“Members partake with their right hand when possible.”
—General Handbook: Serving in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 18.9.3

Imagine this: An apostle of God visits your church meeting. He tells you that God has impressed something specific on his heart—something he feels prompted to say, just for you.

You lean in, expecting a message of encouragement, repentance, or grace. A word from heaven.

Instead, he critiques the youth for taking the sacrament with the wrong hand.

That’s exactly what happened when President Dallin H. Oaks addressed a group of Latter-day Saint teenagers in 2021. He explained that he had felt spiritually prompted to correct them—not about their hearts, their theology, or their reverence—but about their hand usage during the sacrament:

“When we partake of the sacrament, we do so with the right hand. That’s the way the sacrament is administered in the Church.”

This isn’t just a strange anecdote—it’s a window into how far modern Mormonism has drifted into what Jesus condemned: elevating human traditions to the level of divine expectation, and burdening worshipers with rules God never gave.

The Symbolism of the Right Hand

In Mormon thought, the right hand has symbolic value. Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father. Ordinations and blessings are performed with the right hand. So the logic goes: the sacrament, as a sacred ordinance, should also be received with the right hand—as a sign of reverence and obedience.

But here’s the problem: this instruction is nowhere found in Scripture. Jesus never tells us which hand to use. Paul, when teaching about the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11, focuses on remembering Christ’s death, examining our hearts, and proclaiming the gospel—not postures, hands, or gestures.

When we begin attaching spiritual weight to these kinds of outward forms, we do exactly what Jesus condemned in the Pharisees.

Teaching as Doctrines the Commandments of Men

In Matthew 15 and Mark 7, the Pharisees accuse Jesus’ disciples of breaking tradition by eating with unwashed hands. It wasn’t about hygiene—they believed this ritual handwashing was essential for religious purity.

Jesus’ response is devastating:

“You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you… ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
—Matthew 15:7–9

He goes on to say that it’s not what goes into a person that defiles them, but what comes out of the heart. In other words, purity isn’t about handwashing or hand-using—it’s about the heart before God.

We can likewise imagine what Jesus would say in response toElder Oak’s instructions: It’s not what hand you take the sacrament with, but the state of your heart before God.

The Yeast of the Pharisees

Someone might say, “What’s the big deal?” Taking with the right hand isn’t a big deal.

But Jesus didn’t only condemn big traditions. He warned about the yeast of the Pharisees—the way little additions to God’s word, multiplied over time, can leaven the whole loaf. The problem isn’t the size of the rule—it’s the spirit behind it.

Rules like this subtly teach that outward apperances like what we wear or what hand we use somehow makes our worship more acceptable to God. They make us nervous about getting the sacrament wrong. They burden children with an unbiblical checklist of gestures and reverence cues. They imply that if your left hand receives the emblems of Christ’s body and blood, something is off or that you have disrespected God.

That’s not the gospel.

Christ’s Hands, Not Mine

The Lord’s supper in particular is a moment where we are to remember the hands of the savior pierced and wounded to pay our debts, not to worry about what which hand we are grabbing the bread with. The focus should be on Christ’s hands, not mine.

An Appearance of Wisdom

To be clear, this isn’t just about hands. It’s about a larger LDS pattern: the tendency to codify extra-biblical reverence traditions into official doctrine and policy—blurring the line between divine command and institutional culture.

Paul saw this happening in the early church too. In Colossians 2:20–23, he writes:

“Why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—‘Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch’… according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearence of wisdom… but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”

Ultimately God is not impressed with our appearences of piety, but with our hearts. The only thing that qualifies you to receive the body and blood of Jesus is your need for Him, not which hand you use to reach out for him.

We must not let the simplicity of the gospel be swallowed up by well-meaning, man-made tradition.