@rockytopva You saw this quote?
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QueenCat said:
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Frankly, you are not alone...
Poll: Does the mainstreaming of tattoos open up increasing opportunities for faith ink witness?
- Thread starter farouk
- Start date
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Thanks to all who voted so far in the poll!
NB: If you have not yet voted in the poll, please vote now!
NB: If you have not yet voted in the poll, please vote now!
Just a note re the results above.
There is still a problem with the maths behind the calculations for the results presented. It seems as if the total used to calculate the %'s for each category is one short of the 19 votes listed, i.e. 18 has been used to calculate the percentages instead of 19.
Now if it is important to have properly working poll results then report me to the administration and possibly they again might try to fix the issue with their coding of this app.
There is still a problem with the maths behind the calculations for the results presented. It seems as if the total used to calculate the %'s for each category is one short of the 19 votes listed, i.e. 18 has been used to calculate the percentages instead of 19.
Now if it is important to have properly working poll results then report me to the administration and possibly they again might try to fix the issue with their coding of this app.
Hi @Jay Ross Thanks for the comment. It says that multiple votes are allowed; I guess this allows for the fact that it might not be a strictly scientific poll. The emphasis is participation I suppose rather than scientifically "proving" something.
Huperetes
Member
I am a bit biased so I am not certain my view is correct but here it is. My father had tattoos but instructed me to never get one. I have obeyed that command to this day. I also lean towards the mainstreaming of tattoos as society drawing closer to what is biblically known as "the fullness of iniquity" This is a point where people become unconvictable of sin because of social and moral degradation. It is at this point that God MUST judge a nation. Consider Abraham's dream where the Lord told him his descendants would serve in bondage for 400 years....UNTIL the iniquity of the Amorites was full.God then brought Israel out of Egypt to judge the amorites by destroying and dispossessing them. We have the same fate in store for us if we don't repent.
Lev 19:28 Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord.
Lev 19:28 Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord.
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@Huperetes Thanks for your comment. It's interesting that the next verse seems to say about not trimming one's beard. Do preachers shave? if they do, then they are maybe backhandedly admitting that they are New Testament believers under grace, for whom the Gospel - and consequently taking Gospel opportunities - is the rule of life, rather than being Old Testament Jews in the land under the law. I guess it's a dispensational thing. (You may have guessed I'm dispensational in my outlook.)
A lot of Christians who might receive a Bible ref. or Christian fish symbol <>< on their wrist, etc. might simply regard it as one of many Gospel opportunities, seeing as these so easily become reasons for conversations to start.
Huperetes
Member
The poll results are as varied and divided as the church itself. Get three people in a room and you have four opinions....lol
@Huperetes Yes, it's a subjective, cultural area; and different Christians are likely to use different witness tools as their conscience might lead them; and the fact that, although it used to be very much a man thing, 59% - 70% or more of parlor clients in the North America are female including presumably a proportion of Christian women - the perspectives of the demographics of tattoos have developed enormously in recent decades. Some demographics - such as military wives - are tattooed in considerable proportions; and here the tattooed symbolism is often faith, family or patriotic, intertwined in whole or in part. And so even if, say, a Christian for strong, personal reasons honestly doesn't like tattoos, it would sometimes be rather tricky and awkward for him or her loudly to say so to demographics such as military wives, whose reasons for being tattooed might be equally strong, and - to them - very well founded. (2c....)
(If this makes any sense at all?)
Were his faith based in design? (because among Christians today, a lot are, which develops the whole discussion, arguably.)
Actually the above is not true, as it is the previous verse which makes reference to a person shaving off their beard or trimming it. The verse after it speaks of making our daughters prostitutes.
Leviticus 19:23-37: - 23 'When you come into the land, and have planted all kinds of trees for food, then you shall count their fruit as uncircumcised. Three years it shall be as uncircumcised to you. It shall not be eaten. 24 But in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, a praise to the Lord. 25 And in the fifth year you may eat its fruit, that it may yield to you its increase: I am the Lord your God.
26 'You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor shall you practice divination or soothsaying. 27 You shall not shave around the sides of your head, nor shall you disfigure the edges of your beard. 28 You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the Lord.
29 'Do not prostitute your daughter, to cause her to be a harlot, lest the land fall into harlotry, and the land become full of wickedness.
30 'You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the Lord.
31 'Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.
32 'You shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man, and fear your God: I am the Lord.
33 'And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. 34 The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
35 'You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length, weight, or volume. 36 You shall have honest scales, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
37 'Therefore you shall observe all My statutes and all My judgments, and perform them: I am the Lord.'"
26 'You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor shall you practice divination or soothsaying. 27 You shall not shave around the sides of your head, nor shall you disfigure the edges of your beard. 28 You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the Lord.
29 'Do not prostitute your daughter, to cause her to be a harlot, lest the land fall into harlotry, and the land become full of wickedness.
30 'You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the Lord.
31 'Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.
32 'You shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man, and fear your God: I am the Lord.
33 'And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. 34 The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
35 'You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length, weight, or volume. 36 You shall have honest scales, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
37 'Therefore you shall observe all My statutes and all My judgments, and perform them: I am the Lord.'"
The question is, if we are going to be disciples unto the Lord/Christ, then why would we deliberately get Tattoos?
It is better to write the law in the flesh of our hearts as the Lord said He would do to Israel when He renews His Covenant of a Kingdom of priests, a Holy Nation and His Possession among the Nations when He redeems them, than to have them written onto our hides.
This is what God has said of His ordinances: -
Jeremiah 31:31-36 - The remaking of the Covenant with the Israelites after they are redeemed.
31 "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah — 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."
31 "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah — 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."
35 Thus says the Lord,
36 "If those ordinances depart
Who gives the sun for a light by day,
The ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night,
Who disturbs the sea,
And its waves roar
(The Lord of hosts is His name):
The ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night,
Who disturbs the sea,
And its waves roar
(The Lord of hosts is His name):
From before Me, says the Lord,
Then the seed of Israel shall also cease
From being a nation before Me forever."
Then the seed of Israel shall also cease
From being a nation before Me forever."
Farouk, what is your purpose in pushing this poll of yours, re tattoos? Is it to encourage people to deliberately sin against God?
Is it not better to live our lives such that people can see our hearts than to demonstrate that we have no regard for the living and have that plastered all over our bodies and not keep what we have had written on our hides.
Thanks for your comment; a lot of Christians would likely say that the shaving aspect would seem to relate to Old Testament Jews in the land under the law. (Orthodox/Hassidic Jews with bushy beards would see it as applying to them.) The NT believer is ruled by the Gospel rather than the law, as I see it.
@Heart2Soul Well, on growing up it's what they tend to do now. @Rita said most of her family had it done; seems it didn't really come as a surprise. Having it done has become kind of an established custom, really.
@Angelina But anyway now ppl shouldn't be surprised when they grow up and have it done, should they?
@Waiting on him In theory at least, in some ways an excellent qualification to have, for anyone with an artistic flair, anyway. And lately it's a profession that's opened up a lot for women to do, hasn't it?
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@jshiii (I'll answer here...) I guess the many, many young and fit and healthy 18 year olds that have it done, on becoming adults, have a great advantage, in the respect that you mention, over us older ones who sometimes have heart issues...but you would know better than me, with your evident medical background...
jshiii
Well-Known Member
I will cast a vote later, gonna think on it lol. I'll let you know