Hey Everyone! So I know this is a very controversial subject and I am very excited to hear everyones thoughts on it so please comment! This is just my opinion and what I believe is the interpretation of scripture as I read it and the Lord guides me. But we are all in need of growth and correction, so please feel free to say whatever you want. 
Okay…so first off…who wears a shirt/dress/any type of clothing made of two types of material? Did you know that was a sin? Who (if you plant) has different types of plants in the same field? Who eats fruit from the first year of harvest from a tree? Who eats red meet? Who shaves their head or beard? Did you know all those things I listed are “sins”? They are found in the same chapter where it is written “You shall not make any cuts on yourselves for the dead or tatoo yourselves”. (Leviticus 19) But does much of the Old Testament even apply to the Christian walk today? Christ came to fulfill all the rules and the law, to become the payment of our sins so we didnt have to live by the law, but it became a heart and relational issue instead. The law was fulfilled but that doesnt mean we are free to do anything we want. He left us with two difficult comandments; Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. If we follow these commands we will follow the “law” or cammands that are still valid. Chist got rid of many of the rules that people had to follow but there are some that still apply today.
When God spoke that, people were cutting and marking on themselves to morn for the dead and to honor them and ultimatly making the dead an idol by the way they were honoring them with their bodies. It was paganistic and God, being the jealous God he is, didn’t want them worshiping other gods or people. So a big question we have to answer for ourselves is this…are tatoos made to create beauty on the body today the same as the tattoing (cutting, piercing, etc) being done in Leviticus?
So many times people like to take the laws from the OT that back up an opinion or a belief of their own. If you want to use one law from the OT and say it is valid today then you should take all of the OT laws and follow them. You cannot say one is valid because it suits you but not take another because its to hard or isn’t our “culture” today.
Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1Cor 6:15) and we should keep our bodies pure and undefiled if we are the temple. If you eat McDonalds is that a sin? Yes and no… if you eat it because you like it that’s fine. If you eat it all the time and get fat and unhealthy so that you aren’t able to serve the Lord in areas he wants you, then yes, that is a sin. Paul said “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything.” You see, some things I can do that might be a sin for you. And you can do some things that would be a sin for me. This is likely the HARDEST part of our Christian walk. We were all called through His grace, we are all one body but we all have a different job and a different function that makes the body work. We are all the same yet very different.
God created us all with different weaknesses and strengths, but I think all to often we think of everyone else is having the same struggles and successes we are. It all comes down to a matter of the heart, the motives and the convictions of one person in their OWN relationship with our Savior. I think if someone wants to go get a tat to glorify God that is awesome! As with anything else if it is to glorify God we should be excited and encouraging others in every aspect of their life, even if it isn’t something we would do. Of course there are sinful things that none of us at any time should do. It is never glorifying to God to lie, steal, cheat, murder, have an affair, look in lust upon someone, hate someone, be lazy, spiteful, proud, or unjoyful. Maybe for some a tatoo or a piercing can be a good way to start a conversation with someone about Christ and who knows, it might just be that seed that was planted in bringing them to the Lord. It can be a part in making you belong to a culture and open doorways to speaking with people.
And to round the argument off..here is where it gets sticky. If someone wants to get a tat to be rebellious then yes that is definatley a sin. If you are getting a tatoo to show off, fit in, or make people notice you then I would say you probably shouldn’t get one. Find your identity in Christ, not a mark on your skin or jewelry or clothing. Our walk with Christ is 100% dependent on our motives. Are you going to glorify God by getting a tatoo? Maybe, maybe not! That is between you and God to decide. Our outward man does not make up our inward holiness. We are all, no matter how beautiful or ugly in others eyes, a reflection of God and His love. We need to remember this and continually stay in focus with the right lenses on. Others are looking at us and seeing a reflection of the God we claim to serve. Christ challenged every area of society when he was on earth. He didn’t please the crowds, the seemingly righteous, or the leaders of His time. He pleased God, His Father and ours, and that was his focus…and needs to remain ours.
In every area of life we need to ask ourselves if we are living to glorify God or glorify our flesh. =>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7W4I0tQZps
Macey,
This was excellent! I totally agree with your reasoning and thoughts. All for God!!! One thing I told your Dad when he was young is to think hard about the future. Will you still want that tatoo when you are 65? And as you said, “What is your reason for wanting it?” Great stuff, girl. You’re amazing and I love you so much!
Grandma Debbie
Macy, this is a good post and ones with relevant questions. I will be answering from a very different perspective. However, I pray everyone hears me out and doesn’t consider me legalistic. As I will explain as I go along. I am going to address a few big things off the bat and then go through your post point by point. First off, God doesn’t change! He is the same yesterday, today and forever. The fact that the Bible is labeled as Old Testament (OT) and New Testament (NT) are man made divisions. Jesus is the Word made flesh…The only Word that they had at the time of that writing was the OT. That would mean that Jesus is the Law. Psalms 119 says over and over again that the law was a good thing !!! Paul says that it is holy, good and just and that he is a servant to it Rom 7:12, 7:25. The law was part of the Mosaic Covenant. God does not break, cancel or change His covenants, He just adds to them to make the next step of His plans and purpose better. We still have all the covenants in place. We still are to go forth and multiply and take care of the Earth (Edenic Covenant). Jesus will ultimately crush the serpents head completely (Adamic). Rainbows are still seen after the rain (Noahic). We are still blessed through the seed of Abraham (Abrahamic) . And finally we will still be blessed and cursed according to our obedience. The law was never for salvation, it was for blessings. When scripture says that Jesus did away with the law….the greek word is dogma, not, nomos. The difference is that Jesus came to do away with the Pharisaical teaching and laws that were put in place by the rulers of that time (dogma). Nomos is the law usually referencing to the teaching and instruction of God. Also the whole new covenant is that the Spirit would write the law(nomos) upon our hearts and mind Heb 10:16. This is fulfilling the prophecy in Jer 31:33. The word law in Jeremiah is the Hebrew word towrah…..it means all of Gods teaching and instruction including the law.Why would it be so important to give us new hearts made of flesh that have the law written on it, if God didn’t want us to walk it out to receive His blessings???? Okay….that gives you a different take then what the traditional church teaches.
There are those points and many others that would point to the fact that the law isn’t done away with. Like Jesus saying He didn’t come to do away with the law…but to fulfill it. That was one of your points so I am going to hit that one, first. The word fulfill is the greek word pleroo. It means to make full, to cause to abound. One meaning even says to carry into effect; another says to cause God’s will to be obeyed. Jesus tells us to take up our cross and follow him. If he obeyed the law, why would we not also try and do our best to walk in his foot steps. We are told that the law is good, it makes us wiser then our enemies and that it will bring forth blessings….Just wondering why we wouldn’t want to fulfill it also? Our culture has made the word law a bad thing. The law wrote us a ticket….threw us in jail…..etc….God wanted it to be a fence of protection for our benefit, this will lead me to some of your other points that I will address later on. But first I want to hit the first paragraph on some of the things that were required in the OT and I believe should still be respected today.
God’s ways are above ours and his thoughts higher then ours. I am wondering why we think we should do our own thing when our hearts are wicked and deceitful above everything. The bible states not to have clothes of linen and wool. There is some significance to the fact that the priest’s clothes were made of this mix and it was to be used only for them. However, I think that the bigger pictures lies in the full context of the passage. We are told not to mix things…not to yoke an ox to a donkey, to not mate different kind of livestock, and other things that are in opposition to one another. Linen was a summer cloth and wool was a winter, here again showing a polarization. It was a teaching on being pure, separate and holy. It doesn’t all make sense to us in todays terms, but it doesn’t need to. We are told to obey in-spite of understanding. God has called us to look different, act different and be different at every level then the world, to be set apart and pure.
The seed issue also has many different angles. We have hybrid things by cross pollinating, etc… that they are no longer nutritious for us. A great book I just finished reading is called Wheat Belly. It shares the history of wheat and why so many people today are having physical issues with it. It is because we have cross pollinate(which happens when you plant things of different seed) next to each other. Here again we see man thinking his ways are higher then God’s and we should alter the food that he gave us for health and vitality. We can also talk about the food from a safety( fence view) that He asked us not to eat. 6000 years ago they didn’t know about parasites,toxins, etc….God did. The animals that He calls detestable(remember He doesn’t change) were all animals that are highly parasitic, would eat dead rotting carcasses, or very high up on the food change that would have high levels of the toxins in them. I find it unbelievably cool that we now have the science to show these things as being unhealthy and stand in awe that people will eat them anyways…..then pray for good health. HMMMMMMM??????
I believe you have take many scripture out of context in the first paragraph. I would like to know the scripture you use when you say that Jesus says we don’t have to live according to the law? I don’t believe there is scripture that says that.Yes, He came to pay for our sins, but the law was never about paying for our sins….just showing that when we couldn’t keep them perfectly and we would need a Savior. In fact Jesus tells us not to live according to the flesh…but according to the Spirit…again the spirit writes the laws on our hearts and mind. His two commandments are summarized in–” Love the Lord your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself”…..It says summarized. Lets go to the point when this was being said, every Jew there would have had Duet 6:4-9 memorized. I will repeat this for the ease of those reading this. Hear O Israel the Lord our God , the Lord is one. Love the Lord our God with all your heart and will all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be in your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit ant home and when you walk along the road…….etc. Loving God is about obeying his commands John 14:15 also states this. Also as I said…it says “summarized”. I have looked at all 613 scriptures of the dos and don’t. All of them can be placed under one of the 10 commandments, with the first 5 show loving God and the last 5 are loving your neighbor. Again, where is there scripture that says Jesus got rid of many of the rules????? It isn’t there, not one jottle or tittle will be removed.
Many of the OT teachings were to keep them safe, but many were to just set them apart and make them holy. Where they lived was a big route for trade and many different groups of people would travel through there. God wanted His people to stand out….He would then bless them, which in turn would make people ask….I want to know your God who does these great and wonderful things for you. We are told not to be imitators of the world…not to let the world dictate right and wrong. I am not sure were the original piercings started…I know that Biblically it was okay to do marking you as a bond servant. I have piercings and have allowed my girls to also. However, in our country homosexual males are the ones who started the male piercing…I am wondering why men would want to copy that. Tattooing in our culture was a sign of sever rebellion. We are imitating the world at every level. Why would we want to wear skulls and cross bones….It represents death in every culture, not just ours. Yet christians are wearing them as if there was nothing else to cover themselves up with. Why would we want to represent the worldly view of death????
I don’t use the OT to back up my opinion, but I do use it to mold my character. However, I believe many twist the things Paul says to say that they don’t have to apply the OT. Due to the fact that there is no temple 1/3 of the commandment can’t even be implemented. Of the remainder many won’t apply to men….menstruation isn’t their thing. Many are to the kings and rulers, again that leaves us out. However, the ones left, are not hard to implement. Again, Jesus says His yoke is easy. I might not have an orchard to leave some of the fruit unpicked for the poor, but I can give to the poor. Here showing that it isn’t a legalistic thing, but something from the heart. Also when the OT says to give the fruit of the fourth year to the priest it was an offering called the first fruits…..A fruit tree takes 4 years to mature and produce its first fruit. This was a symbolic thing that would point to a Savior who would be the first fruit amount the dead. He actually fulfilled that when He rose from the dead. Symbolic things are very important to God. We might not understand them, but we should still obey them. I have given the fruit of my trees on the fourth year away. I have also given my garden a sabbatical rest on the seventh year. I must say the 8th year was a bumper crop…..who would have know that by obeying something as weird as not gardening for a year it would revitalize the soil….We just do it now with man made chemical…Again, our ways must be better the Gods.
You also take Paul’s teaching that all things are lawful but not all things are edifying out of context. He clearly shows in 1 Cr 10 that those who were disobedient in the wilderness didn’t honor God and he didn’t allow them into the promise land. He then goes on to talk about food that is sacrificed to idols and that alone is what he is talking about. Food sacrificed to idols doesn’t harm us internally, yet if it stumbles a brother for him to watch us eat it we shouldn’t eat it. We can’t bulk all behavior under a scripture that clearly isn’t talking about all behavior, but only about food that has been sacrificed and stumbling someone by eating it.
Sorry this has become so long winded, but I feel that it is vital to truly scrutinize scripture. We have allowed the world to creep in and consume us. We look no different, we watch nothing different, we read nothing different, we have taken all the trappings of the world and justified by taking scripture out of context. This subject has become one of importance to me…as you can see by my long windedness. However, we need to get to the basics. God doesn’t change, he ask us to obey, he writes the laws on our hearts and we are told if we love Him we will obey them. I do not believe we can glorify Him in anyway by breaking one. I believe Satan has done a superb job at tricking us all to believe that we can say we love God but not truly obey His Word….which is unchanging and everlasting. I know this post will be controversial, I would love to be able to actually talk about this all. Way to much to write, that is for sure. I don’t feel like I am legalistic about it. I feel like we don’t understand the God of the OT. We say he was a god of law and now he is a god of grace. Well, this isn’t true. There is grace and mercy all over the OT. He allowed witches to live, He allowed harlots to live….look at Hosea’s wife, look at Rahab. She was even in Jesus’s genealogy. That my friend is grace and mercy at it’s finest. God has always been a God of Love, Grace and Mercy, He never changes. He is a God of law in the NT…He tells us over and over again to obey. He will know those who truly love him by how we walk with him. For those who don’t have relationship with HIm in the end there will be eternal damnation. I thank Him all the time for the imputed righteousness through Christ and walk daily in his example of righteousness to please HIm by being obedient to His Word OT and NT. Anyways, look forward to some discussion on this. Blessings to you!!!
Sorry for all the grammatical errors…..once I looked back on it, there were quite a few…I shouldn’t write so late at night.
I enjoyed reading your comment Kristen, and although we don’t always agree I respect your opinions. Thanks for your imput.