​Everyone has tattoos. OK, OK, not everyone but a large portion of everyone. There was once a time when tattoos were kind of taboo. They used to be reserved for the rougher crowd and having one visible would have kept you in the unemployment line. Now you can look out front door and see your very normal, very well employed neighbor walking out of his house with tattoo sleeves covering both arms. More and more we are seeing people with tattoos on arms, legs, hands, necks, and even on the face occasionally.
 
For a long time Christians avoided tattoos, claiming they were a sin. Even now there are still many Christians who cling to that belief. As followers of Christ we must obey God’s commands. If the Bible says we are not to have tattoos then no amount of cultural acceptance will change the fact that it is wrong to have tattoos. But can we really say tattoos are wrong according to the Bible?
The most commonly used verse against tattoos is Leviticus 19:28. “You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourself: I am the Lord.” Ironically, this verse that most people base their entire argument on is completely inapplicable to the argument against tattoos. First of all, the entire book of Leviticus was written for the Israelites. They were under a different set of rules than we are. They were under the old law that called for sacrifices and stoning of criminals.
 
Secondly, this verse is often quoted by itself but the immediately previous verse says, “You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard.” (Leviticus 19:27). The same passage also prohibits crossbreeding of cattle, wearing bended clothing, or sowing more than one type of seed in your fields. The commandments here are not for us. They were for the Israelites to keep them separate from the heathens around them.
 
So, if we throw that verse out of the argument then we can get down to the really applicable verses. While the Leviticus verse may not have any bearing on the issue there are verses in the Bible that can be applied to this question.
 
Let’s start with 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” This is the second verse people often use to argue against tattoos. Typically, I like to respond by telling them that if our body is the temple then tattoos are just stained glass windows. That humorous statement doesn’t tell us anything Biblical though, as funny as it is.
 
Our bodies are a temple and we are called to glorify God with our bodies. Therefore, we must decide if tattoos can be used to glorify God. Tattoos are just ink. They have no capability of glorifying God on their own. Just like a guitar, a bumper sticker, or a book. None of those things can glorify God on their own. They can be used to glorify God, however. If they can be used to glorify God then can a tattoo? I think so. They are simply expressions of ourselves or our beliefs. If a tattoo reflects the importance of our faith to us and we are not acting in a way that mars that testimony then it can be used to glorify God!
 
Another verse I think is applicable to this discussion is 1 Corinthians 7:4, “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” This verse is actually telling us that we should not sexually withhold ourselves from our spouse, however, I believe it is applicable here as well.
 
As the verse says, we do not have “authority” over our own bodies. Our spouse does. Our spouse is also the one who will be looking at our bodies every day. As such, it only seems fitting that we should consult them before permanently marking our bodies. This would also apply before we are married. What if your future spouse doesn’t like tattoos? It seems to me that the most respectful thing we can do is wait to let our spouse have some input before we get tatted up!
 
Realistically, I cannot find any biblical reason to say tattoos are inherently wrong. We are told to “not be conformed to the pattern of this world” (Romans 12:2) but there is nothing to say that tattoos are indeed of the world. That isn’t to say that some people won’t still feel convicted that tattoos are wrong for them. That’s why we are also given a guideline for how to handle situations in which our convictions disagree with those of another believer. In Romans 14 we are told to respect each other’s differences.
 
Based on the above Biblical wisdom I don’t believe it is possible for a believer to say that tattoos are sinful. Sure, some tattoos can be (dirty tattoos) but some can be tools to glorify God. What we can say is that some of us will differ in opinion on the matter and that doesn’t make either of us wrong.
 
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Last week’s article about tattoos was, as far as I can recall, the most popular post on CGL ever. Not only that but it garnered a lot of feedback. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the feedback was not all negative. In fact, most of it was positive and those who disagreed kept their comments respectful.
 
First of all, I would like to say thank you! Thanks for the feedback and the way you all handled the topic! In the year that CGL has been running I have gotten some pretty nasty feedback so, to be honest, I was already expecting it on such a controversial topic. But it didn’t happen!
 
Secondly, I would like to cover another topic that has been on my mind and that I have discussed with some people partly because of that article: Our rules vs. God’s rules. Something I have noticed is that those two seem to get confused quite often.
 The way we define our rules vs. God’s rules is very simple. Our rules are rules or standards based on what we have personally gotten through the Scriptures and cannot prove to be God’s rules or standards for everyone. God’s rules are rules or standards that are clearly stated in the Bible as being God’s rule or standard.
 
To put it in simple terms you could say that “thou shall not murder” is one of God’s rules, while “thou shall not listen to rock music” is one of our standards. One is clearly stated in the Bible (Exodus 20:13, Mathew 22:39) and the other can be inferred based on your interpretation of the Bible and your opinions about the world.
 
Now, any command, standard, or rule given to us by God must be obeyed. It is a sin not to obey the commands of God. However, a standard or rule that we have made is not necessarily a sin to break (more on that in a bit). The former is clearly meant for all people to follow and the former is based on individual convictions.
 
This is where people sometimes get lost. There is this idea that if I read the Bible and I got this out of it, then this must be a rule everyone should follow. See the problem there? That statement has a lot of “I” in it. We like to treat God like He is locked in a box sometimes. Like He is locked in the “me” box. We expect Him to treat every person exactly the same way no matter what. The problem with that line of thought is that we are all different!
 
God may convict each of us of different things for different reasons. Maybe He convicts some of us about listening to rock music because He knows we are not strong enough to resist the temptation to listen to bad music. Is it fair that everyone should not be allowed to listen to that music because one person isn’t strong enough to handle it?
 
Or maybe it isn’t even about our strength. What if there was one person in the world that God knew you would have the chance to witness too but that wouldn’t listen to you at all if they heard you listening to rock music? Should everyone be stopped from listening to it because one person needs to not have it around? What about the millions of people reached by Christian rock every year?
 
I use music as an example because it is one thing I have heard about a lot of people being convicted about but this can apply to much more. Tattoos, movies, dancing, attire, and many more topics are about personal convictions and not God’s rules for everyone.
 
Something that made me think about this recently was a conversation with a friend. He told me that he did not want certain people to know he went to the movie theater because he knew that they would be offended. Even though there is no Biblical evidence to back up the claim that going to a movie theater is a sin he felt the need to hide the activity from some of his Christian friends because they felt it was.
 
Do you see the issue here? When did we, as Christians, become so wrapped up in what we believe that we have forced our brothers and sisters in Christ to feel the need to hide activities that we deem sinful? This isn’t healthy and it sure isn’t Biblical!
 
Romans 14 is a whole chapter dedicated to telling us how to handle differences of conviction. Verse 3 says, “The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him.” Replace the word “eat” with “listens”, “goes”, “gets”, or whatever! If you believe in doing something I feel convicted not to do I am not to judge you and you should not look down on me!
 
Verse 14 goes on to say, “I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.” In other words, nothing (tattoos, music, theaters, etc) is sinful in and of itself but if you are convicted that it is sinful then to you it is! Furthermore, verse 16 tells us this, “Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil.” So, if you have a disagreement on something (let’s use the example of music again), if you believe it is wrong for you to listen to rock music, then you are not to act like it is a sin for everyone else to listen to it! And I, as a rock listener, am not supposed to let you convince me that it is sinful!
 
At the risk of becoming long winded I want to make one more point. I think our obsession with our own rules is what is distracting us from following God’s rules.  It appears to me that we may be so caught up in teaching our own convictions as law that we are neglecting to teach, or distracting from, God’s true law. Why is the CCM (Christian contemporary music) argument such a big deal? Why do youth groups focus so much on separating boys from girls as much as possible? Why do we argue about seeing movies in theaters?
 
I had a discussion with a close friend today about how he thinks homosexuality may have been encouraged by Christian youth groups being so overly strict about interactions between the opposite genders. I wonder sometimes if pornography isn’t such an epidemic in Christian circles because people are too busy teaching/struggling to follow all of our rules to worry about teaching/following God’s rules. It appears we are the crippling God’s Kingdom by trying to pass laws about living in it!
 
It is time we step down from the pedestal of thinking that our every conviction is God’s law. It is time we realize that God already gave us His law in the Bible. Anything beyond that is a conviction in our personal lives.
 
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