Konnichiwa!
Sorry guys, we're still in self-isolation, so not much to report this week. I'll do what I can though.
As some of you may know, the missionaries is Korea were pulled out and reassigned new missions due to the Corona virus. There are currently no plans to do anything like that with the Japanese missions, so I'm probably going to be here through the whole ride!
This week, we managed to throw another video up on Facebook, so if any of you haven't seen it yet, you can find it on my Facebook page (please share it!). We hope we'll be able to keep posting a variety of videos each week, but artist's block applies to videos too, so no promises.
We managed to find a new friend during Phone Dendou (finding via calling old contacts on our phone), so we're excited about that! Wish us luck!
That's about all I've got for this week, news wise (sorry, no pics). I did have a couple thoughts during study that I'll be sending after this, so do enjoy those. Anyways, I hope everyone's staying safe and healthy back home, and have a good one! Matta ne!
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Week 44 Study Thoughts
A Word on Wine
The Lord has commanded His Latter Day Saints that they should not partake of strong drink, such as wine. It has likely been argued by a number of individuals that drinking wine is permissible because Christ himself drank it. Before you excuse yourself into alcoholism, I would like to share a few points as to potential reasons for why Christ drank wine and why we don't.
0: Christ is the Son of God, and has the powers of heaven at His disposal. He exercised this power at one time in transmuting ordinary water into the best of wine. I don't think it would be entirely unreasonable to assume that any wine He drank or shared with others could have been similarly transformed. Now, as for why I'm mentioning this, I'd like the reader to consider the following idea: what would make the best wine the best? There's of course the simple answer of "it tastes the best", which is almost definitely an accurate answer in this case, but I think one less considered aspect would be the lack of intoxicating elements within the brew. Personally, I think any drink that doesn't give me hangover is significantly better than any that would, so in order for the wine to truly be the best, it would need to lack the alcohol normally present in wine. And if Christ could create non-alcoholic wine on one occasion, why not do it on all subsequent occasions where wine was used? If this is a correct guess, then Christ never really did drink alcoholic wine, thus resolving any arguments immediately. Naturally, however, this is merely a practically-baseless guess, and to use this as the sole explanation would be utter foolishness, therefore I shall provide other more factual arguments.
1: Jesus lived in a time long before much of the technology we enjoy today, such as the cooling technology that would prevent grape juice from fermenting into wine. While this fact is normally used to support that Christ definitely drank wine, it does have one other aspect that goes relatively unnoticed: the fact that there was no water purification technology back then either. It is commonly understood that drinking unpurified water is dangerous to one's health, often in the form of water-borne diseases. Still water is almost certainly diseased, and it's not always guaranteed that river water is safe either, therefore there are only a select few ways to obtain natural drinkable water. With this in mind, we can pretty well assume that drinking water was a very scarce commodity in Christ's time. But people need water to live, so how did they survive? By drinking wine. While the fermented fruit of the vine isn't the healthiest of things to consume in it's own right, it is far safer than the diseases that other water sources may have contained. Therefore, Christ didn't drink wine because it was okay in general, but because there wasn't a better option in his time.
2: Anyone who's read the majority of Christ's teachings know that He compared His blood to wine on many occasions, since they are both red liquids, and in such symbolism included it in the Sacrament. Nowadays, we use water instead. Some may be tempted to argue that water isn't a proper symbol of His blood, but this argument is entirely false. While Christ did often compare His blood to wine, He also compared it and Himself to water, or "living water" as he usually put it. Considering that blood is mostly composed of water and is required for us to live, using water as a symbol for His blood in the Sacrament is anything but improper. Additionally, as the Lord told Joseph Smith, substitutes may be used for the bread and wine as long as it is partaken with an eye single to His glory. Christ used wine in His time because of the visible symbolism, and we use water now on behalf of the metaphorical and scientific symbolism.
3: "But Christ said it's okay then, so therefore it is okay now. But Christ is the same yesterday and forever, so the Sacrament can't be changed." If you hold to this sort of argument, I've got some news for you. We believe that Christ is the Jehovah of the Old Testament (and for ye who don't, for the purposes of this argument, please remember that God and Christ have the same objectives and Christ doesn't do anything God doesn't want Him to do) and that He was the one who gave the ancient Israelites the Law of Moses. We also believe that He fulfilled the Law and both commanded His disciples to cease certain practices of the law and "raise the bar" on some other standards therein. For example, He commanded in the Law of Moses that we shouldn't murder, and during His ministry added that we shouldn't get angry either. This was because the ancient Israelites weren't as prepared to follow the higher law as they were, while the disciples of Christ were more prepared. Therefore, if we in this time have proved that we can follow His commandments as far as His previous disciples did, could He not ask us to hold a Sacrament more in accordance to the higher law than was followed in His time? Of course He can, and He did, so we'd best follow that higher law as truly as we can.
I hope that settles any concerns anyone has concerning Christ and the Word of Wisdom.
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