Having recently written a historical evaluation of the Word of Wisdom and the use of alcohol I have been thinking more and more about the Word of Wisdom and other common errors we Latter-day Saints make in our understanding of it. Too often I’ve heard people call it the “Lord’s Law of Health,” express distress that people can drink coffee but not soda, and suggest it is about not becoming addicted to stuff like caffeine or tobacco. While all of these have some kernel of truth to them they are fundamentally misunderstandings of what the Word of Wisdom is and what its function in Latter-day Saint lives and society is supposed to be. And because we misunderstand the Word of Wisdom it often leads us to incorrect conclusions about how we should live it, mistakes which can even degrade our faith. Hopefully here I will be able to correct some of these mistaken ideas so that however we choose to live we are doing it based on correct understanding and principles and not on error.
The Lord’s Law of Health?
This is perhaps the most simplistic and egregious misunderstanding of the Word of Wisdom, a misnomer that is the fount of many of the other errors we make in our understanding of this commandment. Unfortunately, it is one all too common in the Church because it has been spread by Church itself. The idea that it is a Law of Health is incorrectly drawn from the following versed from Doctrine and Covenants Section 89:
18 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;
19 And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures;
20 And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint.
21 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.
As I said before, understanding these promises as being promises of health in exchange for obeying the Word of Wisdom is simplistic and by evaluating these verses I will explain why I say it is simplistic and erroneous.
First of all, notice that verse 18 starts of by saying it is the Saints who will be blessed for remembering and keeping the Word of Wisdom. This isn’t just general health advice which everyone who follows it gaining a blessing from God. This is specifically for the Saints, i.e. those who have taken upon them the name of Christ by covenant through baptism and confirmation and are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is our first clue this isn’t just a Law of Health because the rules of healthy eating and living aren’t based on covenants, anyone who eats healthily will be blessed with better health. On the other hand, the blessings of the Word of Wisdom are strictly based on covenant, only those who have made covenants with God will be blessed with the promised blessings for keeping the Word of Wisdom. And this is the first and most important reason to keep the Word of Wisdom: Because it is a commandment of God and we covenanted to obey God’s commandments when we became members of His Church. But it isn’t enough to merely obey the Word of Wisdom alone.
Notice the Lord goes on to say in order to receive these blessings we must also walk in obedience to the commandments. In other words, if we want to receive the blessings promised in the last verses of Section 89 it is not enough to obey the Word of Wisdom. We must also strive to obey all the commandments of God. If you obey the Word of Wisdom but, lie, steal, violate your Temple covenants, or break the Law of Chastity then you will not be granted the blessings promised in Section 89. This again shows us that the promises here are about far more than simply living in a healthy manner. It is about living in a godly manner. It is about living the commandments of God to the best of your ability, repenting when you’ve sinned, and enduring to the end in following Christ. Only as we do these things and live the Word of Wisdom will we be blessed with the blessings promised in Section 89.
Now is this to say that there aren’t any physical blessings given for obeying the Word of Wisdom? Certainly not. There are two and we will get to those momentarily. First though notice the last phrase of verse 18:
shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones
At first this sounds like a health blessing, after all your navel and bone marrow are parts of your body. But I’m not convinced. Notice this is not the only time this phrase occurs in Latter-day Saint covenant making. This phrase also appears during the Endowment during the last part of the ritual before we pass through the Veil and enter into the Celestial Room. Endowed Latter-day Saints, if they think on it for a moment, will recall exactly what I am talking about. I do not think this is an accident. When the Lord repeats phrases like this He is drawing our attention to them and the connection between their usages. Both in the Endowment and in Section 89 the phrase “health in the navel” and “marrow to their bones” is meant to be symbolically understood, not literally understood. After all, what would be the point of having a literally healthy navel? “Fine looking navel you got there!” Outside of belly shirts, what would be the point?
When we understand the navel symbolically though, as the center of life, it makes more sense. Going all the way back to when we are children drawing all our nutrients, antibodies, and life from our mothers through the umbilical cord which connects us to her, the navel has been the literal and symbolic center of nourishment, connection, and life. Here we find an echo of the same symbolism from John 3 where Jesus teaches Nicodemus that he must be born again to be saved and Nicodemus, speaking hyperbolically, asks how he can climb into his mother’s womb to be born again a second time. The act of birth becomes a symbol for the relationship between man and God. Thus, just as the navel is the connection between parent and child, which gives health and life to the child, to have a healthy spiritual navel is to have a strong and powerful connection between us, the Child of God, and our Parent, God the Father, a connection from the realm of mortality, weakness, and death to the source of all Life and the Eternal Lifegiver. We find this same symbolism in the Old Testament as well. The ancient Temple of Solomon itself was considered “the sacred center or navel of the earth” (see Brown’s The Gate of Heaven pgs. 112-113 with accompanying footnotes), meaning the temple provided the umbilical connection between God and humanity and the rites of the temple provided the flow of life-giving power and nutrients between Divine Parent and earthborn child. This is still true in our day. The rites and ordinances of the Gospel, including the holy temple, are the enlivening and empowering connections between us and Heaven that give us eternal life.
What then does it mean to have marrow in our bones? I think it is very tempting to try and apply what we know about bone marrow today and its role in creating white and red blood cells to try and interpret this verse. This I think is incorrect as they didn’t know what marrow did when this revelation was given in 1833. If we are going to understand revelations from God, which He gives to us in our own language, meaning the language and understanding of the people to whom the revelation first came, then in order to understand the revelation we must do our best to place ourselves into the thinking and understanding of the people whom originally received the revelation. To do that I believe we will get a better understanding by turning to the scriptures, and to one verse specifically – Hebrews 4:12, which reads:
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Why this verse? Because it is everywhere in the Doctrine and Covenants. (See D&C 6:2; 11:2; 12:2; 14:2; and 33:1) It seems to have had a massive influence on the Prophet and the people of the time such that God repeatedly comes back to it in order to make His messages to them clear. Therefore, it doesn’t seem like a large leap of logic to think this verse influenced how they understood the concept of marrow. In all these verses the metaphor is comparing souls and spirit to joints and marrow, the deepest parts of our spiritual life with the deepest parts of our physical life. In modern terms it is like saying God knows us inside and out, in every way. Thus, receiving marrow to our bones would then suggest that God is going to empower us in every way, physically and spiritually if we follow him and, as said earlier in the verse, walk in his commandments. This would seem to coincide with the intended meaning of this phrase in Proverbs 3:7-8, which is the third place this exact phrase appears in addition to Section 89 and the Endowment. Proverbs 3:7-8 reads:
Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.
Don’t do what you think is wise, depart from evil by obeying the Lord and keeping His commandments, i.e. do what He says is wise, and you will be blessed. This then is the essential message of verse 18: You have made a covenant with God to keep this and all His commandments and if you do so then you will be blessed with a greater and more powerful spiritual connection with Him and be given what you need to be led to eternal life.
It is no surprise then that the first and foremost blessings given to the faithful are not health blessings, but mental ones. Verse 19 promises us that if we do as verse 18 instructs then we will be blessed mentally with great treasures of secret knowledge that will help us to become truly wise. This makes total sense in terms of verse 18. The more we draw closer to God, the more we strive to keep His commandments, the more we live our covenants worthily and without compromise, the more we qualify for and learn the language of the Holy Spirit, which in turn makes us more capable of receiving and understanding revelation from God. The more we live the knowledge God has given us the more we are prepared for and able to receive the greater knowledge that He has in store for the faithful. Thus the blessings of verse 19 follow closely from living the instructions given in verse 18.
Notice how none of that is about being healthy or giving blessings that could be related to physical health. Those come next in verse 20, which promises us that we shall walk without being weary and run without being faint. Note these are the only promises that could even be construed as being promises of health blessings in the entire Word of Wisdom. And even then I wonder if they should be taken literally as even the healthiest and most faithful adherent to the Word of Wisdom will still get weary and faint if they run or walk long enough. So I followed the footnotes for Verse 20 which led to Isaiah 40:28-31. Isaiah 40:31 contains the exact phrase “run and not be weary, walk and not be faint,” something that the Bible soaked culture of Joseph Smith’s era would realize quite quickly.
Again we should use the multiple usages of this phrase and the connections between those usages to inform how we should understand the phrase. The larger context of Isaiah 40:28-31 is comparing mortals to God. God does not become weak, He does not become weary, He does not become faint, He knows everything and is beyond our ability to comprehend. But humans, us, we are the very opposite. We become weary, we become faint, we become weak, we are foolish and stupid. But God can strengthen us, empower us, cause us to rise “on the wings of eagles” and make us soar into the heavens where all weakness will depart.
Though this could be construed to be about being generally blessed for following God, the idea of being renewed and soaring into Heaven where all our weaknesses disappear and we become like God sounds a lot like the promises of the Resurrection. Isaiah seems to have promised those who followed God and kept their covenants with Him then what we would now think of as immortality and eternal life. They would “be renewed” and rise into Heaven, leaving the fallen world and their mortal limits behind, ascending to God and becoming like Him. Isn’t that similar to what we see in verse 20 where the Saints who keep this covenant are promised physical power beyond the abilities of mortal limitation? Only Resurrected Beings can run without ever being weary and walk without ever being faint. No matter how fit you are eventually your body will collapse from exertion. Thus D&C 89:20 would seem to refer more to our eternal lives than our mortal ones, that if we keep the commandment of the Word of Wisdom, along with all the other commandments of God, we will be blessed with immortal bodies like God’s body.
So far these verses are less about following a “Law of Health” and more about giving us promises of eternal light and life for following God and keeping His commandments. These spiritual promises continue into Verse 21 where we are promised that the Destroying Angel will pass over us as the Children of Israel and not slay us. Though the term “Destroying Angel” is little understood and the specific identity of such an angel is often argued over, the essential reference here is quite clear. This is a reference to the Passover when the firstborn of all Egypt where slain by the Destroying Angel but the firstborn children of Israel were preserved. (See Exodus 12)
Why were the firstborn of Israel preserved? Not because they were of God’s covenant people, but because they kept His commandment to mark their homes with lamb’s blood. This of course is the same warning and promise given in the Word of Wisdom. It isn’t enough to be His covenant people in order for us to gain the blessings of the Lord. We must also keep His commandments. We may not understand why we shouldn’t drink tea for any reason other than God said not to do so, but this places us in a similar situation to the events of the first Passover in that it didn’t objectively make sense to think smearing lamb’s blood over your door would protect you from destruction. The faith in God one is being asked to have in both examples and the ultimate promise for doing so is the same. Trust God, do what He asks even if you do not fully understand every detail of why, and He will bless you with great blessings of physical and spiritual protection. Just as the bodily lives of the Children of Israel were protected by smearing blood over their doors, our obedience to God in not drinking tea or coffee will save us from spiritual death and lead us to eternal life.
So, to recap before going further. The Word of Wisdom is not the “Lord’s Law of Health.” It has very little to actually give in the way of physical blessings or health promises, if any at all. Instead the Word of Wisdom is intensely focused on the covenant people’s obligation to keep the commandments of the Lord and the promising of eternal blessings to them when they do so. Indeed, the blessings listed seem to have more to do with the Resurrection – eternal knowledge, eternal wisdom, the ability to surpass our mortal limitations, and protection from spiritual death and destruction – than they have to do with our mortal health. These blessings may come in some small way now but the fullness of these blessings are clearly meant to only be gained in the Life to come and to only be gained by those who have kept God’s commandments, including the Word of Wisdom, in this life.
But Why?
It is easy to understand why people have reduced the Word of Wisdom to such a simplistic concept as the “Lord’s Law of Health.” When faced with a commandment we often want to know why we are commanded to do this or that thing and to not do X or Y thing and saying it is all about health is an easy way to answer those why questions. The problem with that, beyond the fact that its wrong, is that in many cases the idea is clearly and easily proven false. For example, even though tea is forbidden by the Word of Wisdom it is a scientific fact that there are a multitude of health benefits to green tea. If the Word of Wisdom were really about being a “Law of Health” then it seems like either the Lord doesn’t know that tea can be healthy or that Joseph Smith wasn’t a prophet and just made some stupid stuff up. But once we disprove the assertion that the Word of Wisdom is a “Law of Health” we are still left with the question of why, as in, “Why would the Lord give the Word of Wisdom and have the members of His church live this way?”
The only official reason given by the Lord comes from D&C 89:4 where the Lord says:
In consequence of evils and designs 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 one purpose for the Word of Wisdom, as the Lord explains it, is that it serves as a warning which if lived will seemingly protect us in some degree from the evil designs of conspiring men in the last days. As an idea, wicked men secretly working together to destroy the church is prominent in both Restoration scripture (think of the secret covenants of the Gadianton Robbers in the Book of Mormon) and early church history (for example the conspiracy to murder Joseph Smith and then legally protect his murderers from justice.) It is no surprise then that many today see their own versions of modern day conspiracies in this verse. But, according to Dr. Grant Underwood, this verse is likely a reflection of the belief during that era that enemies of the Church would try and poison them through the things Saints had to buy through non-member businesses. Therefore they should try and produce as much of their own stuff as they could. While this makes sense in context of the era, as an explanation for the lasting prohibitions in the Word of Wisdom, such as why the Saints should avoid alcohol altogether as opposed to simply producing their own, this largely falls flat as a satisfactory resolution to our why question.
To better answer that question, to really understand why the Word of Wisdom exists, I think we need to first understand the concept of a taboo. Now, I’m sure we’ve all heard and maybe even have used the word taboo before in a colloquial sense. But what I want to talk about here is the more formal and academic sense of what a taboo is and why taboos exist. The formal definition of a taboo:
A taboo is a prohibition on human activity declared as sacred and forbidden or dangerous or unclean either physically or spiritually. Breaking a taboo may have serious consequences, ranging from imprisonment to social ostracism.
So a taboo is something more than wearing shorts to a funeral or chewing food with your mouth open. Something that is taboo is something that is strictly limited if not absolutely forbidden by the community and the committing of which leads to severe consequences, including exclusion from the community or even worse, imprisonment and/or execution. There are multiple reasons for taboos in societies, but there are only two which really concern us when it comes to the Word of Wisdom (mostly because it isn’t concerned with resource protection/control or menstruation.) The first reason is to that taboos are designed to bless people:
When a particular taboo is regarded as God-given, as a form of instruction or command from the “Supreme” and thus play a role in the cultural or religious belief system, then it is usually seen as part of a ‘package’ to protect the believers, to safeguard them against evil.
Does that not sound like what we were discussing above with the promise by God that the Destroying Angel would pass over those who obey the “package” of regulations we call the Word of Wisdom? The other main reason that the concept of a taboo is relevant is what they do in terms of creating communities:
Any food taboo, acknowledged by a particular group of people as part of its ways, aids in the cohesion of this group, helps that group stand out amongst others, assists that group to maintain its identity and creates a feeling of “belonging”. Thus, food taboos can strengthen the confidence of a group by functioning as a demonstration of the uniqueness of the group in the face of others.
In short, taboos create communities. Take, for example, the differences between Catholics and Anglicans. To the uneducated both High Church cultures probably seem like they’re more or less the same. But of course they aren’t. They have differing taboos that regulate what they believe and how they can live. For example, Anglican bishops can marry and be women whereas a bishop being married and female ordination are both taboo in Roman Catholicism. As cliché as it may seem, it is our differences that define us.
Communities are defined by what makes them different than everyone else around them. It is what makes them stand out as a separate society from the larger whole of humanity. And for the Latter-day Saints, the Word of Wisdom certainly does that. Indeed, one of the very few things most non-members know about us . Jews don’t eat pork. Hindus don’t eat cows. And Mormons don’t smoke, drink alcohol, coffee, or tea. All of those are things that are extremely common in society and which immediately stand out to people when they realize that you don’t partake of them. I can’t explain to you how many, “Are you a Mormon?” questions I’ve gotten from people when they saw that I didn’t want a beer or a cup of coffee. This isn’t an accident. The Word of Wisdom seems like it was specifically designed to make us stand out from society on purpose.
Whatever health benefits may come from living the Word of Wisdom the point is that it plays a large role in defining the modern covenant people as the peculiar, unique, and special nation that the Lord has always meant us to be. It is also why the Word of Wisdom is often the first thing that people jettison on their way out of the Church. We instinctively realize that this is a Latter-day Saint taboo, both formally and within our cultural society, that defines to a great degree what it means to be a Latter-day Saint and, therefore, it is one of the first things rejected by people who are starting to think of themselves as “not Mormon” and as being “free” of “Mormon rules.” That this actually a stupid decision when it comes to something like alcohol considering current scientific studies have shown that even a small amount of alcohol is incredibly bad for your heart and that even a single drop of alcohol is dangerous for your entire body, isn’t even a concern for these newly liberated “ex-Mormons.” The point is that alcohol use, no matter how damaging or destructive, signals their departure from one community to another, from Latter-day Saint to non-Mormon.
Though I obviously cannot point to some General Authority of the Church who has said this, it seems to me like the point of the Word of Wisdom isn’t that it is the “Lord’s Law of Health” but that it is a taboo, a sacred prohibition commanded by God to distinguish His covenant people from the rest of the world, to create among them unique community defining customs, and to set them up as lights in the darkness which cannot ever be fully extinguished or hidden under a bushel because merely living the way the Lord has commanded makes us stand out even when we do not wish to do so. This is why the Word of Wisdom exists and why we should obey it. God instituted it as one of His fundamental tools to define who we are as a Latter-day Saint community, as His people.
(Side note: That is also why I don’t think it is coincidental that the Word of Wisdom received so much new emphasis under Joseph F. Smith and Heber J. Grant, with adherence to it being made made an essential qualification to get a temple recommend just as polygamy, the other major defining Latter-day Saint custom and taboo, was coming to an end.)
Caffeine, Cokes, and Energy Drinks, Oh my!
Once we understand that the Word of Wisdom is not meant as a Law of Health and that whatever health benefits it may yield are truly tangental to its overall purpose, which is to act as a cultural taboo that plays a large part in creating the distinct Latter-day Saint identity, then a lot of the “problems” that people have with the Word of Wisdom can be dismissed very easily. For example, a lot of people, assuming that the purpose of the Word of Wisdom is about physical health, have balked at our prohibitions on tea but the fact that the Church has no prohibitions against us guzzling down energy drinks, which are far more unhealthy than tea. Some people, trying to invent reasons for why coffee and tea are forbidden have argued that it is because they contain caffeine, yet the Church has no problem with members drinking a case of Mountain Dews a day. This seems like contradictory nonsense when you think of the Word of Wisdom as a “Law of Health.” But when you let go of that misunderstanding the solutions to these apparent contradictions become clear.
The Word of Wisdom says nothing about caffeine or addiction and isn’t concerned with either. Tea and coffee (or for that matter alcohol) aren’t prohibited because they’re “bad,” unhealthy, addictive, or contain tannic acid. The Word of Wisdom is in fact completely unconcerned with whether something is healthy or not and the idea of being healthy is never mentioned in the revelation. Coffee, tea, and alcohol are prohibited because God has commanded the members of His church to not partake of those specific substances. Why? Because He wants us to stand out as different from those around us in a socially and culturally obvious way.
Once you understand the Word of Wisdom as taboo it is hard not to be amazed at the simple genius of it. All of it is easy to understand and follow, yet it is perfectly calculated to cause members of the Church to stand out not only in American culture, but in every culture in the world. It is not hard to avoid drinking alcohol, coffee, or tea, but by doing so we call attention to ourselves, making people curious about our actions. Being curious they ask us why we don’t drink coffee or tea or alcohol. Which in turn allows us to introduce them to the Gospel in a way they’re more receptive to because they asked to know more in the first place. The restrictions are minimal and easily followed while the outcomes have the potential to bless the lives of others exponentially.
Understanding this also helps prevent us from slipping into Pharisee-ism when it comes to the Word of Wisdom. Because humans tend to want to know the absolute boundaries and definitions of something we want absolute rules that tell us exactly what we can and cannot do. When we misunderstand the Word of Wisdom as a “Law of Health” it often leads us to mistakes that lead us to even worse mistakes. For example, if you think coffee is against the Word of Wisdom because coffee has caffeine in it then you’ll want to ban everything that has caffeine in it such as sodas, medications, teas, even chocolate. The problem here is that you slipped into the same problems the Pharisees of old did. In an effort to ensure you live the Word of Wisdom you’ve actually substituted your interpretation of the Word of Wisdom for the actual commandment, acting as if it were caffeine and not coffee that is prohibited. And then it was the regular consumption of coffee as a drink that was prohibited, meaning that just because a food has coffee as an ingredient doesn’t mean eating it is a violation of the Word of Wisdom. In this vein a few stories from the life of President David O. McKay come to mind as illustrative of what I mean:
[McKay] gently chided Apostle John A. Widtsoe, whose wife advocated such a rigid interpretation of the Word of Wisdom as to proscribe chocolate because of the stimulants it contained, saying “John, do you want to take all the joy of of life?’
…At a reception McKay attended, the hostess served rum cake. “All the guests hesitated, watching to see what McKay would do. He smacked his lips and began to eat.” When one guest expostulated, “‘But President McKay, don’t you know that is rum cake?’ McKay smiled and reminded the guest that the Word of Wisdom forbade drinking alcohol, not eating it.
…During the intermission of a theatrical presentation, his host offered to get refreshments: “His hearing wasn’t very good, and I got right down in front of him and I said, ‘President McKay, what would you like to drink? All of our cups say Coca Cola on them because of our arrangement with Coca Cola Bottling, but we have root beer and we have orange and we have Seven-Up. What would you like to drink?’ And he said, ‘I don’t care what it says on the cup, as long as there is Coke in the cup.” McKay’s point was simple and refreshing: Don’t get hung up on the letter of the law to the point where you squeeze all of the spirit out of life.
All quotes from David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, pg. 23
Once you understand the Word of Wisdom isn’t meant to be a “Law of Health” then you can stop obsessing about trying to stretch your interpretation of it to cover everything that could possibly be ingested. For example, you can choose to obey it by avoiding coffee but still get your caffeine kick by drinking yerba mate, which has nearly as much caffeine in it per cup as coffee, because you understand that the Word of Wisdom prohibits drinking coffee not ingesting caffeine. Obedience means following the direction of the Word of Wisdom as revealed and explained by the Prophets and Apostles without having to add anything extra to it because the point is that we do not drink coffee, tea, or alcohol, not that we avoid every food or recipe with any of those things as ingredients.
Final Thoughts
In summary, here is what we have covered:
- The Word of Wisdom is to be kept by everyone who is a Latter-day Saint
- The promised blessings of the Word of Wisdom are not promises of physical health or strength in mortality but of eternal blessings in Heaven. Any actual physical blessings are entirely incidental.
- We don’t abstain from drinking coffee, tea, and alcohol because they’re unhealthy. We abstain form them because God has commanded us not to drink them. LDS culture has invented the health justification in order to rationalize the Word of Wisdom to ourselves and outsiders. Such a justification or explanation is nowhere in the revelation.
- The Word of Wisdom is not the Lord’s Law of Health. It doesn’t address health concerns in the same way it doesn’t address addiction.
- The Word of Wisdom is a taboo, a religious prohibition meant to grant spiritual protection from God when we obey, as all commandments do, as well as to set apart Latter-day Saints as a distinct community with its own practices.
- The Word of Wisdom doesn’t forbid sodas, caffeine, energy drinks, etc. because it is not a Law of Health meant to make us be healthy. Therefore there is nothing hypocritical about not drinking coffee but drinking Coke.
- Don’t be a Pharisee and invent rules. The Word of Wisdom prohibits certain items from being drank, it isn’t concerned with if you eat something with the item as an ingredient. It certainly doesn’t care about caffeine, soda, energy drinks, or any other items.
For those of you who have reached the end of this article and wondered about why I have addressed other misunderstandings of the Word of Wisdom, such about what it does or doesn’t say about eating meat or what tea is or is not forbidden, don’t worry. Those issues will be addressed in the near future and aren’t included here simply because this article is already long enough and those topics deserves their own full length treatments. Hopefully this has helped clarify many mistaken beliefs that are common among the Latter-day Saints and helped them to understand the proper ways of, purposes for, and promises that come with living the Word of Wisdom.