few years back a liberal Portland newspaper, The Willamette Week, published a story, "The Word made Flesh" which is about how Multnomah Bible College lifted their ban on tattoos. The article featured a seminary grad student who not only claimed that Jesus would dig his tattoos because they glorified God, but also claimed that Jesus Himself will have a tattoo upon His second coming citing Revelation 19:16 as proof. Should Christians be getting tattoos as a demonstration of their faith? Is it legit to think that tattoos will help reach those who are lost that would otherwise be turned off by more straight laced Christian brothers? When the Holy Spirit, through Paul penned 1 Corinthians 9:22, which says "I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some," was God's intention for us to mimic the world's ways in order to spread the Gospel?

This particular subject was of great interest to me personally because prior to having been saved, I had already tattooed a majority of my body. Tattoos, to me, were a way to commemorate a time in my life, or to honor something that was important to me (such as the time I spent in the Marine Corps). So, after having been called unto Christ, I thought it only fitting to get a tattoo showing my devotion to the Almighty, since this obviously was infinitely more important than anything I previously had inked on my skin. However, shortly thereafter my conscience accused me of violating Leviticus 19:28 which states, "You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the LORD."

I questioned if this command applied to those under Christ in the Church age because in context it is tied to a law forbidding the shaving of ones beard, or cutting the sides of ones hair, both things which are practiced by Christians everyday in this age. So, I searched commentaries for an answer, and found that pagans would shave their beard and keep their hair a certain way that they believed honored their false gods. They also would tattoo symbols on themselves to signify they were the property of, and devoted to their false god of choice. This lead me to believe that, it wasn't necessarily the tattooing itself that God forbade, but the fact that the behavior (weather tattoos or hair styles) was a pagan form of worship to glorify their false deities and thus directly violates the first commandment which states, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me."

With this in mind, I enthusiastically got a large tattoo in a vain attempt to glorify the one true God. At the time, I truly believed that this tattoo I had gotten would show my Creator the unwavering devotion I had for Him. Yet, as I looked at it, I realized that God never asks us to do such things to show our devotion, but simply calls us to listen to His Word and obey His commands. Obedience to Christ and His word brings God glory...this is how we are to truly worship the Almighty. But instead, in my attempt to bring God honor, I only brought Him dishonor. I had demeaned and insulted the Holy One by treating Him as a false pagan diety. I had attempted to worship God, not in truth, but in my own way, and by my own wisdom I offered the great 'I AM' strange fire (Leviticus 10:1-3).

The pagans also worshiped their false gods through human sacrifice and with temple prostitutes, so does anyone really think we can do such things in the name of YHWH and that He will find that pleasing and acceptable? Of course that is completely absurd right? So why is it that we assume we can take another religious practice from the pagans, throw the name of Christ in the mix, and all of a sudden that purifies it in the eyes of our LORD? No where in Scripture are we commanded to tattoo ourselves but we are told to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom 13:14). This does not mean tattooing a cross or the symbol of the trinity on us, but it does mean that our words and behavior should be such that those who see us, instead, see only Christ because of our submission to Him as LORD which will bear the fruit of an obedient life, in which the world could mistake us for none other than Christ's disciples because of our continual godly speech and conduct which truly glorifies the Almighty.

Obedience to the Word is what Christ commands, and this is what we ought to be focusing our minds upon, not a preoccupation with things that the world does and loves which are temporal and will pass away, but on those things which truly glorify Christ and have eternal benefits in the life that is to come. If tattoos truly glorified God, wouldn't He have mentioned it in the pages of Scripture? God is sovereign and will reach those whom He has elected through the preaching of His word. Tattoos will not save anyone or make it any easier to share the offensive gospel to a lost world, and they do not open doors to evangelize or share your testimony. We were "created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them" (Eph 2:10), and that does not hinge on weather we got ourselves a gnarly Jesus tattoo. Seriously though, take it from me when I say God gave us His Word for a reason, it is the very mind of God in whom we find eternal life, His Word contains everything pertaining to life and godliness, and we must know it and obey it and proclaim it if we are to reach the unsaved and that, folks, has nothing at all to do with tattoos.