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.