drink it. None of them will drink it. I'm pretty sure none of them will drink it. Or at least if they are, they're not going to drink in front of any of the rest of us. So it is this marker. It is a marker of who we are. And obviously the church hasn't always had that as its marker. So that's why, you know, we want to have a discussion about, about the Word of Wisdom. So, you know, if you want to follow along, section 89 in your doctrine and Covenants is where we're going to be. But the preliminary to this is that in late 1832, Joseph Smith had received a revelation that had instructed him to organize this, this teaching, the School of the Prophets. We often talk about the school of the Prophets. The idea was these men would get together, discuss the great things of the kingdom, essentially that they would, they would, they'd be educated not just in religion, but they'd be educated in langu. They'd be educated about governments and geography and all kinds of things that would make them more capable of going out and spreading the gospel. So it's very early on you have this, you have this attempt at self education. And where they met was in this upper room of Newell K. Whitney's store. Newell K. Whitney's store is the prominent gathering place there in Kirtland and has been since the Saints first arrived in. Well, since Joseph arrived in February of 1831. And so by late 1832, Joseph Smith receives this and they begin to have their, their school, the Prophets meetings in this fairly small room in the upper room of Noel K. Whitney store. Well, it's a fairly small room and, and the realities of what happens when you cram that many men into a pretty small room start to weigh on the after effects of that room. So I'm going to quote here from Brigham Young, who talks about. Now, Brigham Young wasn't one of the people who was there. This is simply him reporting what he knew about it. This is. You've probably heard this in a more polished version because it is in the Journal of Discourses. But this is from the, the unedited shorthand transcription of that, of the talk that he gave. This is Brigham. When the elders came, they use their freedom. They got up in their little small room over Joseph Smith's kitchen. The house he lived in in Kirtland belonged to Bishop Whitney. It was the room the prophet received revelations in and instructed his brethren. When they came into the room after breakfast, the first thing was for each and every man to light a pipe and to begin talking about the great things of the kingdom and to puff away, and how is this? And how is this? And spittle here and spittle there. And by the time they were ready to hearken to Joseph, to hear his counsel, and then, parenthetically, as Joseph didn't use tobacco, he had it to accommodate his brethren. So I'm, you know, to be a good host, apparently, right? And in 1833, you know, would you. Would you. Would you like a crab cake? Would you like a block of chewing tobacco? And you know that to be a good host, he's dishing it out. By the time he came to instruct them, here was tobacco spit all over the floor. And as soon as a pipe goes out of a mouth, in goes a block of tobacco. So these guys are chewing. They're. They're smoking. This set Joseph to thinking. And Emma complained of cleaning the room and could not make the floor look decent. One complaint after another. The girls complain of scrubbing the floor and the profit. So one thing that's actually. You don't get from just the. The journal discourses version of this is that it's actually Joseph who's also helping clean the floor. We always talk about it, you know, emanating from Emma, saying, you know, I'm tired of cleaning up tobacco spit. Which, first of all, literally anyone is tired of cleaning up tobacco spit. Even if you've never cleaned it up before, you're already tired of cleaning it up. It's got to be the most disgusting, smelly thing that. That, you know, that could be avoided, right? So that Joseph's also one of the ones helping her clean that up is. Is really weighing on his mind. The way Brigham talks about this room, you know, it's very visual. The smoke was so dense that you could hardly see across the room. So I've been told by those who were there, okay, we've got 12, 15, sometimes 20 guys in this little room, and they are all smoking now. They don't exactly have great ventilation in 1830s, you know. You know, country stores, they don't have central air. They have a couple of windows in the room. But unless the wind is blowing, that smoke is just hanging in there. I mean, these guys are essentially hot boxing it in this room. They. They're just. They're breathing mostly secondhand smoke. It's so thick they can't even see across the room. Imagine that, being in that room. I mean, it's certainly something different. I mean, anymore today, if we're sitting next to someone anywhere who's allowed to smoke, we're like, oh, my goodness, I don't think I'll be able to breathe at all. And they're like 30 yards away, and it's just being wafted to you on the, on the air. Anyway, back to Brigham. He said, joseph commenced to inquire of the Lord with regard to the use of tobacco and to talk and to think about it, and sought unto the Lord to know with regard to the conduct of the elders with this particular practice. This is really interesting. This is not a lightning bolt revelation in a vacuum shot in the dark revelation that comes out of nowhere. There's a really practical concern going on. It is really, really annoying how much smoke is in their room. And it's really, really, really filthy and time consuming to clean up all the tobacco spit, which I can only assume that the members of the school, the prophets, were really bad at hitting the spittoon. Right. And the fact that they have to clean it all up. There's also some cultural things going on. This is at the early stages of the heightened temperance movement in the United States. Now, temperance to us means something very different than it meant then. Temperance, you know, to us means not consuming alcohol at all. When we talk about the temperance movement, we'll say, oh, you know, like Prohibition in the Prohibition era, that's what eventually temperance is going to mean. But initially, temperance for most people meant exactly what the word means. Temperance meaning not, not, not abstinence from drinking alcohol. It meant tempering your use of alcohol, not getting drunk. That's what. That's what that meant. Now, of course, there were those who said you shouldn't drink any alcohol at all. There were those then too. Right. But the idea of teetotaling, which is this terminology that will develop during the time period, is, is the idea of being completely, you know, never drinking alcohol at all. But that's not what most people that are part of the temperance movement are. It's a larger outgrowth of the second Great Awakening, this religious revival in America that is calling on people to not just have a more personal relationship with Jesus, but also to change their behavior as a consequence of Having that personal relationship with Jesus. There were a few aspects of the, this kind of self purity movement, this, this movement in, in the 1820s and 1830s that would reference tobacco as also a problem. Not nearly as much. I mean, there are some people who argue for temperance who, you know, this reduction of alcohol that also will make commentary about, about smoking, but they're not as, they're not as connected. So there is at least some references to tobacco and alcohol together in the culture at large. You can see why that might be a wider question. And there are even a few, very sparsely few. This is not, this would be a very small minority of, of temperance or personal change type of arguments in the 1830s. There are very few that will make passing comments about the drinking of coffee and tea that it's much better if you just drink water rather than drinking coffee and tea. Now the reason why I say that's a minority view, there's actually multiple temperance advocates who actually argue that instead of drinking alcohol, you should drink coffee and tea. That, that, that they are seen as a way of remedying that, that soldiers shouldn't be given rations and alcohol, they should be given rations and coffee or tea. And that that's something different. So there is a recognition for sure that coffee and tea have a stimulative effect. I mean, that's surprisingly, that's the reason why people drink them and it's just not seen as detrimental. Alcohol is seen as, by these religious awakening is seen as something that keeps people from making the right kinds of decisions. And as, you know, prohibitionists will outline, you know, basically a hundred years later, so much of spousal and child abuse is connected to alcohol consumption. And that's seen as a way of preventing someone from, you know, drinking alcohol, seen as a way of preventing someone from following Christ in the pure way that they should. So there, there is this larger movement that's going on. There's, there's a temperance society in Kirtland. But all of these factors that are a part of the word of wisdom that we connect together now, we're not naturally connected together then frankly, they're not naturally connected together now. I mean, it's not hard to find someone who thinks that smoking is bad for you, right? That's, that's the easiest thing in the world to do. You can find someone who smoked for 40 years and has, you know, throat canc. And as a result, and they will readily acknowledge that smoking is bad for you. You know, whether they're able to quit or not. That's a demonstration of the addiction. But every, everyone understands that today they don't see the same kind of deleterious effect on health then as we do now. They don't. You don't have doctors telling people to not smoke. In fact, there are in fact some doctors. I'm doing air quotes here because they're doctors, I guess. But nothing that they believe would we recognize in any way is being accurate about health in any way. And there are some that will even argue that, you know, smoking is, is good for your lungs because it like burns out stuff that's in them. Yeah, in fairness, it does burn out stuff that's in them. It's called your lungs, but, you know, the, the cilia that make up your lungs, that's what's being burned out. But so there it really. While Joseph is, has these other sources he could draw upon to think about it, the fact that they're all connected together really seems kind of beyond what, what any other movement is doing at the time. I'm not aware of another movement that's advocating as strenuously to not drink alcohol, to not smoke or use tobacco at all, as well as not drink coffee, as well as not drink tea. And again, while there are some individuals who will make those kinds of advocacies, it is not a general belief. Temperance, the drinking of less alcohol is certainly a widespread movement. The idea of limiting tobacco intake is a far, far, far less. It's rarely even mentioned. And then the idea of limiting coffee or tea is. I mean, that's, that's, that's the unicorn that you find if you find someone saying that. So it's just not, it's not as, as popular anyway. At any rate, Joseph is going to do what all of us have to do in order to receive revelation. He is going to think about it, he's going to talk about it. So he's going to talk to other people about it. He's going to get their ideas, their viewpoints. He's going to think about it. And then after that, he sought unto the Lord to know with regard to the conduct of the elders regarding this particular practice. It seems like, at least according to the way Brigham Young describes it, that the primary focus of Joseph's question is actually tobacco. That's their problem. I mean, the guys aren't getting drunk in the school of the prophets, or if they are, we don't have those records. Unfortunately, they, they are. They're smoking and chewing tobacco and, and that's what they're doing in this meeting. And as Brigham continues in this account, he then received the revelation that is called the Word of Wisdom. You have read it. He's speaking to a Utah congregation here. So he's talking about the Doctrine and Covenants, you know, what is in it. And we see here almost the first thing that is introduced by revelation unto this school was the conduct was upon the conduct of the life of every individual in the school, not eating tobacco, drinking spirits and so on. So it really is this, this. It's a pretty massive response to what is a relatively, seems to be a relatively narrow question. It seems like that the, the initial question is, hey, is there any way that these guys chew tobacco and be so bad at hitting the spittoon in our little room that we call our house? That's actually Newell K. Whitney store. Right. Is there some way that we can regulate, just for the purposes of our, our, our class, at least, that we aren't chewing tobacco and smoking in there? Now, of course, you have accounts of people who say that immediately after this was received that they took and they threw their, their pipes in the fire. That's a much later account. That's actually decades later that, that that's claim is going to be made. But it at least appears that in the school of the prophets that that was now one of the things that they would do. They would no longer smoke, that they're, they're done with that. But of course, the Word of Wisdom is far more than just not smoking. Right. There's a reason why I don't have a vente latte here next to me as I'm doing this. At least you don't know that I do if I did, because you can't see this. That's why we don't do this video. But it's, it's because there's more to the revelation than just that. So let's go to the, the phrasing of the Word of Wisdom. I just want to go through some of the verses to start with. I'm not going to go through all of them. So don't worry, it's not going to be as bad as every Sunday school lesson ever. But we're, we're going to, to at least cover some of it. One thing that I think is really particular is to read the first parts of this. There are very few revelations that in them have a time component on them that are given and they say specifically, you know, for the next couple years, this, the Word of Wisdom doesn't have an end date. Sorry if that's what you're looking for. Out of this podcast. But it certainly has an explanation that it is only for the latter days, a word of wisdom for the benefit of the council of high priests assembled in Kirtland at and the church and also the saints in Zion, to be sent greeting not by commandment or constraint, but by revelation and the word of wisdom, showing forth the order and will of God in the temporal salvation of all saints in the last days, given for a principle with a promise adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all saints who are or can be called saints. So you have this explanation, first of all, that this is not by commandment nor by constraint. Now, before. Now, you can't stop listening to the podcast this second and run out and buy a case of Jack Daniels. So you. Before you listen, you have to stay here with me. You have to listen to the rest of the podcast.
- [19:22]
B
So they never drank, and now they're buying a case of Jack Daniels.
- [19:26]
A
Yeah, I assume. I assume that everyone listening to this podcast has lived their entire life following the word of wisdom. They just read verse two of section 89, and they've decided it's not by commandment or by constraint, and we're out. And the real reason why that's actually so surprising is in their terminology. They actually use the word commandment and revelation absolutely synonymously when they try to publish the first set of revelations in Jackson County. This is the one that we tried to publish, but they destroyed the press and they pitched it out the window, and some, you know, some of the girls grabbed the pages, ran to the corner, you know, all the story. Right. That book was called the Book of Commandments. They use the terminology commandment and revelation absolutely synonymously. In fact, they use the word commandment far more often. They will say, this is a commandment. Oh, one of the commandments recently received from Joseph. And. And they. They act upon them like their commandments. These are not just, you know, hey, FYI, if you decide to. I mean, they receive a commandment and they act on it immediately, sometimes the same day. And so one of the most. The most odd features of section 89 is verse 2 that starts off by saying, this is not by commandment, so it's a revelation. It's not about whether or not it's not a revelation, not by commandment or constraint, but by revelation.
- [20:57]
B
So this is. It's interesting, in a previous podcast, when you discussed the vision in section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants, you talked about how people struggled with aspects of that, but you're saying in this particular case, at least by those men, as later accounts would describe, that there was kind of an immediate acceptance of this. So, so what's, what's some of the.
- [21:22]
A
Differences, at least in the, in the initial response in the meeting? Because they aren't treating the word of wisdom the way we're treating it at all. They seem to, on their initial reception of it, think that what this means is I can't smoke anymore in the school of the prophets.
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B
Okay, I see.
- [21:42]
A
Because, you know, in point of fact, several of the men who are present will later in their life still consume tobacco, but they see it as a kind of, oh, I'm not going to smoke anymore in the school of the prophets. And certainly there's gonna be more as we go through these revelations, the verses of the revelation. When you talk about it, it's interesting as we go from verse two to verse four, because one of our, the tendency that we always have as Latter Day Saints is to desperately try to make the past equal our present. Now there's a lot of reasons for that. We're claiming that we have this reconstituted authority that actually stretches all the way back to Adam, right? That, that, that God has given his authority on earth, he's called prophets in various dispensations of time, and that we are the modern day dispensation, the last dispensation of this same type of authority that's always been on earth, even in various iterations. And so that, that gets us in a lot of problems. I mean, it's, it's beautiful doctrine and at the same time, historically speaking, it causes us to assume that the way things are now is the way things always have been. And that can sometimes be a stumbling block for us because we, if we find out that the way things are now is not the way they've always been, and we've come to expect that the way things are now is the only way they can be. It can actually cause us to have a little bit of a, of a faith crisis, in fact, because we don't have the ability to, to come to terms with that, with that issue. And frankly, one of the places that we have the greatest tendency to do this is with the word of wisdom. It is such a central part of who we are in our faith and how we manifest our devotion to God, that our assumption is, at least my assumption always was, is that you could project that backwards in, in, to infinity. That, you know, whatever passed for tobacco in Moses's time, he wasn't smoking it, right? That that is the kind of, it was my natural mentality because it's such a big part of my faith. So the assumption is going to be, well, if the gospel is always the same, then that's always going to be a part of everyone's faith. Verse 4. Behold, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you in consequence of the evils and designs that which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you and forewarn you by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation. So the word of wisdom in its beginning passages first of all says something that's odd for revelation, that is, that it's not by commandment or by constraint, and that it's in consequence of the evils and designs of conspiring men in the last days that the Lord is giving this to us now, and he didn't give it to another dispensation. So I actually shouldn't expect to find, you know, that Isaiah never drank alcohol because that wasn't a commandment that was given to Isaiah. The word of wisdom, at least as it's constituted to us, was given to us in the, in the last days. And so what we might be able to find symbols of things like this, we are not going to be able to find exactly the same thing prior to this. Because the Lord is saying that the purpose of this revelation is because of the evils and designs that exist in the hearts of men in, in the last days, not not in the former days. I mean, we, we can get ourselves into a difficulty by trying to make this argument. Well, I'm sure that the wine that Jesus and his apostles drank was actually just grape juice. Well, it wasn't. I mean, at least according to the words that they're using for wine in, you know, the more original languages. I mean, we might say that because it makes us feel better, but we're not saying it because there's evidence of that. Right. The reality is this is something that is for the last times and even when it's received, it's not received as this abstinence document that we have today. That and by absence, I mean, I'm not talking about sexual immorality. I mean, completely refraining, completely abstaining today in order to be living the word of wisdom, when you're answering your temple recommend questions, you need to completely abstain from, from alcohol and coffee and tea and tobacco. Not just, you know, I drink, but I do it in moderation. That's not, that's not acceptable. But it once was, and there's a reason why it once was. You can, you can see from the words that are there. The Word of Wisdom is a continuing revelation document. The Lord continues to give revelation to current prophets and apostles. And we'll talk about that more as we go on. But it's important we start with that mindset. This is a revelation to Latter Day Saints in the, in the 19th century. And initially that revelation says you need that. This is not a commandment, but you need to moderate yourselves in these things. At least that's how it's received. So if we go into the meat of it, right, verses five through seven are about the drinking of alcohol. And as much as any man drinketh wine or strong drink among you, behold, it is not good, neither meat in the sight of your Father, only in assembling yourselves together to offer up your sacraments before Him. Now notice there one of the, one of the things that you'll often hear people say about it. Well, even when they were using wine for the sacrament, they were just using grape juice. Well, apparently not. Verse 5 is actually speaking precisely to that. If you behold, it's not good, neither meat in the side of your Father, only in assembling together to offer up your sacraments before Him. So if you're taking the sacrament, it's fine to use wine. And other than that, not. That's what verse five is saying. And behold, this should be wine, yea, pure wine of the grape of the vine of your own make. People have taken verse six to mean. Well, it was completely non alcoholic wine then. That's what it means. This pure wine of the grape means that. That's just not the case either. I mean, in order for this wine to, to keep, they are fermenting it now they will use unfermented grape juice or, you know, wine. There's one source in 1833, I believe they, they don't have anything to take for the sacrament. And so they, they immediately go out and pick a bunch of current berries and they press the current berries through cheesecloth to create the juice. And then they go and bless that juice and they use it as their sacrament. So they certainly aren't always using wine in the alcoholic sense for their, for their, for their sacrament. But that's what they're generally using. That's their general usage of it. Verse 7. Again, strong drinks are not for the belly, but for the washing your bodies. Strong drinks is generally this reference to hard alcohol or spirits is what you'll hear them called whiskey. And you know, you Know, I mean, well, they don't have a whole lot of tequila at the time, but I'm guessing that would have fallen to it. Primarily they're talking about things. Whiskey is the primary hard liquor of choice in America at the time.
- [29:33]
B
So this revelation is received three years after doctrine covenants, section 27 is received. And in section 27 it talks about it mattereth not what you eat or what you shall drink as it relates to the, the sacrament. This idea that, that they were going to be purchasing wine and people might be poisoning it. And so that there was kind of a progression away from wine for sacrament. But here it's suggesting that they're still using.
- [30:00]
A
Yeah, and it's not even just a suggestion. I don't know of any historical sources now. There's a lot of things I don't know. So someone out there listening is probably, oh, I've got him, I've got him now. Yeah, probably. I don't know of any historical sources from the Joseph Smith time period in which they use water in their sacrament. They only use wine. They sometimes use unfermented juice because they, they make it literally on the spot. But they are not going to start using water for wine in place of wine and the sacrament, generally speaking, until, until the turn of the century, until the 20th century.
- [30:39]
B
So even. So, even receiving this revelation in Section 27 three years earlier, they're still using wine. But perhaps.
- [30:45]
A
Yeah, they, well, they view Section 27 as simply saying that, you know, it doesn't matter what you use. If you don't have wine readily available, you can go press some grapes and use that juice to use. But they don't see it as a declaration that now you should only use water. So that, that's a great example of an anachronism that we, we take. So what do we use today for the sacrament? Well, we use water. So when I read DNC27 and it says it matter, if not we shall eat. And that, that is the doctrine, I mean, that's, that's currently the doctrine of the Church. I mean, if you are, you know, a military guy in, in Iraq and, and you've been given clearance to hold the sacrament, and the only thing you have is part of some terrible mre, you, we take it as doctrine that you can bless and break that and can, and you can pass that if that's all that you have. The, the, the, the reality is that doctrine is still much in place, but our interpretation as a base point is what, we start with water and we start with bread. That's not their interpretation as a base point. They aren't using water. They, they still, even in cases where they don't have wine, at least they seem now what I don't have a record of every single attempt to hold the sacrament that's ever existed. We have actually very, very, very, very few accounts of sacrament meetings in the early church period. But what we do have all suggests that they're still using wine in their sacraments until the 1900s, until 1900 is when the first presidency is going to stop using wine in services that they're a part of. So. And that's all part of this larger progression of, of the Word of Wisdom as it goes forward. So, yeah, that's, I mean, it was a good question because what we see DNC27 saying today and what they saw saying aren't the same thing, right? They saw it teaching this truth that if you don't have wine, you can use something else. We see it as saying, yeah, you don't use wine at all. No, no, that's, that's not how they saw it. They saw it as you can use something else as long as you're doing it properly. We see that as the justification of, well, that's why we don't use wine, which is still true. Both of those are true. That D&C27 informs the reason why prophets give Revelation and say that we don't need to use wine anymore. But that's not what it meant at the time. And in Joseph Smith's time, they are going to use. They're going to use wine except in cases where they don't have it. And in those cases, they're going to try to find some other juice substitute to use for it, which I'm sure is pretty disappointing to the people who showed up. Right. They thought, I thought I was getting part of a cup of wine. Instead it's just some, you know, sour grape juice. But anyway, verse seven, you know, makes this kind of distinction between wine and this, you know, strong drinks and talking about how instead it should be something that's used, you know, for washing and there are some ceremonial washings that people will, you know, that. That what, they'll wash themselves in whiskey and things like that to clean themselves. So I mean, that, that might be speaking to that cultural aspect. Now, verse 8 is every latter Day Saints favorite verse of the Word of Wisdom. I mean, it's their favorite if they've, if they were born a Latter Day Saint, let me put it that way. If you're someone who have missionaries knocking on your door. Maybe verse eight was the biggest problem that you've ever had. But if you're born a Latter Day Saint and anyone ever asks you about the word of Wisdom, you can't run to verse 8 fast enough. It is, it is the, the, the home base of Latter Day Saintism when it comes to the word of wisdom. And again, tobacco is not for the body, neither for the belly, and is not good for man, but is an herb for bruises and all sick cattle abused with judgment and skill. This, the reason why I say this is where we run is, as I've already stated, everyone knows in today's modern world how horrible tobacco is for you. Smokers know how horrible tobacco is for you smokers. You know, we've smoked for 40 years. I know it's bad for me, but I just, I still do it, you know, I mean that they will, they recognize that it's bad for them. So it's not a question of whether or not it's bad. And you know, for Latter Day Saints, they see this as a great prophetic utterance. Long before certainly anywhere approaching a majority of Americans thought that tobacco was bad for them. You have bits and snippets, little bits of people, different places talking about tobacco. But by and large, as that room demonstrated, just about every adult, a bunch of women smoked too. I mean, it was, tobacco use was incredibly prevalent. And so it is. You can see why Latter Day Saint gravitates toward verse 8. Joseph's receiving this revelation about tobacco not being, should not be used long before any medical person, such as they were in the 19th century, is making that argument, at least on any general scale. And so it's cool because it's prophetic and it's also cool because it's the easiest argument to win. If you are having a conversation with someone who asks you about the word of wisdom and you want to prove that it's from God and you go right to tobacco. Because no matter who you're talking to, they're going to say, yeah, tobacco is bad for you. I get that. Everyone knows that. Now the, the problem is kind of where that sets us up for the other things they're in the word of wisdom because we, we start with this easily winnable argument that tobacco is bad for you, but then we start to move a little bit down the line, you know, and, and point of fact, I mean, the very next verse at verse nine, as desperately as Latter Day Saints having a conversation with someone about the word of wisdom. Want to read verse 8? To them, they just as desperately don't want to read verse nine. Verse eight is very easy to argue. It's very simple. It's very direct. Tobacco is bad for you. And whoever you're talking to says, yeah, as they, you know, as they are smoking while they're talking to you. Yeah, I get it, it's bad. But verse nine is problematic for so many reasons and it's so small. It's like the smallest part of the entire revelation. And again, hot drinks are not for the body or the belly. That's it. This will be described by Hyrum Smith as coffee and tea. Now, Those are the two drinks that they drink hot in the 19th century. But the very fact that it doesn't even say the words coffee and tea, but says hot drinks has opened an enormous amount of speculation from people. And as we'll talk about later, it will even be that will be the case in early Latter Day Saint ism, not just today. It's not just today that someone's having an argument with someone about whether or not an iced cappuccino is the same thing as having a hot one. In fact, they'll be having conversations about what does that exactly mean even earlier and what. We'll get to that. But you can see the problem already, right? It's really easy to win an argument about tobacco if you're just arguing from scientific principles. It's much more difficult. Oh, sure, you can find a scattered study here or two that, that presents some potential negatives of coffee and tea. But the vast majority of research on it, at least presently, and I don't know how long this podcast will exist before it's pulled down off the Internet. But. But the vast majority of studies that exist today don't give. Unless you have stomach ulcers or some other underlying, you know, unless you have, you know, high blood pressure already, that coffee and tea in and of itself is not, you know, a negative health effect. And we'll talk more about that. But I wanted to get to. We'll move on as we go through the verses here, probably to another fairly controversial aspect of the revelation. And it's controversial, I think, in part because it's never been defined the way that other aspects of the revelation have been defined. So it used to be that the consumption of alcohol was tolerated. You could still be a member and drink alcohol as long as you didn't get drunk getting drunk. That was right out, right, that you could drink coffee, but you couldn't drink coffee all day long. So it wasn't as codified. But later, prophets will speak about various aspects of the word of wisdom. And as they speak about it, it becomes more codified and we understand what we can and can't do, for lack of a better term. But this aspect, verses 10 through 12, leaves us a little bit hanging and leave it completely open to interpretation. And even prophetic utterance in modern times does not attempt to be more rigorous about it. And again, verily I say unto you all wholesome herbs God has ordained for the constitution, nature and use of man. I am sure that you have at some point had someone argue to you that's the reason why they smoke pot. Was, you know, this is a wholesome herb that God's ordained. You know, the poppy is a. Is a flower that God created. And that's the reason why it's okay to use opium. Every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in this season thereof, all to be used with prudence and thanksgiving. Yea, flesh also of beasts and the fowls of the air. I the Lord have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving. Nevertheless, they are to be used sparingly. Okay, eating meat sparingly. What does that mean? I remember that when I was a kid, my favorite hymn, in fact, I think we sang it at my. We sang it at my. My mission Farewell. Just because I was that kind of person, I guess was in our lovely Deseret. Love the song. It's just so great, you know. And the reason why I love it was. Was that whole word of wisdom verse in it where, you know that the children may live long and be beautiful and strong tea and coffee and tobacco they despise, drink no liquor and they eat but a very little meat. I mean it's just like the greatest hymn ever written. I mean, it's actually a George F. Root song from the Civil War called Tramp, tramp, tramp. The boys are marching and. And lizar snow, you know, does some magic with it and turns it into. Takes that tune and turns it into this kind of a primary hymn. But I love it because it's so direct. Talking about it now while in our lovely Deseret is saying you should eat but a very little meat. I'm going to guess that you can't remember the last time a prophet, not. Not your local Sunday school teacher like me, I mean an actual prophet. I mean. I mean. I mean a prophet or a leader of. Of. Of one of the general leaderships of the church or general Relief Society president or an apostle gave a talk about how you shouldn't eat very much meat. Right. The reality is, you know, there were. There have been talks given that reference, not eating very much meat. There haven't been. Even when the word of wisdom is discussed in general conference, the only time meat is ever mentioned in the last essentially 30 years is when they're read. They're quoting from the Rev. They're reading the verses of the Revelation, but without expounding upon it. And so it can lead. It's this area of. It's an area of gray or. What do you mean, eat too much meat? I mean, I've been to enough, you know, I've been to enough Latter Day Saint weddings to know that if very little meat means not eating chicken, well, that's not going on. I've been to enough, you know, church potlucks to know that there's, there's a lot of meat there. Right. And how is this interpreted? Now? Some people thought it should be interpreted pretty rigorously. Hiram Smith, for instance, he. He thinks you should not be eating meat, that you should make deliberate attempts to cut meat out of your. Out of your diet at the same time. We know from reading the journals of the people that are living in Joseph Smith's time, when they get their hands on meat, they eat it. You know, meat is not as. It's not as storable as it. As it. As you know then as it is now. But there doesn't seem to be any real attempt to try to. To limit eating meat other than this, this conversation of not eating too much of it. And, and it shows just really the interpretive nature of the word of wisdom. Because the reality is, if President Nelson tomorrow sent out a broadcast to everyone and said we are only going to eat 4 ounces of meat per day, that's what God has said. Eating meat sparingly is. Guess what every single one of us would be doing. We'd be measuring how much meat we eat. We. The fact that we don't follow that more closely isn't because we just don't really have any faith. I mean, I'm sure a lot of it is that we really like steak, but. But at least part of it is that it hasn't been closely codified. Alcohol is pretty easy, right? I mean, did you drink alcohol? No. Okay. All right. I mean, did you, did you smoke? No. Did you eat meat sparingly? You know, I got a T bone at the outback a week ago. I don't know if that. I mean, you can see how that can cause some problems. And, and frankly, it. You Know, it actually fluctuates over the course of time. You will have, especially near the turn of the century, you will have some apostles and prophets speak pretty strongly about limiting your meat consumption. But the Word of Wisdom is a contemporarily interpreted revelation. It matters far more what President Nelson is saying that you need to do to be observing the Word of Wisdom than whether or not George Q. Cannon said that he wasn't going to eat soup anymore because he thought it was served too hot and it made it a hot drink. I mean, that those two things, you know, while the one's very interesting, it's certainly not the, the religious devotion aspect of my following this, this covenant. Now, I want to, I want to jump here to the end, to the promise of the Word of Wisdom as we discuss it. And then, you know, we'll, we'll spend some more time on these various aspects. But this is verses 18 through 21. This is the promise. You notice the beginning of the revelation. It said that this is a principle given with a promise. Well, what is that promise? Verses 18 through 21. And all saints who remember to keep and do these sayings. Walking in obedience to the commandments shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones, and shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures. And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint. And I, the Lord, give unto them a promise that the destroying angel shall pass by them as the children of Israel and not slay them. Amen. First of all, that's some of the most beautiful prose there is in Revelation, right? That this health in your navel marrow bones walk, you know, run and not be weary, walk and not faint is. I mean, it's some of the most memorable lines of modern day scripture. But what I think is really interesting is about how verse 21 places the keeping of the Word of Wisdom in the same category or at least uses this biblical story to try to help us understand it. And that is the Passover, right? The destroying angels are referenced to the Passover. You know, I, I could, you know, give you a much more detailed account of the Passover, but I guess I'll just, you know, give you the armchair version of it. And that is that the children of Israel enslaved in Egypt, and, you know, all of you still can hear Charlton Hessen's voice echoing in your mind, let my people go. But, you know, Pharaoh won't let him go. And there's plague after plague after plague, and Pharaoh won't let him go. And eventually the Plague is that the destroying angel is going to kill all the firstborn in Egypt. And the way that the Israelites are going to avoid that fate is they have to kill this lamb without blemish and then place the blood of that lamb on the doorposts of their home. On the doorposts, the lintel and the doorposts of their home. And I find that to be a fascinating way to discuss the word of wisdom because we can get bogged down in the science of it again as we're trying to prove to our friends that we're not weirdos. And so that's the reason why we don't smoke. Because a prophet said not. Look how amazing it is that a prophet told us not to smoke. Look how bad smoking is for you. And we can go down that line, right? Until our friend says, well, why don't you drink tea? And then we suddenly fumble all over ourselves to try to, you know, eek something out about tannic acid from a study from 45 years ago that isn't really considered an important thing anymore because we're desperately trying to find a way to make the entire word of wisdom this kind of scientific thing, that the reason why we follow it is science. And frankly, it actually leads to some problems for other people keeping the word of wisdom. I can't tell you the number of times I've had people say things to me like, why? I don't understand why it's wrong for us to drink coffee, because, I mean, it's a lot worse for you to eat a bunch of trans fats. So how come that's not what. Or sometimes you'll have members of the church say, I think anyone who, you know is overweight and eating a lot of fat content, they're violating the word of wisdom. I understand there's a lot of area for interpretation about the word of wisdom, but it is important we understand what it is that the Lord expects of us and what he doesn't. And that's why I think this Passover reference is so interesting. That night in Egypt, it was readily plain. If you look down whatever constituted a street in ancient Egypt, you could readily see among the Israelites who was following Moses as a prophet and who wasn't. The people marked themselves. They took this lamb's blood and they put it over their door. Now, maybe they very begrudgingly put it over their door. Maybe they were huffing and puffing to themselves the entire time they did it. This doesn't make any sense. Moses is a crazy idiot, and they're putting the blood over their door. Maybe they didn't do it because, well, it's the only lamb I have. I can't afford to waste the lamb. Or maybe they didn't do it because, well, the Egyptians hate us a great deal right now. If I put blood on my door then that's going to make it seem like I'm a follower of Moses and that I'm going to be liable for more persecution. But that night in Egypt, whether you were a follower of Moses was a very clear cut thing. In the gospel we have all kinds of things that are not very clear cut, you know. You know, I love going through the Ten Commandments because those are like easy, right. Have you bowed down to any graven images lately? No. Right. That's easy. Right. But the reality is there's a lot of things for which it's, it's uncomfortable. Right. Do you love your fellow man as much as you love yourself? I try to. Are you kind to others? Sometimes. You can see the problem is as a Latter Day Saint, it's really hard to give absolute answers as we're doing this kind of self evaluation because we all know that perfection is the ideal and we can't get to perfection. And so, so because of that we end up in this kind of gray area where we never fully feel 100% comfortable with, with where we're at in our personal righteousness. And maybe that's how God designed it. Hopefully we're not beating ourselves up over it. Hopefully we're applying the atonement. We're not sitting here and you know, just, you know, whipping ourselves in the back about, about every last sin that we have. But we are trying to make this effort of becoming a better person tomorrow. But the word of wisdom, like it was for the children of Israel, it actually creates for us this kind of marking of ourselves. Just like the children of Israel did for the children of Israel. That night you either had lamb's blood on your door or you didn't. And even if you had amazing arguments for the reasons why you didn't have lamb's blood on your door, you didn't have lamb's blood on your door. And even if the only reason you had lambs blood on your door was very begrudging and you were very bitter about it, and you had an argument with your wife about it as you went out and did it, you still had lamb's blood on your door. It was a way for the children of Israel that night they marked themselves as to whether or not they were Followers of God, they didn't have conversations about how scientific it was. They didn't have, you know, oh, clearly the lamb's blood keeps out whatever our destroying angel is scientifically through the molecules. They don't know that any of that exists. It frankly doesn't make any sense to put blood on a door to stop anything. So why does, why do they do it? Well, because God commands it. And if you're a follower of God, then you're going to do it. I'm going to ask Richard here because I know, you know, as someone who's mother's Jewish and, and have been bar mitzvahed yourself, I. I have. I think you should probably tell the story of being hijacked into a bus.
- [54:33]
B
Yes, I. I don't want to take too much time, but I was bar mitzvahed in a bar mitzvah RV on sixth Avenue in New York City. I was working, walking down the street, a rabbi comes up to me and says, are you Jewish? And I said, well, my mom's Jewish, my grandmother. Oh, then you were Jewish. My friend, come with me. And he grabs my hand and he takes me into an rv and I just. It's New York City, so of course I just go with a stranger.
- [55:01]
A
So you regularly get into RVs with random people claiming to be rabbi? You have no idea whether or not this guy's a rabbi?
- [55:10]
B
He had all the apparent appropriate garb. I. I don't know. But. So it could have been the rabbi killer for all I knew. Right.
- [55:18]
A
Luckily, we haven't heard of one.
- [55:19]
B
Anyway, so I get into the, the RV and there's a rabbi sitting in the driver's seat eating a Greek salad. And, And I'm like. And he's like, so you have not been bar mitzvah? No, no, I'm. I'm actually lds.
- [55:32]
A
Oh.
- [55:32]
B
But that doesn't matter. That's fine. You can be. You can be. You become a man. I was 38 years old, by the way, when this happened. And so he puts all the stuff on Baruch a Ta Adonai on all over, whatever, and then gives me a yarmulke, gives me the cell phone for Rabbi Benny Zippel here in Salt Lake City, and away we go. So, I mean, it was an interesting experience to say the least. But so as a kid growing up, my, My mother tried to engage us in. So she's a. She was Jewish, and then she converted when she was going to the University of Arizona, moves up to the byu, marries my dad, and there we go. But so she's a. She's a Jewish convert to the church. And so we did some of the traditions based on the documentary Fiddler on the Roof. We did a lot of those things growing up. Hanukkah, Passover, some of those different things. And it was great growing up in kind of a rural Idaho. It was kind of a fun thing to be able to connect to. So my grandmother is still practicing Jew, and my entire. That side of the family is Jewish. And so the thing that's interesting is it relates to the Word of Wisdom. And so you've got, like, in Christianity, you have a lot of different sects. Within Judaism, you have people that are more Orthodox, like Hasidic Jews, all the way down to the kind of the Reformed Jews. You also have different distinctions based on geography. So you have Ashkenazi Jews that are from Northern Europe. That's where my family's from. From Poland and Belarus. And then you've got Sephardic Jews that are from Iberia and kind of Northern Africa, Middle east area. And they. There are different variations of their dietary law according to their tradition and custom. So as an example, you don't eat meat with dairy. Ashkenazi Jews don't include fish in meat, but Sephardic Jews do. So you can't sit down for a plate of salmon and have a glass of milk, which. That's just good. That's just good.
- [57:55]
A
Yeah, it sounds like.
- [57:56]
B
It sounds great.
- [57:56]
A
Yeah, it sounds like that one wasn't coming from God.
- [57:58]
B
That's what I'm saying. Like, the Sephardic Jews nailed it. They really nailed it.
- [58:03]
A
But.
- [58:03]
B
So what's interesting is. So my grandmother, who does occasionally like.
- [58:11]
A
To stray from Jewish dietary laws, I believe that she.
- [58:16]
B
I don't want to betray anything, but. But occasionally she can.
- [58:20]
A
I'm pretty sure she's not listening because she's. I wouldn't. Barely confident she wouldn't be able to figure out how to download it.
- [58:25]
B
Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's a million reasons, but that's probably the main one anyway. So she can have a hamburger and she can have a cheese sandwich, but she can't have a cheeseburger if she's following the dietary laws, which she. She generally does. When we go down to Sierra, Arizona, we go to, you know, kosher delis and. And eat there. And. And so if you were to ask my grandmother, well, that seems kind of odd. So you can have cheese and you can have meat. So why can't you have them together? She would not put together. And by the way. When you said tannic acid, I laughed because that's the. That was my go to for like, oh, my gosh.
- [59:10]
A
It's good to know that this podcast is destroying every argument you ever made on your mission. That was the main part about what.
- [59:18]
B
Are you making leather? No. Get out of here. It'll kill you. So my grandmother would not get into a diatribe about all of the negatives of combining meat and cheese. She would very simply say, so why can't you eat a cheeseburger? And she would say, because God told me not to eat cheeseburgers and God told me not to eat pork, and God told me not to eat shellfish, and that's why I don't do it. She doesn't even try to pretend to tell me why other than God said not to. And I'm following God.
- [59:53]
A
Well, I think that that's something that I, I would hope that more Latter Day Saints could take away from studying what it is that Jewish or Islamic believers have in their dietary food laws. The point isn't trying to find the latest study that shows, you know, how bad pork is for you. Like, oh, much higher incidence of cancer if you eat pork. I mean, the problem with doing that is as much as we enjoy doing that when it comes to tobacco, because we can win, right? It places us on very shaky ground when it comes to, especially coffee and tea. But even alcohol. Alcohol, it's. Every other year a different study comes out. The most recent one at the time of this podcast came out like a week ago. There was a study that came out that alcohol consumption of any level is actually negative. So I assume that that'll make wide circulation in the church, right? Because that, ah, see, alcohol is bad for you. But the moment we do that, the moment we focus on the scientific health effects or deleterious effects of consuming these things, we move ourselves out of the realm of the most defensible. If I make an argument to someone that I don't, you know, you know how amazing the word of wisdom is because I don't smoke and everyone sees how bad tobacco is for you, you. I've actually just set myself up onto the, the battleground of scientific discussion when it comes to the, the. When it comes to things like coffee and tea, which are not so readily knowable, which, which they're, you know, certainly there is not this overwhelming evidence for it. But if, when someone asks, as we sit down, you know, to, To. To. To lunch, you know, and someone asks if they can buy me a beer, if I, you know, I politely decline. And they, you know, they ask further and they say, oh, why don't you drink that? If my response is, well, we believe that God has prophets on the earth today, and one of those prophets received revelation that we shouldn't consume alcohol. That person that I'm talking might think that that's strange. They'll probably make some kind of comment about me, quote, missing out on the best part of life, which is what I've heard most of the time. But there won't be a challenge to that. There won't be an argument. There won't be. In fact, you know, like your reference to your grandmother, once someone says, I don't do this because God told me not to do it. What kind of argument can you actually make? The only argument you can make is, well, that's weird. And that's not really an argument. That's just you kind of being a jerk. You know what I mean? That's not an argument. That's. That's you being a jerk. But if you make the argument the other way around, if, when that guy says, well, how come you don't drink alcohol? And my response is, oh, well, I mean, you can look at the studies like, I mean, it's like, really bad for you. And, well, now I'm in the world of studies and I'm in the world of health. While the word of wisdom, while many aspects of it certainly have a tendency to help people live longer lives, not drinking alcohol is good for you. Certainly you're not going to be as liable to a drunk driving incident or saying something to your boss that gets you fired, right? I mean, there are certainly some things there that are part of that. The main reason why we follow the word of wisdom is because God told us to. And so what I want to talk about in our part two of this podcast is how this revelation went from being neither by commandment nor by constraint to where it is today. And that is a temple recommend requirement, a baptismal requirement, a covenant that you are going to make in order to become a member of the church. So thank you so much for joining us and I look forward to talking about this again on our next podcast. Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gary Eric Dirkmot and Dr. Richard Leduc. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. Until next time.