How Far to Take Word of Wisdom


Jason_J
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Maybe it's because I'm an outsider and all, but I'm confused. It seems like half the responses are saying the WoW is all about obedience and that's why it's in place, but the other half is saying you have to decide for yourself and it's not up to the church leaders. If you're interpreting direct I can't find anything at all about coffee or tea flavored ice cream. Ice cream is about as far from "hot drink" as you can get.

Well, it's about both. It's about obedience in so much as the Word of Wisdom explicitly forbids or allows. For example, we have coffee, tea, and alcohol (here, I'm grouping products containing coffee in with coffee, which explains the ice cream examples). There's really no question about it: we are forbidden to eat/drink those things in whatever form.

It is, however, up to choice in the things that the Word of Wisdom does not explicitly forbid or allow. For example, caffeine isn't found in the Word of Wisdom. Some find a negative statement regarding caffeine in the forbidding of coffee, but one isn't there. For those sort of situations it's up to prayer and how the individual spiritually feels about it.

Either way, the Word of Wisdom comes from the same source. Either we're explicitly told to not eat/drink something, or we discover whether or not we should eat/drink something through study and prayer. Through both processes our answer comes from God, the source of all truth. I think that last step is one of the main points of the Word of Wisdom: teaching us how to derive doctrine from principles via prayer and study (whereas the Law of Moses gave us doctrine and we had to infer the principles).

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Cooling,

perhaps I can help.

Part of this is that you have what Doctrine and Covenants 89 (Word of Wisdom) says, and then you have the official stance (interpretation) of the church. This is the interpretation as given by a prophet of the church which is where the coffee, tea, and alcohol come from. You will note that none of those are mentioned in those words in the scripture itself. Then you have interpretations of the individual members that many want to also find apostolic basis for. This includes things like coke or pepsi, green tea, non-alcoholic beer or wine, etc.

That is why, I think, you are seeing from some that it is a matter of personal revelation and from others that it is a matter of obedience. There is truth in both stances. The question as asked to member is: Do you keep the word of wisdom.

-RM

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A study conducted by the US Department of Agriculture’s Nutrient Data Laboratory calculated the percentage of alcohol remaining in a dish based on various cooking methods. The results are as follows: Simmered for 15 minutes 40%, 30 minutes 35%, 1 hour 25%"

If you are cooking with wine 90% of the time you are not simmering, you are sauteing at high heat. Yes there are exceptions but they are few.
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Cooling,

perhaps I can help.

Part of this is that you have what Doctrine and Covenants 89 (Word of Wisdom) says, and then you have the official stance (interpretation) of the church. This is the interpretation as given by a prophet of the church which is where the coffee, tea, and alcohol come from. You will note that none of those are mentioned in those words in the scripture itself. Then you have interpretations of the individual members that many want to also find apostolic basis for. This includes things like coke or pepsi, green tea, non-alcoholic beer or wine, etc.

That is why, I think, you are seeing from some that it is a matter of personal revelation and from others that it is a matter of obedience. There is truth in both stances. The question as asked to member is: Do you keep the word of wisdom.

-RM

That actually is really helpful. Thanks. I'm not trying to be a pain in the butt or anything. It's just really confusing sometimes because I hear so many different answers to the same questions. Is the church's official stance only no coffee/tea/alcohol on this particular issue?

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We do use the phrase Word of Wisdom to mean two different but related things. First and most common is related to worthiness (like for temple recommends). That aspect is much narrower and more explicitly defined subset of the whole thing found in the 89th section. For many members meeting the worthiness requirements is all they are concerned about. This is also the obedience aspect.

Then there is the rest of the Word of Wisdom, were the ideas of moderation, and wisdom on what you eat really come in to play. This is the area where personal revelation and understanding come in. This is the place for things like caffeine, too much sugar, and or fats and all that other stuff come in. Not worthiness related but good ideas.

When you see disagreement between Mormons on the subject it is almost always because they are focused on different aspects. For example caffeine... A case can be made against caffeine using the larger view, but to say someone is not living the Word of Wisdom (aka worthy) because of caffeine is out and out false.

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I think the great blessing of Agency is that we can determine what to give to the Lord. If that is in the Word of Wisdom, or Tithing or going to church. We always have a choice. When you look at the Doctrine and Covenants it provides a very basic outline for our lives.

The AoF say "We belive all that has been revealed all that is now revealed and that many great things will still be revealed..." If the Lord wants to flesh out the Word of Wisdom, he will do so on His time. For now though, I think it's just a test on how faithful we are vs. how conceited we are. I don't mean to be rude, but I have met Mormons who go "I don't do XYZ because the LORD forbids it!" And then they take out their lunch and it's some very minimal something, like rice or whatever. Sometimes I wonder if he's being the Tax Collector or the Pharisee. (Referencing the parable of prayer in the Temple that Jesus taught.)

Oh, I'm rambling again. Sorry.

Alexis

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We do use the phrase Word of Wisdom to mean two different but related things. First and most common is related to worthiness (like for temple recommends). That aspect is much narrower and more explicitly defined subset of the whole thing found in the 89th section. For many members meeting the worthiness requirements is all they are concerned about. This is also the obedience aspect.

Then there is the rest of the Word of Wisdom, were the ideas of moderation, and wisdom on what you eat really come in to play. This is the area where personal revelation and understanding come in. This is the place for things like caffeine, too much sugar, and or fats and all that other stuff come in. Not worthiness related but good ideas.

So who do you think is more "worthy," not temple worthy, but in a general sense... some one who doesn't smoke or drink coffee or alcohol but is out of shape, obese, eats beyond moderation, has high cholesterol and diabetes... or who exercises, eats healthy, doesn't eat much meat but has an occasional beer with dinner?

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So then do you think it might be a test of your agency? Because God was clearly able to give Joseph Smith a clear set of rules back in the day, and if he wanted to clarify it'd be pretty easy to do. I'm just theorizing here based on what Alexis just said, but I think there might be something to the idea that things like this are left vague in order to test how we use our agency when we aren't using it to obey. Are we smart enough to figure out what God really wants us to avoid, or will we fear thinking for ourselves and just adhere to the exact word of the WoW even when common sense says there's room for interpretation? Maybe little things like this are his way of making sure that we can think and judge for ourselves. I'm not saying that absolute obedience is easy, but you have to be able to make wise decisions when there's no one telling you what you're supposed to do as well.

I also agree with Alexis in that it can be a good test of how judgmental and pompous someone can be towards other people. No one should assume that the person sitting next to them in church is any less faithful just because they treat themselves to Starbucks every now and again. Especially if knocking back a Red Bull while you stare disapprovingly at them

Well now I'm rambling. Sorry. It's kind of a fun theory to ponder though.

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