What the Bible Says About Tattoos

During youth group this week, there was a moment during our discussion of the lesson of “They Like Jesus But Not the Church” (by Dan Kimball) where I would have liked to have pursued but the rabbit trail would have taken too long and lately, I’ve been easily sidetracked.  Fortunately I have a blog and today, I need a diversion from my school work. 

We were discussing tattoos and whether getting one was contradictory to the Bible. I asked are tattoos sinful?”  and received somewhat mixed comments.  “What if you got a tattoo that said ‘Jesus Saves'”?  and one responded to the effect of “Yeah, that would be lame and so it would be wrong”.  (I cannot tell you the pride that swelled my heart.  Apparently someone has been listening).

Most of you reading are not strangers to the faith and as you know it all started when God and Abraham were discussing the covenant and they were talking about some kind of sign or seal or mark. Thus, God asked Abraham to get a tattoo but Abraham knowing that was wrong asked God if circumcision would be acceptable instead.  God sarcastically smiled and agreed that would be much better.  And here we are. 

For those of  you who don’t know me, I don’t have any tattoos (yet) so aside from the one I made my wife get of my name inside a heart on her arm, I don’t have a tattoo culture that I feel I need to maintain.  Not that one can be objective in the matter but the tattoo discussion probably matters to others more so then me. 

Or does it? I loathe it when people say that Christians ought not to get tattoos.  Or the classic moment when we discover someone in our church has a tattoo, the comment I often hear is, “She must have gotten that before she got saved”.  I always want to say to my “born-againer” friend, “No she didn’t. She’s been a believer her entire life and she just got that tattoo after our mission trip.”  Usually this sidetracks to a safer conversation of when salvation actually begins.  See how I get on these rabbit trails?  I repent and turn back to the discussion on tattoos.

This is what I don’t want:  It’s my conviction that God is not any more glorified by my tattoo-less body.  Nor is He glorified by your six-pack abs, nor is He as apathetic to the extra weight that reflects our gluttony and lack of self-control.  He is not glorified when we look down on those who have piercings nor is He impressed with the connection of nose piercings and Jesus’ piercings from the cross.  To put it kindly, I think some of us may have missed the point on this. 

My problem with tattoos is that my tastes and preferences change throughout the years.  For me, I’m afraid that I will regret it later.  This is similar to the reason I haven’t bought a Blue-Ray disc player and why I feel justified because I was one of the 6.7 billion who didn’t buy a Microsoft Zune.  Further, it’s why I made my wife sign a pre-nuptial agreement before I headed into the lucrative career of youth ministry (or was that her idea?  I should ask her about that.  Anyway, where was I?)  Oh yeah, if only some of us could be as faithful to our tattoos as to the people we promised to love.  Sorry if that sounded cheesy, my wife went and saw “He’s Just Not That Into You” for Valentine’s Day.  Anyway, this has nothing to do with my point.

I know there’s someone out there in cyber-world that will bring up Leviticus 19:28.  It’s part of a pretty good chapter.  Like forbidding fathers to sell their daughters to prostitution.  Which is a problem here in north Jersey.  We call it Prom Weekend and on the other weekends, we call it life as a present-day high school student. Please don’t tell me Leviticus is outdated and not applicable.  But forget teenage sex, let’s go back to talking about something more vital – tattoos. To some, it seems clear that the Leviticus passage is referring to avoiding the pagan practice common in that time period, to others it’s there in plain english, don’t mark the dead, don’t mark your own bodies.  As you recall, this is why God cursed the human race with “ink poisoning”, “graphite poisoning” and “magic marker rash”.  In our sin, we have countered with washable markers and temporary tattoos but give the good Lord some time, and He’ll trump that.  He’s too good – too good.

Years ago at a previous church I was at, this was a brief discussion that occurred after our senior pastor said something to the effect of, “It doesn’t matter about your past, yours sins, etc, whether you got tattoos, Jesus can …”  and thus tattoos was presented as something to repent of.  This offended one of the choir members who had several tattoos.  As he mumbled his frustration, he had the misfortunate of sitting next to someone who had two Scriptures memorized.  One was Leviticus 18:22 and the other was this one, 19:28.  The following week we had a church picnic and I wrote Leviticus 19:28 on my tricep.  Arguably it would have looked better if I had better defined triceps, but I also wished it was a real tattoo.  My life requires me to a fan of irony.  But the offended choir member enjoyed the laugh and I’m pretty sure God and Moses high-fived each other as they sat on their Harely’s watching the Earth Channel on the Crystal See Network.  

But that’s not where I was going with this.  Pardon me as I begin again, or rededicate myself to the post.  My preferences do change, but certainly this is not a reason for YOU not to get a tattoo.  However, if you have to ask me to be sure you want to permanently mark your body (yes, I am aware of the extremely costly laser tattoo removal process hence for us not wealthy people, I maintain the use of the word ‘permanently’), then you might want to consider what I am saying.  For those of you who know that you know that you know that you know, I know someone you can place your trust in.  He uses clean needles and I’m told he’s a very talented artist.  Oh wait, before I give you that tract, err, business card, let’s consider what the Bible says about tattoos.

(insert the sound of pages flipping here)

Nothing there – ok here’s the card.

Comments

  1. this is excellent! thanks tim.

  2. Tim, I love how realistic and down-to-earth you are with your posts. Thanks for pointing out how ridiculous we can be when we spent hours and energy on issues such as these. See you tomorrow night!

  3. Great post! i have 3 tattoos and am planning my next piece. They are quite addicting and are expensive, so take time in saving money and planning out what i want.

    Adele

  4. Dude,
    I enjoyed this post and I have actually thought of getting tattoos many times but I have not done it yet because all the possible conflicts it may cause.But seriously, our Church organists son has two sleeve tattoos and I find that very ironic but fun. We need to get together again for coffee my brother!

  5. @david – thanks, for the kind words.
    @krissann – it’s pretty much just you and Miguel that get my humor.
    @exisential – 3 tattoos? Unless they’re of the Trinity and interlocked and thus making them one tattoo, I’m not sure that’s acceptable. You obviously didn’t pay attention in church – lol.
    @Eric – the next time we get together, we’ll brainstorm a couple (which I guess will be March 7th)

  6. I have two tattoos. One took me about four months of thinking and deciding. The other idea came together in about 10 minutes, and it was being burned into my right forearm about two hours later.

    Guess which one I’m happier with.

    Yeah, I’m going to see a guy in the next few weeks to ask him to design something to make this tattoo look more to my liking so that I can be a little happier with the tattoo I acquired in haste. It’s very meaningful to me, but the ART… You can’t forget the ART. I should have put some creative eyes on the design first and have them offer some suggestions.

    However, I love your article here… Cracked me up! And the idea of putting Leviticus 19:28 on your arm is hilarious. Nicely done.

  7. I used to have this debate with my grandfather, who I loved, but think he was way off on this. I actually shared a story at his funeral about one discussion we had and joked that I was going to tattoo his face on me. That would throw a wrench into the whole discussion.

    I don’t have tattoos. I’ve desired to get some, but I also have a family that needs me to help feed them. So…I’m gonna put it on hold.

  8. Glad someone pointed out how ridiculus the “tattoo issue” is. I greatly enjoyed reading your post. Out of curiosity, I googled “don’t mark the body Bible” when I couldn’t find anything in the Bible on tatooing and a friend of mine was thinking of getting one (I’ve had one for years, but she kept bringing up saying the Bible says not to mark your body, so she wasn’t sure she should) and I found this and a post by a guy claiming face painting on children was wrong because we were “forcing marks upon their holy bodies/temples” and thus forcing “sin upon them.”
    Yeah, your’s was the saner argument.

  9. Thanks Kendra, I’m glad this post was helpful.

    I did laugh about the guy saying face-painting children was wrong. I’m sure he’s a good God-fearing person but that’s usually the same mentality that is against Halloween, Santa and beer.

    From where I sit, they seem to love their interpretation of Scripture more than Jesus Himself.

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