The Word of Wisdom: From “Not by Commandment” to a Temple Requirement
Doctrine and Covenants 89 introduced a health code “not by commandment or constraint.” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints now requires adherence to selected provisions for baptism, missionary service, and temple ordinances—a change the Church’s own study guide acknowledges, while the words “not by commandment” remain in the canon.
The short answer
Was the Word of Wisdom always today’s baptismal and temple requirement?
No. Section 89 says it was given “not by commandment or constraint.” Joseph Smith’s own journals record him drinking tea, wine, and beer. As late as 1898, Church president Wilford Woodruff reportedly told bishops not to withhold temple recommends from members who did not strictly observe it.
The contrast
Counsel became a worthiness requirement
The opening qualification remains in the canon. What changed was the rule attached to it: observance now bears directly on admission to the Church and access to temple ordinances.
“To be sent greeting; not by commandment or constraint … Given for a principle with promise.”
“No one is to be baptized into the Church without first agreeing to live by them.” Those who do not comply, he added, cannot enter “the house of the Lord” until worthy.
Current official summaryThe Church’s study guide expressly says that a revelation originally given “not by commandment or constraint” later became a requirement for baptism, missionary service, and temple ordinances.
The text of section 89
The revelation contains more than four abstentions
Modern discussion often centers on alcohol, tobacco, tea, and coffee. The canonized text also prescribes patterns for meat, grains, fruit, and herbs, then attaches promises to observance.
Wine, strong drink, tobacco, and hot drinks
The revelation says wine and strong drink are not for the belly, while making a sacramental-wine exception; says tobacco is not for the body; and says “hot drinks” are not for the body or belly. Later Church interpretation identifies hot drinks as tea and coffee.
The revelation distinguishes wine, strong drink, and “mild drinks” made from barley. Its wording is not identical to the current administrative list.
Plants, meat, grain, prudence, and restraint
The text commends wholesome herbs and fruit, says animal flesh should be used sparingly and preferably in winter, cold, or famine, and calls grain the staff of life. It promises health, wisdom, endurance, and divine protection to those who obey.
Section 89 presents a dietary structure, not merely a list of substances. Current worthiness interviews enforce only part of that structure as a formal threshold.
The early record
Observance and enforcement were uneven
Early enforcement differed from the later baptismal and temple requirements.
- The earliest manuscript
The limiting language was original
“Not by commandment or Constraint, but by Revelation & the word of wisdom.”
Joseph Smith PapersSidney Gilbert’s early manuscript contains the same basic qualification now printed in verse 2. The Joseph Smith Papers notes that early members differed over strictness and that the standard eventually became a baptismal requirement.
- Kirtland high council
Nonobservance could disqualify an officeholder
“No official member in this church is worthy to hold an office” after being properly taught and refusing to obey.
High council minutesJoseph Smith presented the resolution and the council sanctioned it. This is early institutional enforcement, but its stated scope was an official member’s fitness to hold office—not a universal baptismal or temple interview.
- Joseph Smith’s journals
The founding prophet did not practice total abstinence
Historical introductionThe Joseph Smith Papers identifies journal entries in which Smith had tea with breakfast, drank a glass of wine, and drank beer. It also records his condemnation of drunkenness. Together these records fit moderation and opposition to abuse more readily than today’s categorical abstinence rule.
- General conference covenant
Members publicly covenanted to leave substances off
“All the sisters who will leave off the use of Tea, Coffee, etc.” voted, followed by “all the boys who were under ninety years of age” covenanting to leave tobacco, whiskey, and everything mentioned in the Word of Wisdom.
Millennial Star report, p. 35The vote marks a significant move toward commandment language and communal obligation. It still does not by itself establish the present baptismal question or a uniform temple-recommend rule.
- Brigham Young
Tea remained available for medicinal use
“If a person is weary, worn out, cast down, fainting, or dying, a brandy sling, a little wine, or a cup of tea is good to revive them.”
Journal of Discourses 12:28Young described bishops keeping tea for sickness and exhaustion and said such things should be used “with judgment, prudence, and discretion.” He also asked bishops whether they drank tea daily and said most would answer yes if they could get it. The context is restorative use, not an unrestricted endorsement of tea.
- First Presidency and Twelve minutes
Strict adherence was not yet a universal recommend test
Wilford Woodruff reportedly said bishops should not withhold recommends from people who did not adhere strictly to the Word of Wisdom.
Thomas G. Alexander transcriptionThe surviving online evidence here is a scholarly transcription of leadership minutes, not a linked image of the original record. The same discussion records Lorenzo Snow urging much stricter observance of the revelation’s counsel to eat meat only in necessity. The Church History Library also notes that some senior leaders drank beer and wine as late as 1901.
The administrative shift
No single date tells the whole story
Official summaries identify 1851, 1882, and 1919 as milestones. The underlying records show different scopes: covenant, commandment framing, recommend practice, and later handbook rules.
The cited 1882 text does not mention the Word of Wisdom
A current Church student manual says the Lord revealed on this date that the Word of Wisdom was a commandment. The published John Taylor revelation from that date concerns apostolic and Seventy appointments, priesthood organization, and missionary work; it does not mention the Word of Wisdom. The manual does not explain the connection.
The manual makes the claim, but the publicly accessible text it dates does not independently substantiate that specific change. This is a source gap, not proof that no other instruction was given.
A requirement emerged through letters and handbooks
An October 1919 First Presidency letter told mission presidents to recommend only members known to keep the Word of Wisdom and other standards: “It must be known that they keep the Word of Wisdom.” Historical scholarship describes stricter general temple admission in 1921; by 1933 the Church handbook expressly said applicants should keep the Word of Wisdom.
The 1919 document concerns mission presidents recommending members in their missions. The 1921 date describes broader enforcement under Heber J. Grant. Treating either as the entire change hides the staged development.
A leader’s retrospective account
Spencer W. Kimball acknowledged a period of training
In an October 1951 general conference address, then-apostle Spencer W. Kimball said members received “perhaps thirty to forty years of training and experience” before the Lord announced through Brigham Young that the Word of Wisdom had become a commandment.
That account expressly distinguishes the revelation’s original status from a later commandment status. It compresses a longer administrative history, however: recommend practice was still being debated in 1898 and tightened in the twentieth century.
The current rule
Worthiness is tested at three institutional gates
The present standard is not merely recommended health advice. Official materials attach it to entry, service, leadership, and sacred ordinances.
Baptism
The baptismal interview asks candidates whether they understand the Word of Wisdom standard and are willing to obey it. Packer described agreement to live the standard as a prerequisite to baptism.
Missionary service and leadership
The official study guide names missionary service. Packer also said people would not be called to teach or lead unless they accepted the standard.
Temple ordinances
The current temple-recommend interview asks whether the member understands and obeys the Word of Wisdom. The Church teaches that endowment and sealing ordinances are essential to exaltation.
Priesthood advancement
The General Handbook uses the same willingness-to-obey question when interviewing a man for Melchizedek Priesthood ordination.
Selective enforcement
The canon and the interview do not have the same boundaries
The full revelation remains scripture. Current policy interprets and enforces some provisions categorically while continuing to teach others as counsel.
Formal abstinence and avoidance
The General Handbook requires abstinence from tobacco, alcohol, coffee, and tea. It also directs members to avoid illegal, harmful, addictive, or judgment-impairing substances. Current guidance applies those principles to vaping, recreational marijuana, and prescription-drug misuse, while allowing prescribed medical use under stated conditions.
Temple question 11 asks: “Do you understand and obey the Word of Wisdom?”
Canonical dietary counsel
The current Church overview still teaches fruit, herbs, grains, and meat used sparingly. Section 89 goes further by preferring meat in winter, cold, or famine and by naming barley for mild drinks. No current official interview source reviewed for this case makes ordinary meat consumption a baptismal or temple barrier.
The dietary counsel has not been removed from scripture. Rather, the Church’s administrative definition of compliance gives selected substances a gatekeeping role that the other dietary provisions do not receive.
The institutional explanation
The Church’s account: time to adopt the standard
The current Doctrine and Covenants student manual says the Lord did not initially make the revelation a commandment because many people were addicted to substances it discouraged. It presents the delay as mercy: members were given time to overcome habits, the 1851 conference covenant strengthened observance, and later presidents clarified the binding standard.
The explanation does not account for the mismatch between the manual’s 1882 claim and the published revelation from that date, or for making only selected parts of section 89 worthiness requirements.
New Testament context
Self-control without a parallel tea-and-coffee test
The New Testament condemns drunkenness and supports bodily stewardship. Its food-and-drink passages also warn against treating disputed consumption rules as the ground of spiritual judgment.
Mark 7:14–23
Defilement is located in the heart
“Nothing outside a person … can defile him.”
Jesus is answering ritual-purity criticism and then names evils that proceed from within. The passage does not excuse intoxication, but it resists locating moral defilement in food entering the body.
Read in the ESV ↗Colossians 2:16–23; Romans 14
Food and drink are not grounds for mutual judgment
“Let no one pass judgment on you.”
Colossians addresses ascetic regulations; Romans 14 addresses disputes within the Christian community. Neither text answers modern health questions, but both place spiritual weight on conscience, charity, and God’s kingdom rather than dietary boundary policing.
Read in the ESV ↗1 Corinthians 6, 11; Ephesians 5; 1 Timothy 5
Freedom is bounded by mastery and sobriety
“I will not be dominated by anything.”
Paul calls the body significant, condemns drunkenness, and elsewhere recommends a little wine for a medical problem. Wine was also present at the Corinthian Lord’s Supper, where Paul condemned selfishness and drunkenness. The pattern supports self-control and rejects addiction; it does not establish abstinence from tea or coffee as a prerequisite for baptism or Christian ordinances.
Read in the ESV ↗1 Timothy 4:1–5
Food rules as a mark of false teaching
“Nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.”
Paul warns of teachers who “require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.” His concern is ascetic rules imposed as religious obligation. The Word of Wisdom’s named prohibitions now decide who may be baptized or enter a temple.
Read in the ESV ↗The New Testament condemns drunkenness and enslavement to substances. It imposes no tea, coffee, or alcohol test for baptism or the Lord’s Supper—whose cup Jesus called “the fruit of the vine,” and which Corinthian believers abused by getting drunk—and it warns against making food and drink rules a condition of standing before God. Biblical quotations above are from the English Standard Version.
Finding
The revelation’s wording stayed; its institutional force changed
The record does not support a simple story in which the current rule was fully operative from February 1833. The original text disclaimed commandment and constraint; Joseph Smith’s recorded practice was not total abstinence; and leaders were still discussing how strictly to condition temple recommends in 1898.
Pressure to observe it began early—an 1834 officeholding resolution and an 1851 public covenant—but twentieth-century leaders turned selected provisions into requirements at the Church’s most consequential gates: baptism, missionary service, priesthood ordination, and the temple.
Sources and limitations
Read the record
Early wording was checked against the current canon and an early manuscript. Historical claims were tied to contemporaneous records where accessible; later administrative development was checked against official Church materials and identified scholarship.
This case does not assign a precise first date for universal baptismal enforcement; the accessible record supports eventual adoption, not one verified initiating document. The May 1898 leadership discussion is available here through Thomas G. Alexander’s scholarly transcription rather than a linked archival image. The original October 1919 First Presidency letter was identified through the Church History Library’s official overview and an older documentary compilation, but a public scan was not located. The 1982 Spencer W. Kimball compilation was used as a research lead only; the article quotes his accessible 1951 conference report. “Current” policy means official pages checked August 29, 2026.