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faroukfarouk

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Yes knowing they are of pagan influence you wouldn't see that or admit it?

Careful opening this link because it is not of good standards but then again nothing of the world is.

https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/20...ures-tattoo-began-as-a-form-of-demon-worship/
Are you going to the Bible study Thursday? oops, because it means Thor's day, does it make advertising Bible studies for Thursday pagan? 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 verse, and mine also; and presumably other conversations have arisen because of it, as well.
 
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ViaCrucis

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You have a serious problem attempting to discern sin from righteousness.....e.g. being in the world and of the world.

Romans 12 : 2 And fashion not yourselves like unto this world, but be ye changed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what that good, and acceptable and perfect will of God is.

That doesn't even come close to addressing what I said.

Saying "X is of the world" is a non-statement. It's intended to sound pious and religious without having any substance. It can literally be said about anything--wearing pants, eating pizza, drinking coffee, listening to pop music, having contact lenses, the English language, buttons, doorbells, anything--but doesn't actually address what worldliness is biblically speaking. Actual worldliness is not in the superficial things like tattoos or wearing trousers, it's in the passions or lusts of the flesh: malice, greed, hate, etc. We are in the world but not of the world because our values and priorities are not to be the same as the this present order where might makes right, where the poor are trodden by the rich, the hungry go without food, where power and dominance rule against peace, love, compassion, kindness, justice, and mercy.

False piety and empty religiosity are meaningless.

Neither did you address the fact that Scripture makes no distinction between the different mitzvot of Torah; that is an artificial and arbitrary definition that some people force upon Scripture which Scripture itself never makes. Quite significantly, Scripture is clear, when it addressed the Gentile issue, that Gentile converts to Christianity were under no obligation to be circumcised or to be held under the "laws of Moses". That doesn't mean there is no moral law, murder was wrong long before Torah was given to Israel, murder didn't become wrong when God gave Moses the tablets of stone.

Non-Israelites were never under any obligation to observe those commandments given exclusively to the children of Israel. That Egyptians and Assyrians didn't observe the Sabbath wasn't an issue. Because that commandment was only for Israelites, as part of their unique covenant with God. But murder was wrong, even when an Egyptian did it--because murder is just wrong, regardless of whether it's in Torah or not.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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Dkh587

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"Christ our passover is sacrificed for us, and is become the firstfruits of them that slept." (1 Cor. 15.20).

"On the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread". (Acts 20.7)
These 2 verses have nothing to do with keeping the Sabbath, nor do they even hint at the thought of the 1st century church not keeping the sabbath

You gotta do better than that if you wanna convince anybody that the command for the Sabbath is not for all believers. As it stands, the scriptures prove that the Sabbbath is commanded to be kept. You nor anybody else has shared any scripture to prove otherwise

The 4th commandment is written in stone, which means it's permanent and for all believers for all time. You can argue with that all you want, but it's a fact.
 
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RETS

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These 2 verses have nothing to do with keeping the Sabbath, nor do they even hint at the thought of the 1st century church not keeping the sabbath

I don't suppose you accept historical evidence to the contrary?

Oh- And if we could... Please keep on topic. Thanks!!
 
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ViaCrucis

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Vicomte13

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The 4th commandment is written in stone, which means it's permanent and for all believers for all time. You can argue with that all you want, but it's a fact.

It's a fact, but you are applying it falsely.

Read what God says throughout the revelation of the Mosaic Covenant. Read it in Exodus, and read it again in Deuteronomy.
A covenant is a contract. A contract has terms that bind two or more parties. If your neighbor forms a contract with someone to do something, you are neither bound by that contract nor are you a beneficiary of that contract. The only contracts that apply to you are the ones that you yourself made, or that somebody in an organization to which you are attached made - and then the contract with that third party only binds you for as long as you are affiliated with that organization.

In the Bible before Sinai there are at least three covenants.

The first is what God makes with the whole world of breathing land animals: that he will never again destroy all the land by flood. This contract is unilateral: God requires nothing in return. God has continued to fulfill this covenant.

The second is the contract that God made with Abraham: that if Abraham circumcised himself and his sons, that he, and they, would inherit the land in which they sojourned. This contract DID require action on Abraham's part, and on the part of his son Isaac and his son Ishmael: they had to circumcise their male offspring. If not, they were not in the covenant. God has continued to fulfill this covenant. The land where Abraham sojourned: Israel, Jordan, part of Egypt, is populated today with millions upon millions of Arabs and Jews, all descendants of Abraham through Isaac and through Ishmael. Empires have come and gone, but that particular land remains filled with Abraham's descendants, just as God promised.

God also promised Abraham that through him the people of the world would be blessed. And this is so also, for Jesus is the descendant of Abraham. If you were a Muslim, you would say the same thing, for Muslims claim that their religion is that of Abraham through Ishmael. Christians and Muslims and Jews might disagree about who was blessed, and how, but within their own camp each believes to be blessed through Abraham, either directly by the blood for Jews and Arabs, or through the faith revealed by the descendants of Abraham, Jesus and Mohammed, by way of Isaac and Ishmael, respectively.

God keeps his word.

The third covenant God made and renewed with Hagar and Ishmael, that the boy would survive and grow to the be father of many nations. This was another unilateral covenant. Nothing was required in return. And God has remained true to that covenant. All of the Arabs claim descendants from Ishmael - many kings and kingdoms in many lands. And they butt up against the descendants of Isaac and don't exactly share the happiest of family relations. This, too, was as God said would be.

And so we come to the fourth covenant, the one given at Mt. Sinai. Like every other contract, this one has two identified parties. In this case, it is God, on the one hand, and the Israelites led by Moses, on the other. God promises that the covenant will extend to the circumcised heirs of the Israelites present, who keep the terms of the covenant (which is to say, who obey all of the commandments, statutes, ordinances and judgments contained therein).

Those are the human parties to whom everything said at Sinai, every rule, every commandment, statute, ordinance and judgement applies.

So, are you a lineal descendant of the Hebrews who stood their at Sinai? Were you circumcised on the six day in accordance with the law? No. You are probably descended of the Celtic or Germanic or Basquish tribes that wandered the forests of Western Europe during the time that Moses and the Israelites were making their contract at Sinai. Your ancestors were not circumcised. You might be, for medical reasons, and if it was done at all, it was done at your birth by a doctor, not at the traditional 6th day by a mohel. You're not a part of that covenant.

If you HAD been, what was promised to you? Eternal life? No. Heaven? No. Life after death? No. A room in the City of God? No. None of that was even mentioned. The deal, the contract was: you obey this, and I will give you a farm while you live, in the land of Canaan, which I will give to you in fulfillment of my covenant with your ancestor Abraham.

That's it. That's all. Were there moral laws within the convenant? Sure. God intended to rule that land directly, and He left them with neither legislature nor permanent executive, only judges to apply His law. Follow it, get a farm. Break it, lose the farm and ultimately Israel.

The Hebrews broke it repeatedly, so they lost their security, then they lost Israel. They got it back, for a time, but still didn't obey the law, so they lost it again to conquest, and ultimately their center of worship was destroyed, cutting off the Aaronic line of priests and cutting off the rituals necessary to fulfill the contract.

It is true, the Law, the covenant, stands until the world ends. But all that covenant every promised was a farm in Israel, in this life, to circumcised Jews who kept all of its terms.

There's a fifth covenant in Scripture, the new and everlasting covenant that Jesus made with any man who will follow him, until the end of the world. This covenant is: follow him, keep his precepts, eat his body and drink his blood, forgive the sins of others against you to obtain forgiveness of your own sins, and then when you die you will eventually be resurrected from the dead on the last day of the world (as will all mankind), and when you are judged for your life's deeds - for men are judged by their deeds - you will be forgiven your sins and granted passage through the gates into God's eternal city, to live within God's Kingdom for the eons.

Anybody who is willing to follow Jesus by doing what he said (for it was he who said "What good does it do you to say you follow me if you don't keep my commandments?") has that guarantee of positive judgment at the resurrection, and life thereafter with God.

This fifth covenant, made by Jesus with those who would follow him, is open to anyone. It has all of its own precepts. There are few rituals - eating his body and blood is one that is required, and baptism is also required - there are more moral laws, and they are more stringent in some ways than the laws given at Sinai. There are no ritual sacrifices. There is no hereditary clergy to support, no government, and thus no tithe, no required vestments, and no required festivals.

The error you are making is considering Christianity to be an additional covenant atop the Sinai covenant. This is not true. Nowhere in Scripture does God ever suggest that it should be so. Nowhere in Scripture does God ever promise the Hebrews eternal life with the Father for obeying the Law. Perfect obedience would avail a Jew of a farm in Israel, not life everlasting.

You're not a Jew. The Ten Commandments were part of that contract with the Jews. Jesus has different commandments for those in the New Covenant. Morally, the New Covenant is more demanding than the Old Covenant. Legalistically, it is much more gentle in terms of what punishments men may mete out to other men.

The Sinai Covenant was a Constitution for a Jewish state ruled by God in a particular piece of land. The New Covenant of Jesus is a contract between individuals of whatever race and God. The two overlap in the sense that some of the moral code that God imposed as statute upon the Israelites is also part of the moral code Jesus taught as a requisite for following him and entering the City of God at the end.

The sabbath was not among those things. Nor, for that matter, was the burning of witches. A committed sorceress will indeed be burnt up, but it will be by God, in the Lake of Fire, after his final and true judgment. Men are not given the authority to do that by Christ. Rather, men are to eschew what she offers, and urge her to repent.

The Sinai Covenant is not for you. The New Covenant is. Two different contracts, two different targets, markedly different terms. You have become confused. Your tradition has led you there. It imposes huge burdens upon you that are not necessary to follow God, but it doesn't teach you things that ARE necessary.

It would be better for you if the energy you devoted to learning the contract with the Jews were invested instead into the commandments of Jesus.
 
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Wandering Cat Lady

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I really shouldn't post in here but here is my answer.

1. Is it a (spiritual) life or death matter?

2. Does it make someone any less a Christian or Christ follower?

The nearly rhetorical answer to both of those questions is no.

If that is the case, then far be it from me to judge another person based on a little ink on the skin or a piercing in the skin.

If it is not a matter of salvation, then why point it out in another believer? Should not the most important thing be that a person is loving God and loving others and is doing what God wants them to do?

All this energy spent on legalistic and liberal Christians going at each other could be spent on going out and helping others, and leading unbelievers to Christ. We have been so far removed from God's original intent and purposes that we have resigned to bickering - among ourselves! Forget being angry about sin, forget being angry at the enemy, forget spiritual warfare, forget going and winning the lost, forget feeding the poor, forget the orphans, forget the widows...let's just bicker among ourselves about whether a tattoo is a Christian thing or not.

When we were instructed to come to one another and confess our sins and also to confront someone else's sin, I am 100% sure it was not talking about tattoos. It was talking about things that are *spiritually* harmful, leading to spiritual death. Tattoos and piercings don't lead to spiritual death. In fact, several people I know who have a faith based tattoo have actually led people to Christ and gotten people more interested in the gospel.

It may not be God's preferred way of things, but after the fall, everything deviated from his preferred. So then there were all these whacky laws put into place because everyone was all out of order. Then Jesus Christ came. And now there is a simpler way. A way that allows us, through grace and mercy, to be ambassadors of the gospel, and allows us a lot of freedom - not necessarily to do what we want, but freedom from all the nitty gritty stuff. But yet the legalists love to feast on the nitty gritty. I know. I used to be one.

There are many things that are not the way God preferred it from the start. And if you want to use the argument that tattooing is altering God's creation, well, so is cutting your hair, shaving, getting surgery (especially cosmetic), having piercings, cutting your nails, fixing your teeth, and being out of shape. All things that are at least in the Christian world deemed as things that are not leading unto spiritual death. And yet a tattoo is seen as some sort of crime in the spiritual world. Why is that?

Let each believer have their own walk with God. If someone is a true Christ follower, they will be known by their love for one another and by the fruits of the spirit. More than that, their walk (and what they wear, eat, have on their bodies) is between them and God. If GOD has a problem with it, and the Word is not clear, then let Him handle it. He is, after all, God. And we are not.

I rest my case.
 
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BornAgainChristian1

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Are you going to the Bible study Thursday? oops, because it means Thor's day, does it make advertising Bible studies for Thursday pagan? 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 verse, and mine also; and presumably other conversations have arisen because of it, as well.
Yes your argument started in the garden of Eden when satan said to Eve "God didn't really mean what he said" and here you are giving that same argument.
 
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BornAgainChristian1

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Using Scripture define "ceremonial laws".

-CryptoLutheran
Get yourself into a good bible study because you have no time for scripture when it's presented to you to show you arguments are in error.
 
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BornAgainChristian1

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That doesn't even come close to addressing what I said.

Saying "X is of the world" is a non-statement. It's intended to sound pious and religious without having any substance. It can literally be said about anything--wearing pants, eating pizza, drinking coffee, listening to pop music, having contact lenses, the English language, buttons, doorbells, anything--but doesn't actually address what worldliness is biblically speaking. Actual worldliness is not in the superficial things like tattoos or wearing trousers, it's in the passions or lusts of the flesh: malice, greed, hate, etc. We are in the world but not of the world because our values and priorities are not to be the same as the this present order where might makes right, where the poor are trodden by the rich, the hungry go without food, where power and dominance rule against peace, love, compassion, kindness, justice, and mercy.

False piety and empty religiosity are meaningless.

Neither did you address the fact that Scripture makes no distinction between the different mitzvot of Torah; that is an artificial and arbitrary definition that some people force upon Scripture which Scripture itself never makes. Quite significantly, Scripture is clear, when it addressed the Gentile issue, that Gentile converts to Christianity were under no obligation to be circumcised or to be held under the "laws of Moses". That doesn't mean there is no moral law, murder was wrong long before Torah was given to Israel, murder didn't become wrong when God gave Moses the tablets of stone.

Non-Israelites were never under any obligation to observe those commandments given exclusively to the children of Israel. That Egyptians and Assyrians didn't observe the Sabbath wasn't an issue. Because that commandment was only for Israelites, as part of their unique covenant with God. But murder was wrong, even when an Egyptian did it--because murder is just wrong, regardless of whether it's in Torah or not.

-CryptoLutheran
So far none of your claims are biblical but rather your opinion on what you think the bible says.
 
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ViaCrucis

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Get yourself into a good bible study because you have no time for scripture when it's presented to you to show you arguments are in error.

That didn't answer my question.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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faroukfarouk

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Yes your argument started in the garden of Eden when satan said to Eve "God didn't really mean what he said" and here you are giving that same argument.
My point was that if a Bible text is being communicated, whether on paper or even someone's wrist, maybe God will use it.
 
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ViaCrucis

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So far none of your claims are biblical but rather your opinion on what you think the bible says.

I made a point about what actual worldliness is. Let's see how it corresponds with Scripture.

First let's address our terminology, the word we're looking for is κοσμικός (kosmikos) meaning "of or pertaining to the kosmos". That means we should have a grasp on what κόσμος (kosmos) means.

To address the way the word κόσμος is used in the New Testament it helps to understand its nuances in Greek thought. The most literal definition of κόσμος is "arrangement" or "order". In the pre-Socratic philosophers the word was applied to the world or universe, all the "stuff" we see around us, and so some said "it is all air" and others said "it is all fire" while Pythagoras argued it was all number. In any case the Greeks spoke of the natural order, and so κόσμος could be applied to the natural order. That is the way it most closely approximates our modern use of the word "world" to describe the universe and, more specifically, our planet.

But that's not the sole meaning of the word, it took on the meaning of "world" as in the natural world, but still its most basic sense is of order, arrangement, or even government.

Our Lord Jesus in John's Gospel says to Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this κόσμος", by which He does not mean the earth, but rather the present order of how things are. That's the way κόσμος is used in much of the New Testament, not describing the creation (which is fundamentally good as per Genesis 1:31), but that there is a sense in which the present state of affairs is fallen, broken, sinful.

That's why we can read in John 3:16 that God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, and yet read in the epistle of St. James that friendship with the world is enmity with God.

In the two places that use a derivative of κοσμικός the one that is important is Titus 2:12,

"For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ." - Titus 2:11-13

Renounce impiety, worldly passions, so that in the present age (this present, fallen, faithless, sinful age) we might live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives as we await for the future coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Worldliness is that which is attached to the present system or order, the current way things are in this present age. It is to seek our treasure here rather than looking forward to what is to come. It's to be ruled by the lusts of the flesh. It's to seek our own way, to pursue our own glory and success in the present age. Etc. That's worldliness.

That's why pointing to something like tattoos and saying "that's worldly" doesn't mean anything. It's a moral judgment about something about which there is no moral judgment to be made. So that's why I addressed it the way I did.

Let me share a bit about my maternal grandmother, she grew up in a particular kind of church. That church had a lot of rules, it had rules about how men and women could dress, about how people should act, and many other things. My grandmother was forbidden from getting a perm because a woman was supposed to have a particular kind of hair, my grandmother was forbidden from attending sporting events or going to the cinema because those things were "worldly", she was forbidden from playing card games because it was "worldly", and so on and so forth. This was religious environment in which she was raised, and as it turns out none of her brothers or sisters continued to be Christians once they were old enough to leave the house. My great uncle is still an adamant atheist, and my surviving great aunt only after losing her husband a few years ago returned to a faith in Christ. My grandmother, for her part, never actively turned away from faith but she had been damaged by a religious environment that was really good at moralizing and manipulating people to behave. She did return the faith back in the mid 80's, but she spent many years having to recover from that destructive form of religion.

There is a fundamental problem with Moralism. By Moralism I mean the act of moralizing in order to create a sense of piety and holiness concerning things which are not inherently moral issues--how we dress, what foods we eat, what we drink, movies, television, hair styles. These are irrelevant things, God has not given us Christians commandments, neither commanding nor forbidding, many things. If I decide to watch The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix that's not a moral issue, that's just watching a tv program. And the improper and rather liberal use of the word "worldly" to describe something we want to moralize about is wrong, it is biblically wrong. If one's goal is to feel self-righteous or make others feel awful by accusing them of imaginary sins, well then it's great for that; but it has absolutely nothing to do with real righteousness or holiness. Real righteousness can't even be found by being obedient to God's actual commandments, so how much less in our own man-made commandments? The only righteousness we will have this side of the Eschaton is the alien righteousness of Christ Jesus our Lord which is ours only through faith by the grace of God alone. It's His righteousness, not ours.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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ViaCrucis

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Actually I did.

You haven't once addressed where Scripture speaks of the "ceremonial law". If you did, I missed it. Perhaps you could point me to where you addressed it in this thread.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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Kenny'sID

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I pierced and ear back in my hippy days, but never would go for a tattoo. I wear no earring now.

I admit I can see the draw to get some type of biblical tattoo, but, and I hate to use this as a defense but all considered, I just get the idea tattoos aren't a good idea for the Christian. Prove it's wrong? Well, God says he will put his laws in our hearts, but I can't prove he has... that's just to give an idea of how gut feeling can be a valid backup to what we believe.

I will say I've done what I feel are much worse things than tattooing, so certainly can't/won't/have no right to judge.
 
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tickingclocker

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It's a fact, but you are applying it falsely.

Read what God says throughout the revelation of the Mosaic Covenant. Read it in Exodus, and read it again in Deuteronomy.
A covenant is a contract. A contract has terms that bind two or more parties. If your neighbor forms a contract with someone to do something, you are neither bound by that contract nor are you a beneficiary of that contract. The only contracts that apply to you are the ones that you yourself made, or that somebody in an organization to which you are attached made - and then the contract with that third party only binds you for as long as you are affiliated with that organization.

In the Bible before Sinai there are at least three covenants.

The first is what God makes with the whole world of breathing land animals: that he will never again destroy all the land by flood. This contract is unilateral: God requires nothing in return. God has continued to fulfill this covenant.

The second is the contract that God made with Abraham: that if Abraham circumcised himself and his sons, that he, and they, would inherit the land in which they sojourned. This contract DID require action on Abraham's part, and on the part of his son Isaac and his son Ishmael: they had to circumcise their male offspring. If not, they were not in the covenant. God has continued to fulfill this covenant. The land where Abraham sojourned: Israel, Jordan, part of Egypt, is populated today with millions upon millions of Arabs and Jews, all descendants of Abraham through Isaac and through Ishmael. Empires have come and gone, but that particular land remains filled with Abraham's descendants, just as God promised.

God also promised Abraham that through him the people of the world would be blessed. And this is so also, for Jesus is the descendant of Abraham. If you were a Muslim, you would say the same thing, for Muslims claim that their religion is that of Abraham through Ishmael. Christians and Muslims and Jews might disagree about who was blessed, and how, but within their own camp each believes to be blessed through Abraham, either directly by the blood for Jews and Arabs, or through the faith revealed by the descendants of Abraham, Jesus and Mohammed, by way of Isaac and Ishmael, respectively.

God keeps his word.

The third covenant God made and renewed with Hagar and Ishmael, that the boy would survive and grow to the be father of many nations. This was another unilateral covenant. Nothing was required in return. And God has remained true to that covenant. All of the Arabs claim descendants from Ishmael - many kings and kingdoms in many lands. And they butt up against the descendants of Isaac and don't exactly share the happiest of family relations. This, too, was as God said would be.

And so we come to the fourth covenant, the one given at Mt. Sinai. Like every other contract, this one has two identified parties. In this case, it is God, on the one hand, and the Israelites led by Moses, on the other. God promises that the covenant will extend to the circumcised heirs of the Israelites present, who keep the terms of the covenant (which is to say, who obey all of the commandments, statutes, ordinances and judgments contained therein).

Those are the human parties to whom everything said at Sinai, every rule, every commandment, statute, ordinance and judgement applies.

So, are you a lineal descendant of the Hebrews who stood their at Sinai? Were you circumcised on the six day in accordance with the law? No. You are probably descended of the Celtic or Germanic or Basquish tribes that wandered the forests of Western Europe during the time that Moses and the Israelites were making their contract at Sinai. Your ancestors were not circumcised. You might be, for medical reasons, and if it was done at all, it was done at your birth by a doctor, not at the traditional 6th day by a mohel. You're not a part of that covenant.

If you HAD been, what was promised to you? Eternal life? No. Heaven? No. Life after death? No. A room in the City of God? No. None of that was even mentioned. The deal, the contract was: you obey this, and I will give you a farm while you live, in the land of Canaan, which I will give to you in fulfillment of my covenant with your ancestor Abraham.

That's it. That's all. Were there moral laws within the convenant? Sure. God intended to rule that land directly, and He left them with neither legislature nor permanent executive, only judges to apply His law. Follow it, get a farm. Break it, lose the farm and ultimately Israel.

The Hebrews broke it repeatedly, so they lost their security, then they lost Israel. They got it back, for a time, but still didn't obey the law, so they lost it again to conquest, and ultimately their center of worship was destroyed, cutting off the Aaronic line of priests and cutting off the rituals necessary to fulfill the contract.

It is true, the Law, the covenant, stands until the world ends. But all that covenant every promised was a farm in Israel, in this life, to circumcised Jews who kept all of its terms.

There's a fifth covenant in Scripture, the new and everlasting covenant that Jesus made with any man who will follow him, until the end of the world. This covenant is: follow him, keep his precepts, eat his body and drink his blood, forgive the sins of others against you to obtain forgiveness of your own sins, and then when you die you will eventually be resurrected from the dead on the last day of the world (as will all mankind), and when you are judged for your life's deeds - for men are judged by their deeds - you will be forgiven your sins and granted passage through the gates into God's eternal city, to live within God's Kingdom for the eons.

Anybody who is willing to follow Jesus by doing what he said (for it was he who said "What good does it do you to say you follow me if you don't keep my commandments?") has that guarantee of positive judgment at the resurrection, and life thereafter with God.

This fifth covenant, made by Jesus with those who would follow him, is open to anyone. It has all of its own precepts. There are few rituals - eating his body and blood is one that is required, and baptism is also required - there are more moral laws, and they are more stringent in some ways than the laws given at Sinai. There are no ritual sacrifices. There is no hereditary clergy to support, no government, and thus no tithe, no required vestments, and no required festivals.

The error you are making is considering Christianity to be an additional covenant atop the Sinai covenant. This is not true. Nowhere in Scripture does God ever suggest that it should be so. Nowhere in Scripture does God ever promise the Hebrews eternal life with the Father for obeying the Law. Perfect obedience would avail a Jew of a farm in Israel, not life everlasting.

You're not a Jew. The Ten Commandments were part of that contract with the Jews. Jesus has different commandments for those in the New Covenant. Morally, the New Covenant is more demanding than the Old Covenant. Legalistically, it is much more gentle in terms of what punishments men may mete out to other men.

The Sinai Covenant was a Constitution for a Jewish state ruled by God in a particular piece of land. The New Covenant of Jesus is a contract between individuals of whatever race and God. The two overlap in the sense that some of the moral code that God imposed as statute upon the Israelites is also part of the moral code Jesus taught as a requisite for following him and entering the City of God at the end.

The sabbath was not among those things. Nor, for that matter, was the burning of witches. A committed sorceress will indeed be burnt up, but it will be by God, in the Lake of Fire, after his final and true judgment. Men are not given the authority to do that by Christ. Rather, men are to eschew what she offers, and urge her to repent.

The Sinai Covenant is not for you. The New Covenant is. Two different contracts, two different targets, markedly different terms. You have become confused. Your tradition has led you there. It imposes huge burdens upon you that are not necessary to follow God, but it doesn't teach you things that ARE necessary.

It would be better for you if the energy you devoted to learning the contract with the Jews were invested instead into the commandments of Jesus.

Amen and amen.

Well. I'm saving this post to give to similarly confused relatives. This is one of the best posts I've ever read on this site. Talk about edification and encouragement in the Lord! And I almost didn't read this thread about tattoos, having no personal interest in them one way or the other. God is good.
 
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tickingclocker

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I really shouldn't post in here but here is my answer.

1. Is it a (spiritual) life or death matter?

2. Does it make someone any less a Christian or Christ follower?

The nearly rhetorical answer to both of those questions is no.

If that is the case, then far be it from me to judge another person based on a little ink on the skin or a piercing in the skin.

If it is not a matter of salvation, then why point it out in another believer? Should not the most important thing be that a person is loving God and loving others and is doing what God wants them to do?

All this energy spent on legalistic and liberal Christians going at each other could be spent on going out and helping others, and leading unbelievers to Christ. We have been so far removed from God's original intent and purposes that we have resigned to bickering - among ourselves! Forget being angry about sin, forget being angry at the enemy, forget spiritual warfare, forget going and winning the lost, forget feeding the poor, forget the orphans, forget the widows...let's just bicker among ourselves about whether a tattoo is a Christian thing or not.

When we were instructed to come to one another and confess our sins and also to confront someone else's sin, I am 100% sure it was not talking about tattoos. It was talking about things that are *spiritually* harmful, leading to spiritual death. Tattoos and piercings don't lead to spiritual death. In fact, several people I know who have a faith based tattoo have actually led people to Christ and gotten people more interested in the gospel.

It may not be God's preferred way of things, but after the fall, everything deviated from his preferred. So then there were all these whacky laws put into place because everyone was all out of order. Then Jesus Christ came. And now there is a simpler way. A way that allows us, through grace and mercy, to be ambassadors of the gospel, and allows us a lot of freedom - not necessarily to do what we want, but freedom from all the nitty gritty stuff. But yet the legalists love to feast on the nitty gritty. I know. I used to be one.

There are many things that are not the way God preferred it from the start. And if you want to use the argument that tattooing is altering God's creation, well, so is cutting your hair, shaving, getting surgery (especially cosmetic), having piercings, cutting your nails, fixing your teeth, and being out of shape. All things that are at least in the Christian world deemed as things that are not leading unto spiritual death. And yet a tattoo is seen as some sort of crime in the spiritual world. Why is that?

Let each believer have their own walk with God. If someone is a true Christ follower, they will be known by their love for one another and by the fruits of the spirit. More than that, their walk (and what they wear, eat, have on their bodies) is between them and God. If GOD has a problem with it, and the Word is not clear, then let Him handle it. He is, after all, God. And we are not.

I rest my case.
Amen and amen. So glad I read through this thread! If we all looked from Jesus' eyes instead of our own, what would we see? What we refused to see before? Or would our vision remain the same?
 
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faroukfarouk

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Actually the coolest tribal tat I ever saw was black outline fading into a kinda cobalt blue colour in the center. really well done & looked absolutely amazing even though im not really partial to tribal tats. & mines not gonna be black :D
Tribal is very popular, right? swirling lines that follow the body's contours, to some extent; tribal armband, in particular, seems to have become a classic, right?
 
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