Men had been making a whole lot of rules and/or traditions for themselves for hundreds of years before we were born. God winked and I guess is still winking at a lot of things implemented or twisted by men and perhaps because there more important issues.
"Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent," - Acts 17:30
There is nothing more serious in this entire universe than rebelling against clear and unmistakable commands from God. As Paul told the Athenian philosophers in that passage, the times where God overlooked people's ignorance has long passed. God is done handing out passes, which is why the very first recorded word of Christ's ministry was "Repent!".
The human race has possessed the complete revelation of God for almost 2 millennia, and it is currently one of the most widely collected and distributed books on the planet. With this being the case, there are 0 excuses for anybody who wish to willfully reject the revelation in the OT or NT. God said man is to live by every word that came from His mouth, and every last human being is being held accountable for doing that.
In Leviticus 19, the next verse seems to say about not trimming beards. Are NT preachers all wearing bushy beards? or is the Gospel, with its witness tools, the rule of the believer's life rather than the OT law?
The historical context shows why your argument is totally weak. Male adherents of the Canaanite religions often trimmed their beards in a certain pattern to display their devotion to a sun or fertility cult. That prohibition has absolutely nothing to do with normal grooming methods.
The prohibition concerning tattoos is about God wanting His people to avoid doing anything that promotes or shows devotion to a false god. And that's exactly what tattoos are at their core: a display of one's devotion to a false god. Why do you think people in the world love getting them or idolizing people who have them? It's all about drawing one's attention to themselves. "Christians" can try to justify their ink as a "witnessing tool", but the reality is that they simply want to draw people's attention to themselves because they put their tattoos in a spot where people will see them and come to them.
All of God's prophets and apostles did a fantastic job at evangelizing armed with nothing but the scriptures and God's Spirit. Anyone who "needs" tattoos to evangelize is not educated enough about the Bible to be evangelizing anybody, let alone pass themselves off as a true believer. In 2 Tim. 3, Paul said ALL of scripture is profitable for instruction in righteousness. In Eph. 2, Paul says biblical Christianity is based on the writings of the apostles
and prophets. If you think that would exclude the very portion of the Bible where God dictated how His people are supposed to conduct themselves in a world that is ruled by Satan, i submit to you that you are not practicing biblical Christianity.
That was talking about a people who marked there bodies by cutting it in a religious thing that they did to honor the dead! That was a demonic thing. But if it is not a religious self mutilation that you are doing for dead people; then the bible says nothing else about tats.
Lev. 19:28 clearly shows God additionally commanded His people not to get tattoos for
any reason:
"‘You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the LORD.'"
Considering its clear link to idolatrous worship, there is no Christian reason to ever get a tattoo.
@Pearl It's interesting anyway that the Jewish Sabbath does not reoccur in the NT as regards the moral content of the 10 Commandments. Hebrews 7 also shows that the law was changed (v. 12) and what we now have is better than the law (v. 19).
So maybe your son got his ink done after your daughter did?
Jesus kept the Sabbath throughout His human existence, Acts shows Paul keeping the Sabbath, and Heb. 4 shows Paul likening the people who reject the Sabbath with the Israelites God condemned to death in the wilderness. Even if the NT didn't show any of those things, it wouldn't change what God said in Exo. 31 about Him doing His sanctifying work on the Sabbath. It also wouldn't change the fact that God made the Sabbath an eternal covenant that exists independently of the former covenant.
All 10 of God's commandments existed and were enforced many centuries before there was a such thing as a Jew, and therefore none of them were abolished at Christ's death. Read Luk. 23:56. Christ's followers kept the Sabbath 2 days
after He died. And as Heb. 9:17 says, the current covenant came into existence the moment Christ died. Nothing you say has any truth to it whatsoever, especially because the 4th commandment clearly shows God saying the Sabbath is
His:
"but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates." - Exo. 20:10
You will never find a single passage in the Bible that says a Jew sanctified, blessed, created, or put their presence on the 7th day, therefore it is 100% dishonest for anyone to call it the "Jewish Sabbath".