Poll: Tattoo art - Christian perspectives: Fight it? Ignore it? appreciate/embrace it?
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@Heart2Soul Yes, well it's significant how just a little faith based ink can prompt wholesome discussion and testimony...(this also seems to be @Mayflower's basic point in posts # 734 & 735, above).
A little ink, whether etched upon our skin or upon a piece of paper, can lead a discussion, with another person, into the realms of what it means to have a righteous relationship with the one true God, but often the story behind the ink and what it means get perverted because of what the inked person conveys because of what is written upon their hearts, which is not always Godly.
A better opening for evangelism, after the small talk of getting to know the other person a little, is simple the question, "What or how are you feeling about your relationship with the God that you are presently worshipping at this very moment?"
This question is not about, "Are you saved through your relationship with Jesus Christ?" which can be very confrontational to the person being asked, but it rather gives the other person an opening to tell us about their relationship that they may have with the God/god that they presently are in relationship with. The conversation can then lead to an opening where we can talk about our relationship with the God that we worship and the impact that this relationship has on our lives as it allows us to talk about what God has "inked"/written upon our own hearts.
This is the invisibly "inked" relational conditions that God has with us that requires us to be open and honest about our true relationship with God to others.
A tattoo may help us to look like others, but it is the unfading inked words of God upon our hearts that truly sets us apart forever.
Shalom
A better opening for evangelism, after the small talk of getting to know the other person a little, is simple the question, "What or how are you feeling about your relationship with the God that you are presently worshipping at this very moment?"
This question is not about, "Are you saved through your relationship with Jesus Christ?" which can be very confrontational to the person being asked, but it rather gives the other person an opening to tell us about their relationship that they may have with the God/god that they presently are in relationship with. The conversation can then lead to an opening where we can talk about our relationship with the God that we worship and the impact that this relationship has on our lives as it allows us to talk about what God has "inked"/written upon our own hearts.
This is the invisibly "inked" relational conditions that God has with us that requires us to be open and honest about our true relationship with God to others.
A tattoo may help us to look like others, but it is the unfading inked words of God upon our hearts that truly sets us apart forever.
Shalom
@QuickFilly I think perhaps a bit of ink is comparable to the way customs such as double ear piercing were some 40 + years ago: maybe at first a bit edgy, trend-wise, but now everyone's grandmother / great-grandmother seems to have doubles. (Perhaps ink will soon be that way also....except it also has faith based / Bible verse potentials.)
QuickFilly
Member
I disagree.
How does something God forbids doing to the body, the holy spirits temple, in the Bible verse of Leviticus 19, have faith based Bible verse potential?
Actually I just talked in the superrnarket to a young man who had a Bible verse tattooed on his arm: "be not dismayed; for I am thy God:" (Isaiah 41.10)
He indicated he appreciated the encouragement.
PS: The chapter you refer to also seems to say about not trimming beards; do preachers shave? and are we NT Christians under grace using witness opportunities, or Old Testament Jews in the land under the law?
QuickFilly
Member
Interesting how we'll claim one verse doesn't apply anymore when we're in violation of it. While we'll insist other verses apply still, when we're not.
If your version is reality, we can murder, steal, lie, take God's name in vain, etc...Because we're under grace.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
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.
Some of the OT is confirmed in the NT; some not. Hebrews 7 shows the New Testament believer that the law was changed and what we now have is better than the law.
I have talked at different times to various young people who have been wearing Bible verse tattoos; they need encouraging, so it's good to talk to them about the Scripture verses they evidently love.
QuickFilly
Member
You're going to defend being tattooed because there isn't much you can do about it unless you have a ton of money to have them removed.
Rather than encourage them to desecrate the temple, if they be Christian, why not let your ink show them the difference between who you were prior to coming to Christ, and who you are now that you've found him?
Offsetting God's edict against tattoos, cutting the skin, etc.... with a reference to beards is a side track that doesn't actually resonate as honest. Beards aren't forever. Nor does cutting them off leave a scar forever.
Look at it this way, or don't. If the body is the temple of the holy spirit, what you're advocating is graffiti upon it that is perfectly OK if the graffiti in some way claims the temple allowing the graffiti to be applied then proves love of the God that forbid inking graffiti onto his temples.
Are we really under the law like OT Jews in the land? and is the context in part of where you referred to in Leviticus pagan necromancy?
PS: @QuickFilly To the various young people with whom I have spoken, they already have had Bible verses inked. So what it the priority: (finger wagging) negativity to discourage them? or try to encourage them in the Scriptures they evidently love and want to witness with? (irrespective of whether some Christians might choose differently).
QuickFilly
Member
Leviticus 19 verse 28 as you know makes a distinction between cutting ones self for the dead and tattoos.
Are you able to comport yourself and discuss this honestly? You chose to tattoo yourself. You!
Now you're attempting to abrogate the scriptures against it and make it sound OK as if the prohibition in the OT doesn't matter now because we're Christians. Which misrepresents the Gospel and its foundation that has Christ in the OT. Because the God that spoke in the OT was the God that spoke as Emmanuel Yeshua Jesus in the New. And he does not change.
And so you're trying to instead say that as long as someone violates God's prohibition against tattoos by having scripture verses inked on themselves, it's OK with God because they'll lead people to Christ.
Not at all. Hypocrites don't lead by example!
And lastly, tattoos don't lead people to Christ. The Bible doesn't lead people to Christ. You don't lead people to Christ. I don't lead people to Christ.
No one comes to Christ unless the father calls them.
Stop trying to give tattoos a righteous cause after God said they are forbidden. In the old and new testaments. And if you don't understand the new testament verses that refer to honoring ourselves as God's temple, thinking the tattoo prohibition is no longer applicable, you're not only wrong, you're wrong in thinking to lead people to think tattoos are pleasing and in service to God.
Romans 14 also speaks of individual liberty for Christians working things out for themselves; and if some Christians seek to witness using certain means with Bible verses, then this is their responsibility.
In any case, the law was changed, Hebrews 7.12.
What we now have is better than the law, Hebrews 7.19.
The church is not Israel, 1 Corinthians 10.32.
It boils down to what the church is for, right?
Is it to be a Gospel testimony to hurting, sinful people who need to change inwardly and spiritually rather than to be all about being "correct"?
@Naomi25 I guess you've not seen it yet; but I suppose the question would also be, Does your daughter know yet that her aunt had it done?
@VictoryinJesus You have talked a bit in the past about your daughter; so how is she doing? spiritually? ink-wise, thus far? (the two not necessarily related, although some ppl's faith is reflected in their ink).
@Truman the Levite Maybe your dear mom would have let you do your ear in due course anyway...
(So many moms do.)
@Mayflower Your recent post about wisdom made me think that this is the sort of artwork which you would appreciate, at least to see.
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