The word “tattoo” is not in the Bible. However, there are many principles about taking care of the body taught in the Bible that pertain to what some today call “body art.”
An outer layer of skin, the epidermis, is always renewing itself. Inner cells of this layer work to the outside within 14 days as outer cells die off. To keep a permanent marking, tattooists inject dye into a lower dermis that will permanently stay marked on the body. A tattoo of “I love Hilda” is going to be there long after you are married to Martha.
There are ways to remove them. Laser and pulsed light techniques can break up the ink. The painful five to ten treatments can cost as much as $250 to $850 each treatment. Some chemical lightening processes claim to fade them by as much as 93.7%. However, six percent of a skull and crossbones may not be too impressive to your boss when you are a 40 year-old short-sleeved executive. The flesh markings will remain as long as you live. They will last even after the skin has lost its elasticity, places sag and the pigment has lost its clearness and no one is really sure what your tattoo says.
Marking of the body has a long history. Danish museums display tattoo needles from 500-2000 B.C. Remains of an Egyptian priestess, who may have lived between 2160 and 1994 BC, had tattoos on her arms, legs and other places. Mayan mummies reveal it was done in their culture. A frozen, 5,000 year old body of a Siberian man had over 57 tattoos. Many past cultures marked their bodies. Originally, tattooing was identified with ungodly practices.
Moses had to deal with marking of the bodies when he had to deal with other heathen practices his people apparently committed. Leviticus 19:28 commands, “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.”
God required His people to “… be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy (Lev. 19:2).” As a child of God, we are on the winning side. We have the promise of victory. Why should we even want to appear like the losing side or keep up with what they do? They should be trying to look like us, not the other way around.
No longer is tattooing only the practice of drunken sailors or faraway heathens. It is everywhere – among our children and young adults especially. The 1999 Butterfly Art Barbie helped get young children introduced to body marking with a doll that had a butterfly tattoo on her stomach. Even Christians today permanently change their appearance with these inkings.
A Christian is one who is to be “Christ-like.” To be Christ-like is to be separated from the world as II Corinthians 6:17 states: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.” Many are robbed of the power of God because they touch, wear, drink, think, and live an unclean life. Certainly, unrighteousness is not restricted to just pigmenting one’s body.
It also seems whatever God desires us to do, Satan encourages us to do the opposite. God said, “I made you in my image.” Satan wants to change that image. God wants us to be proud of being a male or a female. Satan wants to confuse it so all sexes look alike, work alike, have the same responsibilities and thus confuse their sexuality. God wants us to serve Him only, and the enemy wants us to serve our things, others, or ourselves.
God desires us to live a clean holy life. The opposition makes it freely available to live a debased, immoral life. On and on the battle rages to get us to do the opposite of what God wants us to do. God desires us to remember we are created in His image and to treat His creation with respect and appreciation. Satan wants us to do what does not please God.
It certainly is not popular in today’s world, but when we are not happy with what God created and change it, we are showing God that we know better — be it piercing a face to “beautify” it, decorating heavily with jewelry or even tattooing. I believe it is not the time or money spent in making the “improvement” that is as much wrong as the “heart” behind making the change. God knows the heart and the reasons for what we do.
A European man was not happy in being what he was, so he completely tattooed his body to give himself the appearance of a leopard and lived on an island alone like a leopard. He certainly altered what God had given him and was sending a clear message to his Creator.
The Bible tells us, if we are saved, that the body God gave us is a holy temple which He indwells. Satan wants to change or destroy that temple any way he can.
God says take care of our body, our temple. All through history, Satan influenced many to destroy that temple. Early Aztecs and other ancient peoples committed human sacrifices. Worshippers of Molech sacrificed their children in his fiery orifice. Many have taken their own life, mutilated or altered it. Satan really does not have that much imagination. You can see his trail of intervention, as many people through the past and present have wanted to harm their bodies.
The devil-possessed man of Gadarenes wanted to destroy the creation God gave him. The devils controlling him led him to cut himself and to hurt his body. When Jesus cast over 1,000 demons out of him, they quickly left and led over 1000 swine to “hogicide”. Destruction was their intent, and it did not matter whom they hurt.
Satan even tried to get Jesus to harm himself when He tempted Christ to jump from the high pinnacle of the temple. Destruction of one’s body is one of Satan’s evil plans.
If he cannot directly get you to damage the temple, Satan has subtle devices, including many to change the body you are not happy with. Discontentment can quickly lead to Satan’s ultimate desire that we destroy our body, so there is no hope of getting saved. If we are saved, he desires that we leave such a terrible testimony of Christ that others will not want to get saved.
Tattooing is something that a Christian should not have any part in doing. Marking one’s body will certainly not make a saved person unsaved. It will, however, identify us with the world, which we are to separate from and also ruin our testimony for Christ. The body parking practice also alters, harms our bodies, and desensitizes our respect for the perfect creation God gave us. It is one more thing the world is offering from which we should be separate.
“God gave you the body He wanted you to have. Don’t alter it!”
otme 7/18/2016
Still timely as ever and a great devotion Bro Bill. Thanks for posting this extremely relevant topic.
I wanted to quickly share the story of “Tony” a guy we had come to work for us from a temp agency some years ago. Tony showed up the first day with gauges in his ears. The site supt. called the office and eventually ended up talking to me. That is not at all the image we are going for, so I told the supt to have him remove them, which he cheerfully did. The supt. immediately called back and recommended that we either have him put them back in or send him home because the loose flaps of flesh that were left were more unsightly and dangerous than the gauges themselves. Ultimately he wore them and worked for us most of that season.
During this time, I had opportunity to spend a few minutes with him, and he was a very pleasant young man. I stuck my neck out and asked him about the gauges. He so regretted ever putting them in. I learned that is a long process whereby he had to insert successively larger items in his earlobe to enlarge it to the 1″ or so size he was at. It had been several years and there was no going back. He could not afford the surgery needed to repair the damage. He had difficulty gaining employment. I would imagine that it impacted almost every part of his life. I felt sorry for him and the predicament he had placed himself in.
I also ran into a young woman at the drug store recently that had a piece of jewelry right at the ridge of her cheekbone below her eye. Again, I was curious, so I asked about it and how she took it out. Turns out that it is permanent. It has a toggle on the back of it similar to a toggle bolt that, once inserted in the flesh, can only be surgically removed. That poor girl. She also regretted it…said she did it impulsively when she was young (she appeared to be in her early 20’s). I am assuming that she will have to pay dearly to have it removed someday and will have a scar left….again, I felt sorry for the predicament she got herself into.
The idea from the “gauges” comes from African culture, where lips, necks, and ears are progressively changed by inserting or adding plates, rings … to change a part of the anatomy. Most of those practices originate from heathenistic, demonic beginnings. It all stems from not happy (content) with what God made (our body) and making it “better”. I haved learned that usually if you mess with God’s design, you will regret it (and that often includes “necessary” surgeries).
I hear you. I know what you are talking about. I would imagine, like most things the devil has a hand in, that very few give that any thought whatsoever to what they are doing. I feel like most get the little butterfly on their shoulder because they think it is cute, or the young man gets some masculine thing on their upper arm because they think that is what makes a man look manly. Fortunately most will get better sense and quit there, but increasingly there are those that lose all sense of the propriety of their bodies and go to extremes. What used to be extreme is now ordinary. Surely, many of these individuals are just crying for someone to look at them and pay attention to them. Naturally or not, they crave other’s attention.
Of course the church must accept folks where they are and like many sins, the signs linger after salvation. I may be opening a can of worms here, but I grew up knowing nothing about what the Bible says about marking or mutilating ones flesh. It was ordinary for women in that era to have 1 earring per ear. During the ’80’s it became fashionable for men to pierce one ear…I cannot remember which one was the correct one, but it mattered. Later, men went to two ears, women to half a dozen or more holes per ear. Now we do tongues, noses, lips, and who knows what else.
It is brave of you to bring this up and teach what the Bible says. No doubt there are a lot of people, especially ladies that may be reading this that think this is an extreme stance. I want to witness to them that you need no embellishment to be beautiful. God made you that way already. You are not abnormal by leaving this off.
It is interesting how the world looks at things. A family I know visited the beach not long ago and went in normal swimwear, (with their bodies covered). You know they got stared at. The Dad in the family made the remark that he didn’t know why they were being stared at, they were not the people that were out in public naked.
As that Dad found out, we are a “peculiar” people in the lack-of-standards eyes of the world.
if one is not to mark the body what about surgery scars ? No a bunch of tats don’t look good but a tiny one not saying a bad thing ? I don’t know as I do have a tiny one as for piercings my ears are but not big holes and such . Did Jesus condem those who had tats and piercings or did he just accept it as they got saved ?
Surgery scars, war, or accident injuries are there because of a different reason – accidental, or health. All get sick, etc. Tattoos are there for an intentional different reason; “beautifying” what God has created. IT’s all in the attitude, and heart that makes the difference in God’s eyes.
Jesus, according to the Bible, did not condemn anyone’s previous sin when they got saved. All previous sin is under His blood; forgiven and forgotten.
I am 50 and gratefully, tattoos and piercing were frowned upon in popular culture when I was young with the exception of a few boys beginning to get one ear pierced. Fortunately, it was one of the things that I avoided somehow…..probably because my family would have been upset and also because I couldn’t have afforded it.
This is one of the many forms of deception that the enemy uses. I know a woman that has an extremely vulgar term tattooed in 2″ high letters across her neck. It is very prominent and very unavoidable, in terms of noticing it. Now why on earth would a woman do that?
I also was showing a rental to a woman once and she had a whole paragraph tattooed on the area above her collar bone….She told me what it said and it didn’t even make sense.
The other thing I have seen is people that have oriental characters tattooed on themselves. If you ask them what they mean, they often say…love or peace or something. Truth is, many of them don’t have any idea what those characters mean. They could mean idiot for all they know.
Also, I see a lot of mutilation, in terms of piercings and the poor people that stretch their earlobes out.
I don’t mean this to be mean spirited. I am glad Bro Brinkworth has the backbone to bring this up in this hour. You can offend people easily because it is so widespread and accepted.
All of this adds up to one thing…. deception.
deception that it is attractive.
deception that there is nothing wrong with it.
deception that you need this to be accepted.
deception that God made you less than you should have been, and you need adornment.
deception that it is not sinful.
deception that you can do what you want and enter into heaven.
My pastor says the #1 characteristic that all deceived people have in common is that they dont know.
When I was 19 (21 years ago), I placed several tattoos on my arms cause I thought it would make me look “cool” in front of others. My wife and mother both told me that I would eventually regret putting them on me, but I was hard-headed and wouldn’t listen!
And you know what? They were right! A few years later I hated them! I might have appeared cool to some people, but to most people I was a bum with a bunch of tattoos on me!
And you’re absolutely right Bro. Bill, about 5yrs ago I spent almost $3000 on laser treatments (14 treatments total) to get most of my tattoos removed! It hurt too!
I try to tell young people all the time the same thing my wife and mother tried to tell me – don’t get a tattoo or you’ll regret it!
By the way, many professional businesses will not hire someone with tattoos! If they do, like you said they’ll have to cover them up by wearing long sleeve all the time, even in the summer time!