What does the Bible say about tattoos? Should a Christian get a tattoo? - Podcast Episode 48

The Got Questions podcast,.

Your questions, biblical answers.

On today's episode, I have with me Jeff and Kevin, our two regulars.

We're gonna be discussing another one of the top 20 articles on Got Questions.

The top 20 questions we're asked, and it's still the case, and it was the case very early on.

It's about tattoos.

What does the Bible say about tattoos?

Should a Christian get a tattoo?

This amazes me that this continues to be a very common question, but as tattoos have become more and

more common and more popular and less of a social stigma, I guess, more and more people

are getting tattoos, leading more and more people to wonder, huh, maybe I should get a tattoo.

So we're gonna discuss that from a biblical perspective and also discuss it from a little, how some of our

thinking has changed a little bit on this.

So first, to answer the question, what does the Bible say about tattoos?

There's only one verse in the entire Bible that mentions tattoos, and that's even a

little bit debated regarding what specifically it's referring to, and Leviticus 19 .28

says, do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo markings on yourself.

So the mention of cutting your bodies for the dead indicates this might be

more than just going to a tattoo parlor and getting a tattoo.

There seems to be some sort of pagan ritual involved, but here's a verse in Leviticus that specifically

says, do not put tattoo marks on yourselves.

And for some, that's case closed.

The Bible says don't get a tattoo, therefore it's always wrong to get a tattoo.

But the previous verse says, it talks about different ways of cutting your hair or

trimming your beard, and I don't see those being followed.

I think two of us on this show are bearded and one of us has one coming in a little bit,

and we fairly often cut our beards.

Even if you look at the greater context of Revelation, sorry, Leviticus 19, there's a lot in there, a lot of commands that we don't

follow today.

So if you're gonna take Leviticus 19 .28 and use it for a universal, thou shalt not get a tattoo,

well, to be consistent, you need to look at the other verses in the Old Testament law be applying those as well.

So we're just gonna be discussing, okay, if the Old Testament law does not apply to Christians,

if we are free from the law, not under the law, then how do we make a decision on tattoos for

one, but also other gray issues, other issues where seem to fall into Christian

freedom.

So Kevin, tell us a little bit about your journey and how you're thinking on this issue has changed

over the years.

Well, sure thing, Shay.

And on the beard thing, I'll just mention, I used to just try to trim out the gray out of my beard, but

I'm failing at that now.

It's getting harder and harder to just trim out the gray.

But yes, 25 years ago, I was a teacher in a Christian classroom

in a Christian high school.

And every Friday during my Bible class, I would have question and answer time.

So the kids could ask any questions that they wanted, and we would try to find answers in the

Bible.

Kind of a lot like what Got Questions does, but I was just doing this live in this high school classroom.

So one day, one of the kids, you know, piped up with, is it wrong

to get a tattoo?

And so I said, well, of course it's wrong to get a tattoo.

And I took the class to Leviticus chapter 19, and what you were referring to

there, Shay.

And I read that verse, do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves.

I am the Lord.

So God gives two commands.

There, he says, you should not be cutting yourself and you should not be putting tattoo marks on

yourself.

And so case closed, right?

And this student, as cheeky as he was,

had his hand up again and said, yeah, but what about the rest of that chapter?

And the verse that's right before that says, do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or

clip off the edges of your beard.

He said, if we have to follow verse 28 today, then don't we

also have to follow verse 27 about cutting the hair and trimming the beard?

And I said, well, I'll have to get back with you on that.

I mean, and then the more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion

that that student was right.

He had a good point, had a good argument.

And I mean, I know that we are not under the law.

We're not under the Mosaic covenant.

We haven't come to Sinai.

We have come to Mount Zion.

We are under the new covenant now.

And we have freedom in Christ from the regulations and the rituals of

the Old Testament law.

And so I went through an evolution in my thinking of

just saying, oh, tattoos have to be wrong because the Old Testament law forbade them

to knowing that we have freedom in Christ and that we are no longer under the law.

Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets on our behalf.

And we are now under the law of Christ.

Love one another, love your neighbor as yourself, love God with everything that you have.

This is the law that we have today.

So 25 years ago, I would have given a different answer on this, but today I say with

full confidence, it is not a sin per se to have a tattoo.

There are other considerations that we need to probably discuss, but having a tattoo is not

wrong in and of itself.

I think using the phrase in and of itself is very important because the idea is not to say

that it is never a sin to get a tattoo.

There can be reasons and ways and means for a person to get a tattoo that would be sinful.

And I think something in scripture that illuminates that for us is when Jesus was talking to a group of

Pharisees about whether or not his disciples were washing their hands before they ate,

ceremonial washing.

And the gist of that from Matthew chapter 15 is Jesus basically makes the point of saying that it's not the physical

food that's the issue.

In other words, it's not the molecules and the atoms in the food that makes the person

unclean.

It's the attitude and the intent that's behind it.

So even the tattoo in the Old Testament, the thing that really makes a tattoo a sin for a

Israelite in the Old Testament is not the ink or the puncturing of the skin.

It's the fact that God told that specific person, don't do this, and they're doing it.

That's the thing that really makes it a sin or really creates the issue or the problem.

It's the same thing with kosher foods, for example.

It's not the actual pork or the shellfish.

It's not something mystical or magical or spiritual about the atoms and the molecules in the food that makes it

that way.

It's that if God tells you specifically don't do that and you do it, now that's a sin.

Very similar issue with something like a tattoo.

It's not the physical ink.

It's not the symbol.

It's not that, but there are circumstances where maybe a tattoo is not a good idea.

This is where we get into that whole idea of, yes, we have Christian liberty, but that doesn't mean that everything is a good idea just

because something's not explicitly called a sin doesn't mean that it's never

a sin.

So if you're getting a tattoo specifically to spite your parents, that's probably not a

good idea.

If you're getting a tattoo just to be provocative, just to irritate people, if you're getting it specifically

so that you can look like a Satanist or whatever, something like, if you're doing it for specific

reasons, then yeah, that particular issue can be a problem.

But we can say the same thing about the clothes that we wear, the music that we listen to, the places that we visit, the books that we read.

And that's the idea.

Is that the question of whether or not these gray areas are sin or not sin has everything to do

with our intention and whether or not we're following God's plan for our specific circumstances

versus whether we're just choosing to do our own thing and just doing it for our own reasons.

And that's where we get into issues of things like Christian liberty.

Paul talks about a lot of that when he discusses Christian liberty.

I know Shay's had some conversations with people where that's become a core point of this whole discussion

is the way Paul kind of draws this balance between doing what you want to do versus how do I

know when, just because the world tells me it's okay, that it's not okay for me.

Yeah.

So there's several scriptures that I would usually point to when people would ask me about tattoos or

submit a question.

And 1 Corinthians 6, 12, where it reads, everything is permissible for me.

And then later in verse 23, all things are lawful for me.

So some people just stop right there and say, okay, well, everything's permissible, everything's lawful, therefore I can do what I want.

But then the next verse is not everything is profitable.

All things are lawful, but not all things edify.

So there's a difference between something being allowable as in, yeah, we can do it and it's not necessarily sin, but is it actually

profitable?

Is this going to, from a Christian perspective, is this going to glorify God?

Is this going to enhance my witness?

Is this possibly going to be a stumbling block or possibly offend someone?

So there's so many other things to take into account beyond just, could I do this and not be a sin?

Well, of course you can get a tattoo and have it not be a sin, but as Jeff was talking about, there are

so many other factors you have to consider.

Is this really the best use of the temple that God has given me?

Is there any way this could possibly offend someone or push someone away from Christ?

Or even with the tattoo, is this something I'm still going to want 10, 20 years from

now?

Is this still going to represent who I am and what I want to communicate to people?

So there's so many other factors.

And in Romans 14, two verses I want to point to is that Romans 14, five, and

neither of these verses are specifically talking about tattoos, but Romans 14, five says each person should be

fully convinced in their own mind and that you should not get a tattoo unless you are fully

convinced, 100 convinced this is something God wants you to do.

And then Romans 14, 23, everything that does not come from faith is sin.

So if you are not fully convinced, if you do not have the faith that this is something that God wants you to do and that it's not a sin

for you, you shouldn't do it.

And so many people that I've seen get tattoos, I think they're not in violation of a command not to get a

tattoo, they're in violation of these principles and that, have you really thought this through?

Are you really thinking of this from the Christian perspective of, I want everything I do to

be for the glory of God and can this tattoo glorify God?

And if they're not fully convinced, if they're like, ah, I wanna get it just because it's cool.

Okay, that's not a reason for a Christian to do anything, let alone something permanent like a tattoo.

So there are numerous scriptures that even, they give principles, not talking about tattoos

specifically, they have to apply to a decision like getting a tattoo and then many other decisions in life

is that we shouldn't do anything unless we're fully convinced, have the faith that it will

honor and glorify God.

So, gray areas are definitely something where we have to be careful with exactly how we,

we parse those ideas and it is good to remember, like Paul says, you have to be fully

convinced in your own mind.

It's also important to remember that Paul wouldn't say something like that if those circumstances were not real

or if that was not possible.

If your own perception didn't make any difference, there would be no reason for Paul to say that.

He would just say, yes, legalism is the way, there's black and white rules, period, that's the end of it.

But the reality that we live in is more complicated than that.

And it's not that we wanna get into what people call situational ethics, which is where they say, well, some things are right in certain

circumstances and wrong in others.

We have to be more nuanced than that.

We have to remember that it's, again, it's not the physical objects.

It's not even the physical movements of the body that necessarily define what

something is moral or immoral.

We make the comparison, for example, to somebody making a beckoning motion with their

finger.

On video, you can see me doing the motion that you would do when you tell a child or somebody, come here, and you curl your finger.

That movement in and of itself, it doesn't mean anything.

If I'm calling a child away from a hot stove, that's a good movement.

If I'm squeezing the trigger of a gun, there's a context or an intent behind that.

Tattoos, very similar.

If you're in a situation where the culture sees tattoos as gang -oriented and satanic,

then you have to understand that that's the impression that people are going to get from that.

And that applies, like you were saying, Shay, well outside of things just like tattoos.

That applies to pretty much everything.

For example, taking a human life.

The Bible says don't commit murder.

Well, that involves a certain context.

Killing in war, capital punishment, by definition, those are not considered to be the exact same thing.

We have prayer.

In the right context, prayer is a very good thing.

In the wrong context, prayer is idolatry.

It's not literally just, well, when you close your eyes and try to speak to somebody that's good or that's

bad.

Well, who are you praying to?

What's the context of what you're doing?

It applies to things like sexuality.

There's a context in which sexuality is a good thing.

It's a holy thing.

It's a healthy thing.

But that exact same act is a sin in the wrong circumstances.

And that's also a good example of how intention is not literally everything.

In other words, you can't commit adultery with positive intentions and have God go, well, then you had good intentions.

Because the context, by definition, doesn't allow for that.

Because he did give a specific command to say, do not do that in these circumstances.

So we have to kind of go beyond just trying to nail everything down to this list of post -it note

stuff that we can stick in our wallet and say, as long as I just follow these really simple binary rules,

then I'm okay.

What we're supposed to be doing is we're supposed to be considering the influence of the Holy Spirit every single second, every single

moment with everything that we say and everything that we do to tell us whether or not in this

moment, in this context, what does God want me to do?

And that's why we know that as Christians, even good things, things that are good in and of themselves to an

extent can be a sin if we're doing them in violation of what God has said

and what his principles are and how he wants us to interact with people.

So it's not just about legalism.

It's got a lot more to do with our personal relationship with Christ.

That's excellent thoughts, Jeff.

I mean, I really appreciate what you shared there and the wisdom of how the principles we're trying to outline here

apply to so many other situations.

And just back to tattoos briefly.

I've had a couple of times where people, oh, Shay, you know, I'm Greek and Hebrew.

Can you help me to design a tattoo?

I want a tattoo that will say this in Hebrew.

I'm like, well, first of all, translating from English into Hebrew is not the skillset that I've been

taught at all.

So no, I'm not going to be responsible for what's going to be permanently written on your body.

But this is something to think about again with tattoos in that, yes, I mean, thankfully through medical science, they can to

a certain degree be removed, but still to an extent they are permanent.

And so anything that's permanent, you want to take extra special care.

You mentioned in some countries, tattoos are universally viewed as gang symbols.

And in some of the international trips we've taken with Compassion, they're like, if you have a tattoo, you need to cover it up.

So wisdom tells you, if you're going to get a tattoo, get it somewhere where you can hide it because there are going to be situations in

life where a tattoo will be a hindrance.

I was at the gym once, and I noticed a guy working out next to me, and he had a tattoo, again, in Hebrew, and I was

looking at it.

And so I talked to him, hey, what's your tattoo say?

I knew what it said.

He's like, oh, it's the name of my son.

It's the biblical name of Jacob.

And I was kind of like, on the inside, I was like, no, it's not.

I mean, if it is, it's a misspelling.

And so here's this guy who has a misspelling in Hebrew of

Jacob.

So again, something that takes extra care.

Tattoos are not something, a decision to be made lightly.

The decision involves a lot of wisdom.

And okay, again, is it wrong to get a tattoo?

No, but there's some principles.

It should be concealable.

It should be something that's going to be meaningful to you your entire life.

It's not gonna be something done on a whim.

It's not gonna be the name of a girlfriend or boyfriend that may not be the person you are with for the rest of your life.

It's going to make very awkward conversations with your future spouse.

So many things to take into account.

So many mistakes people make.

There used to be a hilarious TV show called Bad Ink where

what these two guys did, it went around just fixing horrible tattoos that people had gotten.

And some of the things are just like, what were you thinking when you got this tattoo?

And then so they would have to constantly bigger and better and greater to cover up the

mistake they'd made previously in life.

So again, so many different principles in the Bible and this wisdom in

life that apply to getting tattoos far beyond just the thou shalt not

type of command from the Bible.

So Kevin, before the show, we were talking about just some principles that you found helpful to help

people to know how to make decisions, both would apply to tattoos, but also to other gray matters.

So please share those with us.

Well, sure.

And I wanna say first that one of the things I just got out of what you said, Shay, was if

I decide to get a Hebrew tattoo based on your translation from English into Hebrew, I need to

make sure it's a henna tattoo or something.

Those are temporary, right?

Please, yes. Double check it.

I think that the overall motivation for anything that we do, this would include tattoos and anything

else, is to bring glory to God.

First Corinthians 10 31, whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God.

So that's kind of foundational for everything else that we ever talk about concerning our

motivation, concerning activities that we're involved with or whatever.

We bring glory to God.

But I've adapted this list here that I'd like to share with you from something that John MacArthur

put out on his website.

And I found these things to be very helpful.

Some questions that we can ask ourselves.

First, will it benefit me spiritually?

As I look at my own life.

First Corinthians 10 23, all things are lawful.

As we've mentioned in this conversation before, all things are lawful, but not all things edify.

Not everything builds us up.

And that's one of the considerations.

Does this cultivate godliness in my life?

Will it build me up spiritually?

Another question is, will it defile God's temple?

First Corinthians six, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which you have from God.

You're not your own.

You've been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body.

So if we're doing something that we know is going to harm our body or

bring shame to it, then we need to be very careful.

Our body is, Paul says elsewhere in the book of Romans, that it is an instrument of

righteousness to God.

Our bodies are the instruments by which we glorify God here in this world.

And we need to be careful about what we do with our bodies or to our bodies.

Also, will it cause anyone to stumble?

This is a good general question to be asking ourselves, no matter what we're doing.

Will it cause someone else, a brother or sister in Christ, to stumble?

First Corinthians eight, food does not commend us to God.

See, that was the issue that Paul was dealing with, was food offered to idols.

Food does not commend us to God.

We're neither worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat.

But take care, lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.

So it's not really about eating or drinking or refraining from those things.

It's about watching out for our weaker brothers in Christ.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor, Romans 13 says.

And so if we know that we're making a choice that's going to cause another Christian to stumble into

sin, then love for that brother or sister will restrict our own

liberty.

This is the biblical principle.

It's not always an easy one to follow, but the biblical principle is that, yes, we have liberty in

Christ, but we need to restrict that liberty.

We have a willingness to say no to what we may feel is perfectly fine in order to

protect the spiritual life of a brother or sister in Christ.

In fact, Paul went so far as to say in Romans 8, that he would never

eat meat again if it would cause a brother to stumble into sin.

Another question is, will it further the cause of evangelism?

1 Corinthians 10, give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I

also please all men in all things, not seeking my own prophet, Paul says, but the prophet of the many, that they may be

saved.

So we also have this consideration that the world is watching and our testimony needs to tell

the truth about God.

So our choices in the gray areas, our choices in these disputable matters,

we need to be thinking about God's reputation, not just our own, but God's reputation before a watching world.

Also, as has been mentioned, and this is so important, will it violate my conscience?

Romans 14, again, he who doubts is condemned if he eats.

Again, the issue was food at that time, because his eating is not from faith.

Whatever is not from faith is sin.

In fact, when we go back to 1 Corinthians 10, we have three references to

abstaining from a certain practice for conscience sake.

That phrase is repeated three times, for conscience sake.

It is so important that we not violate our conscience.

We should never train our conscience to, or to train ourselves to violate our conscience.

We must stay sensitive to our own conscience that God has given us.

And so if we're not sure about it, we have doubts about it, God says, well, refrain from that,

don't do that.

If your conscience is troubled in any matter, then you should go ahead and say

no to that.

Protect yourself spiritually like that, and it's important to have a good conscience.

One of the things I think we do wanna bring up there just to make sure that we're rounding out all the different facets

of this is when we do talk about gray areas, it's true.

Paul says, if my eating meat is gonna cause my brother to stumble, then I will never eat meat.

And I think one of the dangers that we can get into as Christians, and this happens with things like tattoos, it happens with

clothes and movies and all sorts of other things like that, is sometimes people try to turn the stumbling block

into a club.

And then there's this sort of attempt to control the things that other Christians say or do or believe with the

attitude of saying, well, I don't agree with that.

Therefore, you're being a stumbling block to me.

And I think that's a misconception of what that means.

When Paul talks about not becoming a stumbling block, he does not mean I don't ever wanna do something that my

fellow Christian themselves might not do or that they might not agree with.

Paul's also the one who says in 1 Corinthians 10, he says, if somebody says this is offered in sacrifice, then

don't eat it for the sake of conscience.

But he says, why should my liberty be determined by someone else's conscience?

So we have to be careful that when we look at these gray areas and we're perceiving the decisions that are being made by other

people, just because somebody makes a decision that is not the decision that you would make does not mean that that person is

necessarily doing something that is sinful.

And you don't have the right as a Christian basically to look at somebody and say, well, I think it's a sin.

Therefore, when you do it, you're becoming a stumbling block to me.

The only way it's a stumbling block to you is if that person doing it encourages you

in your spiritual weakness to violate your own conscience.

That's a huge difference between I just don't agree with it and if you do it, then

you're sinning because I don't agree with you.

Yes, and Jeff, scripture says that it's the weaker brother that we are protecting from

stumbling.

So if somebody is running around always saying, well, you can't do that because it offends me,

they're basically saying, I'm a weak brother.

And I'm, like you say, I'm using this stumbling block passage as a

cudgel or as some type of a manipulative tool to stop you from

exercising liberty in Christ.

One of the points that I've made to people in the past is I've brought up the idea that if you are

that convinced that something is a sin, that you're willing to condemn or to be angry with somebody

else about it, then you're not in any danger of stumbling over that because clearly your conscience is very

well settled on that particular issue.

So if you're so offended by something that it bothers you when somebody else does it, that

almost in and of itself means that for you, that's not a stumbling block.

And that doesn't really say anything about the morality of that person doing it.

Maybe it is a sin for that person to do it, but your particular personal opinion is not what creates the

stumbling block for others.

So there's two sides to looking at gray areas like tattoos and things, which is not just what's going on in my

own mind.

Am I following God's will?

Am I doing it for the right reasons?

Am I having a holy attitude towards this?

But it's also in the way that we look at other people and the way we interact with how they make those choices.

And we have to remember that there is Christian liberty involved in all of this.

Yeah, absolutely.

So kind of to wrap all this up, I mean, the main topic we're discussing is tattoos, but we also wanted to give you

principles for how to make decisions on debatable matters, on gray issues, however you want to refer to them.

But to answer specifically the question, what does the Bible say about tattoos?

We do not believe there is a thou shalt not get a tattoo command given to believers in Christ

in the new covenant.

So it becomes a matter of Christian freedom.

So then therefore involves wisdom, involves discernment, involves what is best, not just what is

permissible, but what is edifying, not just what is allowed in the law, but does this actually

bring honor and glory to God?

And then there's practical concerns that you need to think about.

Getting a tattoo is a big decision, something that's not to be made lightly.

And that's maybe the main thing we want to communicate to you today.

And then also just to remember to show grace to other people who may come to a different conclusion than you on debatable

matters like this, to not try to enforce your convictions that may not be entirely biblical

on others.

So hope this conversation has been edifying, encouraging you today.

Feel free to submit any questions you have at gotquestions .org.

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