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faroukfarouk

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Do you see a female of any age with ear rings as the same as a tat?
Actually 59%-70% of parlor clients in North America are female, with many Christian women getting ink in faith and family themes. (A particularly high proportion of military wives gets tattoos in patriotic and faith and family themes.) In the Bible male and female bondservants had ear piercings.

The verse before the 'cutting ... for the dead' section in Leviticus says about not trimming one's beard; do preachers shave? if they do, then they are admitting that it is distinct to be in the church under grace, with Romans 14 Christian liberty, on the one hand, and on the other, Old Testament Jews in the land under the law. Once the church and Israel, and once the Old Testament and the New, get all lumped together, then all sorts of interpretational confusion is likely to result.
 
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farout

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So...if a person believes that a Tattoo is not in keeping with Biblical values, for themselves, is that Judging? I think it is a personal choice. Now if that choice is based on how one understands what the Bible teaches, so much the better. But when it is questionable if it is a teaching made under the law required for Salvation in the Old testament period, then it might be a matter of personal conscience. Personally I respect a persons choice for having or not having Tattoos, if they have a Biblical text that shows where their choice was made from. I never had someone show me a Biblical reason for having a tattoo. However people do have a Biblical reason to say we should not. To those who say it is a witnessing tool, less that 10% of tattoos I see on people who say they are Christians are anything close to a witnessing tool. I see many skulls, eagles, and names and pictures of all kinds of things. Once and a while I see a cross. So many say its for a "witnessing tool" but my experience is that is far and few between.
 
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faroukfarouk

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No one needs to have a tattoo and no Christian needs to have a faith based tattoo. But some do, and they are proven effective as a conversation-starter. My wife and I talked to a young lady with the whole of John 3.16 inked on her wrist area; it was her favorite Bible verse, and mine also; and I'm sure that other conversations have arisen as a result of her willingness to be inked in this way.
 
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farout

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So what part of the 10 Commandments would you say we should discard, excluding the worship on the Sabbath? Most of the OT is a history of how God has worked with humans over time. I have been told the New testament has about 70% of what is in the Old testament. All too often Christians spend all their study in the New and ignore the Old Testament. Christians forget the Bible is Gods WORD from cover to cover. Who has not received comfort and direction from Psalm or Proverbs, and each and every book is alive and speaks to us today with the Holy Spirit teaching and convicting us from reading it. What would understanding Revelation be like without the Book of Daniel, and the prophets? We are to search all the Scriptures, not just the New Testament. Without some understanding of the OT one can only guess at some of what the Book of Hebrews is saying.

We are people of the Book, and as such we must know what the total Book really says, otherwise it becomes just our personal opinion. That is my belief, and I trust the Bible as being the complete total Words of the LORD ALL MIGhTY!
 
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faroukfarouk

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So are you saying that preachers' wives with pierced ears have 'abandoned the ten commandments'?

The ten commandments are moral precepts, but there is also the real sense that the New Testament believer under grace, is not under law; Galatians is very clear about this.
 
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farout

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That is really a witnessing tool! I have seem tattoos that had deep meaning for that person. And it really gets down to a persons "freedom" to do with their body as they want. Who can argue with personal freedom? I do not have to answer for anyone else. The accepting of Christ as Gods Only Son is exactly the same, a personal choice with personal responsibility for the choices I have made. God bless.
 
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farout

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OH THANK THE LORD, for his grace, mercy and Love! What would life be without Jesus Christ? I can not imagine a day without Jesus.
 
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Greg J.

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We are people of the Book, and as such we must know what the total Book really says, otherwise it becomes just our personal opinion. That is my belief, and I trust the Bible as being the complete total Words of the LORD ALL MIGhTY!

Christians should not be people of the book. The book is not our God. I do not pray to the book. We should not worship the book. It is what God has given us so that we could be led to God himself. We are to be followers of God, fully devoted to him, loving him with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength. Our connection and relationship with God is what is most important. The Bible is a lighthouse that illuminates and keeps us from crashing on rocks, but our journey is not to the lighthouse.
 
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faroukfarouk

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Do you see a female of any age with ear rings as the same as a tat?

FYI, actually a lot of older women, as it happens, get ink, too:

' "...Most of my clients are in the older bracket," Gallo-Kohlas told The Huffington Post. "We see a lot of women in their sixties and seventies getting their first tattoos." Gallo-Kohlas recalls a woman in her sixties who got a tattoo because everyone in the golf clique at her gated community had one. It seemed like the thing to do in order to fit in.'
Many Women Get Tattoos Post 50 ? And Don't Regret It Later huffington post
.........

I'm not saying that women need to get tattoos, or that there is an absolute need to wear earrings, either. But so many do, anyway.
 
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faroukfarouk

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I would not put it quite like this. What we need to do is to see the revelation of God as a whole; the Old Testament in the light of the New Testament. John's First Epistle speaks of walking in the light, even though Galatians makes it clear that the New Testament believer is not under the law, but under grace.
 
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faroukfarouk

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OH THANK THE LORD, for his grace, mercy and Love! What would life be without Jesus Christ? I can not imagine a day without Jesus.
Amen! "'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear. And grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear, The hour I first believed!"
 
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farout

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faroukfarouk

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the verses before that told Israel to not practice magic or divination. Are we allowed to practice magic and divination?
There are New Testament verses against the practice of magic, whereas the Sabbath does not have clear New Testament support.
 
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farout

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I surely do not know where in the world you are coming from/The Bible is our "owners manual" given by God to us. I NEVER said we are to pray to the Bible did I? Where did you here that you are to Love God? From the BOOK! I am Christian, but I would not know how to be a Christian if it were not for the BIBLE!!!

Please before start attacking a fellow brother you need to THINK, before you start writing. Clearly you jumped before you thought about what I said! When ever I have jumped without thinking I have had to say I am sorry, and I have learned from that humbling experience.
 
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farout

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There are New Testament verses against the practice of magic, whereas the Sabbath does not have clear New Testament support.


I would totally agree with your statement. I have a close older Christian who is a SDA and we have agreed to disagree. He presents his verses and I mine, but we each think the other is wrong, but we focus on Jesus.
 
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faroukfarouk

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I would totally agree with your statement. I have a close older Christian who is a SDA and we have agreed to disagree. He presents his verses and I mine, but we each think the other is wrong, but we focus on Jesus.
Just as the Lord Jesus does not repeat the Old Testament Sabbath requirement, so also there do not seem to be New Testament verses which take up matters to do with tattoos, pierced ears, etc.
 
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Vicomte13

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The Scriptures were inspired by God, yes, and we are not to subtract from them. But nor are we to add to them.

Let us be clear about the Law that is in the Old Testament.

There are laws given to Noah: we can eat animals now (unlike before the flood) - ALL animals - there is no "kosher" - but we are not to kill or shed the blood of men.

There is a law against adultery before Sinai - God sickened the people of both Pharaoh and Abimelek when those two unwittingly took Sarai into their households because she and Abraham pretended not to be married.

To the extent that there were other laws also, God didn't inspire anybody to write it down.

Then we move forward to the Sinai Covenant. The Covenant says from the beginning exactly who it was for: the Israelites there at Sinai, and their descendants who keep the law. It is explicit what the promise is: do all of this, and you get a secure farm in Israel and a prosperous and healthy family.
And that is all.

What is NOT anywhere in that covenant are all of these things:
(1) A promise (or even a mention) of life after death.
(2) A promise of resurrection.
(3) A promise of "going to heaven" after death.
(4) A promise addressed to any male who is not a circumcised heir of an Israelite present at Mount Sinai keeping the commandments within the specifically circumscribed land of Israel.

So, if you were an Israelite and got a tattoo, you might well be banished from Israel, and lose your farm. Your eternal life? There is no promise, or even reference to, eternal life anywhere in the Torah. It is adding to Scripture to attempt to graft the promise of eternal life onto the Old Covenant. The only thing promised at Sinai for obedience to all of those laws was a farm in Israel. Nothing more.

To see more there, like going to Heaven, or that a Gentile "sins" by not doing something or doing something there, is to add to Scripture.

The Ten Commandments as given at Sinai were exclusively for the Jews. They did not apply to anybody else before, and they have never applied since.

That was made very clear at the Council of Jerusalem too. Now we've skipped together to the New Testament. The question was: Do Christians have to follow the Torah. And the unequivocal answer was NO. Instead, a simple set of laws was given for Gentiles: no idolatry, abstain from blood - nothing more. This does not REPLACE the Torah - the Torah never, ever (ever) applied in any form, including the Ten Commandments, to anybody but Hebrews living in Israel, and the only consequence stated in the Torah to a Hebrew for disobedience of any of it (including the Ten Commandments) was loss of the farm in Israel.

That's what the Scripture SAYS. To make the Torah apply to Christians was specifically rejected by the Apostles in the New Testament.

So, we cannot ADD to Scripture by asserting that even one law of Sinai was imposed on us: it was not. Nor can we SUBTRACT from Scripture by asserting that those laws - even if they did apply - still do, because the Apostles themselves, including Paul, assembled at Jerusalem, clearly stated no.

That should be that.

Jesus said to follow HIM, and HE gave a series of precepts. On the last page of Scripture he twice says what will earn a man the Lake of Fire at final judgment: killing, lying, sexual immorality (a broad thing that encompasses bestiality and fornication and adultery), idolatry, "pharmakeia", and a few other things.

Jesus said a few other things. He summarized the essence of all of the Jewish Law: Love your neighbor as yourself and love God above all. He also gave a new and specific precept: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

And Jesus said what you had to do to be forgiven your sins by the Father. He didn't say sacrifice a goat. He said that to be forgiven your sins, you must forgive other men the sins they have committed against you. If you forgive, you will be forgiven by the Father, but if you refuse to forgive, you will not be forgiven either.

Note very well that Jesus never subtracted that requirement for forgiveness from sin.

Christian traditions say that to be forgiven from sin you can:
(A) Ask Christ to be your personal Lord and Savior, or
(B) Confess your sins to a duly ordained priest in the Apostolic succession and obtain penance and absolution.
That's swell, and sits alongside of the Old Testament's
(C) Bring a sheep, or a goat, or two turtledoves.

But that's adding to and subtracting from Scripture.

What Jesus said was
(D) To be forgiven your sins by the Father, you must forgive other men their sins against you. If you forgive, you shall be forgiven, but if you do not forgive, neither will you be forgiven.

D is the only right answer, because it is what Jesus SAID.

Jesus said "Follow ME".
The Father, speaking from heaven, told the crowd assembled: "This is my Son, listen to him."

So, there you have it: the commandment, the Torah, the law for everybody in the world who wants to pass final judgment and enter the City of God someday (as opposed to those who want a farm in Israel while they live): Follow Jesus, obey HIS commandments, love others, and forgive. That is the Torah for all NOW.

Tattoos? Jesus was silent on tattoos. Therefore, spiritually, it is entirely up to you. You may query why God didn't want the Hebrews to wear tattoos. And you may also wonder why God didn't supply you with a tattoo at birth if he thought they were good for you. But you add to Scripture and traffic in a lie if you say that God forbids people from getting tattoos, and it's a sin if you do. God forbade the circumcised descendants of Sinai from getting tattoos, and if they did, they lost the farm.

That deal was never for Gentiles in the first place. The Law of Sinai is instructive into what God thinks, but it is not a law for you and me, and never was. The Law of Jesus is what we need to be listening to.
 
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Widlast

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And the legalists come out of the woodwork...
I would strongly doubt that anything written in the Old Testament has anything to do with tattoos, most likely another of the bad translations that some are so fond of.

The main point is not so much the "what", but the "why".

If you wish to permanently modify your appearance by adding something that points at God, go for it.
Just make sure it's in good taste. I'm sure He would find no issue with that.

If it is just for pure vanity then admit it, and know that God does not think highly of vanity.

I've got marks all over me, got them the hard way, they're called scars.
 
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Winter_Rose

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I have 2 questions that you can ask in the event:

1) If a young man or woman decides to get a tattoo and they've done their research etc. What's the best way for him/her to prepare himself/herself for any negativity from other people or handle negativity from other people?

2) Which one is better for someone, to have the tattoo done on their own or have someone to come with them?
 
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faroukfarouk

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Good questions!

So have you experienced much negativity? and have you preferred to go to the parlor either on your own or with a friend?
 
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