Tattoos

What's Up with Tattoos? 

Please take the poll and read the article.  Pictures of Christian Tats Below.  

So much has been said about this subject from the "Christian" viewpoint, the "biker" viewpoint, the "gang" viewpoint, and what about "God's" viewpoint?

Tattooing is a piercing of the flesh not a cutting of the flesh by definition.  So, let's look at the following: 

Isaiah 49:16 Amplified: Behold, I have indelibly imprinted (tattooed) a picture (2710) of you on the palm of each of My hands, O Zion, Your walls are continually before me.

Strong's Concordance #2710: engrave, portray, decree, inscribe, govern. Use to show a decree as in one's staff to rule.

This describes the practice of the Hebrews of tattooing "their cities" on the palms of their hands to show where they were from, which tribes they belonged to and under whose authority or rule.  This allowed each person to identify His own. We belong to Jesus; we are carved upon His hands.

Now we know that God didn't do anything wrong so what do we do with the following:

Leviticus 19: 28 Amplified: You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print or tattoo (5414) any marks upon you: I am the Lord. 

Deuteronomy 15:17 Take an awl and pierce (5414) his ear through to the door, and he shall be your servant always.

 Strong's Concordance #5414: give a blessing, set, commit, put upon, bestow, thrust, to pierce through.

 We must realize that God has ordained us to rightly divide the truth. When we put a "law" upon anyone we also put that "law" upon ourselves. The scriptures reveal that we are not to mark our bodies like the heathen do for the dead, in any form, by cutting or printing. But if we say any piercing or cutting is "wrong" then we should not have surgery, ears pierced, vaccinations, and Jesus should never have been pierced through for us.  

We tend to agree with the Apostle Paul in the book of Corinthians that if "anything" causes arguments and contentions we have not such customs.  We must love each person for who they are not what they have on their skins.  God looks at the heart not the flesh of the man. 

The following are thumbnail pics, click on them to make larger.