In case you are not familiar with these, here they are:
"You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the LORD." -Leviticus 19:28
"Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body." -1 Corinthians 6:19-20
These two verses are God-breathed. They are not to be taken lightly or ignored. However, after wrestling over them for quite some time, I did not feel as if me getting a tattoo was sinful. Part of this realization for me came from reading Galatians and Romans. Both of these books have immense words of explaining the fact that we no longer live under the law of the Old Testament. We no longer have to obey all of the laws perfectly in order to have right fellowship with God. One of my favorite verses in Galatians is:
"Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith." -Galatians 3:23-26
We are no longer under Levitical Law. Obeying the law is no longer what saves us, it is faith in Christ. I am not saying that we should blatantly disobey the law of the Old Testament to disobey God or purposely sin; however I do not believe we as Christians have to obey all of the laws in Leviticus. For example, the verse before Leviticus 19:28, verse 27 says, "You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard." I know Christian men today trim and shave their beards, so that is a law not followed today. I am not a Theologian who has deeply studied Leviticus and the Old Testament, but I do know God provided a lot of the laws in order to set apart His people from the pagans. Tattoos in the time that Leviticus was written, were a sign of paganism. Because obviously God's people were to be separated from the pagans, He ordered them not to get tattoos, which would lump them in with pagans, or identify them as a pagan. However, my reasoning for getting a tattoo is not to be a pagan. In my opinion, getting a tattoo for any other reason besides glorifying God is wrong. Which brings me to the verse in 1 Corinthians.
Many people say that getting a tattoo is not treating your body as the temple that it is. However, in my opinion, it is possible to get a tattoo in order to glorify God. 1 Corinthians 6:20 says, "So glorify God with your body." My entire reasoning for getting the tattoo I did was to glorify God. Here is the story behind it:
Four years ago in my junior year of high school, I was at the lowest point in my life. I was a lost sheep that had turned away from God subconsciously thinking I could handle life on my own. However, one night, literally the lowest point ever in my life, God completely redeemed me from a sinful situation I was in. The Holy Spirit intervened in such a powerful way that I could feel Him there with me. I stayed up almost that entire night crying and praying that God would redeem my life and bring me back to Him. I surrendered everything to Him and finally realized what trusting Him meant. Ever since then, God has been completely redeeming my life in ways that leave me speechless. I wanted to get my tattoo, the word and the location (the word redeemed on my wrist) because it is symbolic of that night. I wanted a daily reminder of God's faithfulness to me and how He saved me from a life that was leading me so far away from Him.
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| Here's a pic so you know what I'm talking about! |
I have purposely left the details of this part of my testimony out of this blog because I think it is an impersonal place to share it. However, if you want to know I would be more than happy to talk with you and tell you! It is the part of my testimony I have been afraid to tell people, and only very few people have heard it. I want that to change! Maybe it is wrong of me to not want to write the details here, I don't know. I just like personal (face-to-face) communication for sharing my testimony.
My hope is that God will use this tattoo to His glory. There is no possible way I could explain it by means of lifting myself up or glorying myself. Obviously, my intentions cannot be one hundred percent pure. I like the tattoo and like the look of it, that is the selfish part of it, and I am praying against those selfish motives and praying that God would use this to further His kingdom. What I mean by that is I really hope the tattoo will bring up many opportunities for me to share my testimony and the Gospel. I also know that having a tattoo will allow me to relate to other people who have tattoos that think Christians will judge them because of it. I am thankful for those new opportunities!
Christians bring up very valid points of why we shouldn't get tattoos and bring up solid Scripture. However, I think we have to dig deep into God's Word to find the true meaning and context, pray about it, and examine our own hearts and motives. After doing this over the past few years, I personally think getting a tattoo is okay as long as the purpose is to glorify God and not ourselves by the reasons I have previously explained. If you have read this entire thing, thank you! I know it was pretty long :) Until the next blog, God bless you friends!
