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Should Christians get a tattoo?
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Should Christians get a Tattoo ?
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Should Christians Get A Tattoo ?
Religion and Spirituality... I have found it true that Narcotics Anonymous is a spiritual, not a religious program. I am thankful for that. When I went to treatment, I didn’t want to hear about religion. If I had, I would have went to Church. Very few addicts, when their addiction has them firmly in their grasp, want to hear about the Bible, or Jesus Christ, or other subjects with religious overtones. Many addicts feel that God has let them down, and aren’t too happy with Him. Many are ashamed to face Him. The best advice that I received in treatment was to throw everything I had ever learned about God in the trash, and start over. And, thank God, I did. I trashed all that stuff about God being a punishing and vengeful God. I especially trashed that stuff that "religious" people told me when they said, “Just pray and ask Jesus to take away your urge to use and drink, and He will”, because I knew from personal experience that it wasn’t true. If it was, all addicts and alcoholics would eventually be cured. How many of us haven’t said the “Drunk’s Prayer” while hovering over a toilet, or laying in a ditch. And how can anyone say that the Drunk’s Prayer isn’t said in sincerity? When you think you’re going to die, you get REALLY sincere. Addiction, and God, are just not that simple. Religious people get this belief from Bible verses like Matthew 7:7, John 16:24, and others in which Jesus said that if you ask, you WILL receive. But you can’t take one or two verses out of the Bible and run with them like that. If you want to use the Bible as a guideline, it’s best to read the whole thing, and consider every verse that relates to the subject. A very clear Biblical contradiction to this religious belief is found in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, in which the apostle Paul pleaded three times with God to remove the thorn from his flesh. God refused. Even though Paul wrote more books of the New Testament than anyone else. Surely if God would grant anyone’s request to be delivered from their suffering, it would be Paul’s. I believe that what Jesus Christ tried to tell us was that if we ask, we WILL receive an ANSWER to our prayers. But, be prepared to face the fact that your answer may be NO, as was Paul’s answer in the above example. God knows what’s best for us, and if we really want His will in our lives, He may do something different than what we think is the best for us. If all we had to do is pray, and our life threatening problems would go away, no Christian would die of cancer. They would pray, and it would go away. And everyone in their church would be praying for them, too. Still, Christians die of the same diseases as any other members of society. God is the Boss, and he has the right to do what He wants to do. If he decides that it’s your time to die, you ARE going to die. It’s possible that the prayers of humans can turn His heart and make him reconsider; but still, that’s up to Him. He has mercy on who he wants to have mercy. He alone holds the power to make the final decision. God knows that my children and I need food to survive. But if I pray for a ham sandwich, I wouldn’t expect God to make one magically appear in front of me. He provides for that necessity in my life by giving me a job to work at, so that I can earn food for my family. How then can I expect Him to freely give me recovery, without my having to work for it? Just because God has the power to do something, doesn’t necessarily mean that He WILL do it. I believe that His answer to my prayer for recovery was, “Sure, Glenn, I’ll give you the strength to get through one day at a time. But in return, you will work for it. You will go to meetings. You will help others who are seeking recovery. You will humble yourself and get a sponsor, and be held accountable to him. You will work the 12 Steps to cleanse your life and soul of the corruption that you have produced for yourself. You will tell others what I have done for you. And if you quit doing My work, I will surely refund your misery.” And as far as God being a punishing God, I have come to realize that He DID punish me tremendously all of my life. He gave me my own will, and allowed me to do whatever I chose to do. Then, he allowed me to suffer the consequences of my own actions. HOW COULD HE BE SO MEAN? He let me reap what I had sown. He let the “bad karma” that I sent out come back to visit me. But who would want it any other way? Would you want to be a robot, with God not letting you do something that you wanted to do? In giving us freedom, he gave us a great gift, but we can also choose to be stupid with it if we want to. If he didn’t allow us make any mistakes, we wouldn’t be free. I could write for hours and hours on this subject (as well as anything else to do with recovery), and easily burn up my two little megabytes that AOL gives me to “Web” with. Therefore, I think that he best way to address this topic is to tell of the Religious and Spiritual dilemma I faced in April of 1995 when I was 6,000 miles from home in Waikiki, and wanted to get my first tattoo. Before I make any personal decision in my life, the first step in the process is for me to ask myself, “How will this decision affect my recovery?”. One phase of this process is to see what the Bible has to say about it, because I have never had advice from the Bible backfire on me, nor has anyone else that I know. Some may claim that the Bible’s advice didn’t work for them, but I then wonder exactly how they applied that advice; or if they aren’t conveniently disregarding the possibility that they may have simply reaped what they themselves have sown. I started my search by looking for the word “tattoo” in the Bible. The King James Version never mentions it, and the New International Version and the New King James Version mention it only once, in Leviticus 19:28, which follows: ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD. Lev 19:28 (NIV) You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the LORD. Lev 19:28 (NKJ) ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> Many of the old Laws of the Book of Leviticus are routinely ignored by the Religious establishment, with the exception of the Orthodox Jews (whom I admittedly don’t know much about). The verse before the one above states: ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard. Lev 19:27 (NIV) ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> Verse 19 tells us not to “wear clothing woven of two kinds of material”. How often is that rule violated in churches across America. Still, when it comes to tattoos and other “supposedly heathen subjects”, the verse that people want to count counts, and the ones that they find inconvenient don’t count. I don’t buy that. I believe that if it’s in the Bible, it deserves serious consideration, along with all other verses in the Bible that apply to the decision I am trying to make; before I make it. I was in Hawaii when I had to make this decision, away from my family and my support group. I was away from my computer and it’s hard drive’s fifty megs of BibleSoft’s “PC Study Bible” software, which I knew could assist me in dealing with my dilemma. Thank God, though, I had with me my NIV Study Bible, a small New King James version of the Bible, and my Franklin Electronic Bible, which is one of the most powerful Bible research tools ever developed. It will find applicable verses when my computer software fails to, because of it’s capacity to search for “similar” words. I meditated on the “tattoo” verse off and on for several days, and it was obvious to me that God was telling us not to get tattoos as a part of mourning for the dead. I wasn’t doing that. I wanted a tattoo of the Old Rugged Cross to brand myself as belonging to God, to remind myself of Whom I belonged to each time I looked into the mirror, and to let those who may try to entice me into relapse know that I no longer fit their version of “cool”. Then, satisfied that I had researched that verse sufficiently, I continued. I started looking for verses that spoke to placing “marks on the body”. The only other verse that addressed it was: ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. Galatians 6:17 (NIV) ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> Doesn’t that exactly describe the situation that I wrote about above, in wanting “to let those who may try to entice me into relapse know that I no longer fit their version of “cool”? I then started reading anything else that fit the situation. I considered my very favorite verse in the Bible, which is: ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5 6 (NKJ) ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> “In all your ways acknowledge Him”. Exactly what I wanted to do in getting my tattoo. Everywhere I went, people would instantly know that I had made a lifelong commitment to Jesus Christ, even though they absolutely did not understand it. That’s OK, because I understand it. Next, I came across: ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. Psalms 37:5 (NKJ) ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> I wanted to commit my way to the Lord, and how could I claim not to believe in Jesus Christ when the Mark of the Cross was clearly and permanently on my arm? After exhausting my portable research capabilities, I called my brother back home in Virginia several times. He is a Christian, a Sunday School Teacher, and a former Bible College student. He referenced the above verse, as I expected. I started asking very hard questions of him, and his answers had more to do with religion than the Bible. I finally asked him point blank from six thousand miles away, “Is the real reason that you think I shouldn’t get a tattoo of the Old Rugged Cross because the people in the Church wont like it?”. The basic message that I perceived from his answer was, “Yes”. I chose to stick with the Bible, and the next day I got my first tattoo at age 39, at three and a half years clean. When I got back to the mainland, and back to my computer, I researched Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the verse. In describing the practices of “the Heathen”, he says about verse 28: Leviticus 19:19 29 PP10 (from Matthew Henry's Commentary) “4. The rites and ceremonies by which they expressed their sorrow at their funerals must not be imitated, v. 28. They must not make cuts or prints in their flesh for the dead; for the heathen did so to pacify the infernal deities they dreamt of, and to render them propitious to their deceased friends. Christ by his sufferings has altered the property of death, and made it a true friend to every true Israelite; and now, as there needs nothing to make death propitious to us (for, if God be so, death is so of course), so we sorrow not as those that have no hope. Those whom the God of Israel had set apart for himself must not receive the image and superscription of these dunghill deities.” I then checked the definition of “tattoo” in Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, which said: “A permanent mark or design fixed upon the body by a process of pricking the skin and inserting an indelible color under the skin. The moral and ceremonial laws of Leviticus declare "You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks upon you" <Lev. 19:28>. Any kind of self laceration or marking of the body was prohibited among the Hebrew people. Such cuttings were associated with pagan cults that tattooed their followers while they mourned the dead.” (from Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary) (Copyright © 1986, Thomas Nelson Publishers) I had been in the midst of making a lifelong and irrevocable decision about my spirituality. I was 6,000 miles away from my computer, and jonesing for it. And here God gave me the insight to understand his word as clearly as Matthew Henry, one of the most Biblically knowledgeable people that ever lived, did. A few days later I went to WalMart with a tank top on and ran into my Preacher, who had baptized me, and whom I love and respect very highly. I will never forget the look on his face when he saw my tattoo. He looked like he had seen a ghost. But religion is his livelihood. I have the luxury today of depending solely on what God says, disregarding the customs of man as Jesus taught us: ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'" Matt 15:3,7 9(NIV) ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> I still take the word of man under advisement, assigning to it the weight is deserves. It certainly can never carry the weight of God’s word, as far as I am concerned. And when a conflict between the two arises, I will follow God every time. When the sheep follow their Shepherd, they follow a being of a more intelligent species than themselves; not ONE OF themselves. I have never regretted my decision to get my tattoos of the Old Rugged Cross, an angel carrying a scroll, and a crown of thorns; because I made those decisions before God, sincerely begging for his assistance and guidance. I do not expect others to understand the things of God, because I myself cannot. But I do have an obligation to do the research and make the most informed decisions possible about choices that I must make in my life. And God has given me the tools that I need to make those decisions: His Word; and the Holy Spirit, to guide me through His Word and open my understanding of it. Source http://members.aol.com/GlennS1956/religion.html Christian Cross Tattoo ?
 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If Anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." Mathew 16:24 Acts 2:22-24 (New American Standard Bible) This Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you Nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in it's power. |