Posted on 03/30/2018 9:25:33 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
During a recent conference, Christian speaker Joyce Meyer made a biblical case for getting tattoos and admitted she has been thinking of getting one herself just to shut the mouths of religious people.
The video clip posted by Joyce Meyer Ministries on March 14 kicks off with Meyer explaining the difference between being holy and religious.
"Holiness is not legalism," Meyer declared.
She went on to explain that religious people have made a mess of holiness by putting a bunch of rules and regulations on people. She listed drinking, dancing, wearing makeup and more among those rules.
Meyer quoted Isaiah 44:5 in defense of getting permanent markings. The scripture says, "One will say, I am the Lord's; and another will call himself by the name of Jacob; and another will write [even brand or tattoo] upon his hand, I am the Lord's, and surname himself by the [honorable] name of Israel."
She also shared the counterargument often used to discourage believers from getting tattoos found in Leviticus 19:28: "Do not cut your bodies for the dead, and do not mark your skin with tattoos. I am the LORD."
Televangelist Pat Robertson, among others, has cited Leviticus to argue that getting tattoos is a "heathen practice."
"You look at the Bible, the people are told not to mark their bodies and cut themselves like the heathen did. Tattooing is a heathen practice, it is not a Christian practice," Robertson said in 2016.
But Meyer rejected the argument and contended that God also tattooed those He loves to Himself.
"The Bible says in Isaiah 49 that God has a picture of you tattooed on the palm of His hand," she maintained.
"I'm right on the verge of going and getting a tattoo," she added, pointing to her shoulder blade. "I thought I might as well just push all the religious people right off the cliff and just get it over with."
Meyer said her ink would say, "I belong to the Lord." She admitted that her husband pushed back a bit on her stance but they realized it was just a religious stance stemming from legalism.
Evangelist Christine Caine, seated in the front row of the meeting, can be seen rooting Meyers on as she expressed her interest in getting a tattoo.
"Why would I do that (get a tattoo)? Just to make religious demons mad, no other reason," she maintained.
"I lived in so much bondage from legalism," Meyer revealed of her past. "Everything in legalism is about something you can not do. Let me tell you something — it is not boring to serve Christ, it is so much fun and there's so much you can do and not only that, you can enjoy all of it!"
The Saint Louis native pointed out that in Ezekiel 16:9-13 there was a big celebration and God put earrings and nose rings on the Israelites.
"Here's the bottom line, it's all about your motives and how you are doing things. We can't look at the outside of somebody and decide for ourselves that they're an evil person ... That's why so many people today don't want anything to do with the church 'cause all they get is criticism and judgement," she concluded.
The clip finished with Meyer encouraging those in attendance to pursue holiness but in freedom.
Hillsong New York City Pastor Carl Lentz has also defended Christians getting tattoos and addressed the criticism he often receives about his own markings. "Biblical interpretation is huge right? So with tattoos not being allowed you mean Leviticus. We play both sides of the coin I think that is healthy. Like this paradox of scripture, interpretation is actually is part of our faith, the tension of it. So, on one hand, we say that is the Old Testament scripture, there is no New Testament verification of that. That law that had to do with slaves, that identified you as part of a tribe we don't believe that came through the cross," Lentz told World Religion News last year.
"We don't believe that when Jesus died and rose again that old Levitical scripture applied to our modern life. That is ridiculous," the Virginia native argued. "At the same time, there are some things we do believe follow through on the cross. So the way we break down we would literally put up the Old Testament and then put a cross in the middle and then we put up the New Testament and we say anything that comes through the cross is eternal. Anything that stops is Old Testament."
Making the case against tattoos, some Christians have cited 1 Corinthians 10:23, pointing out that the question isn't about whether tattooing one's body is a "sin." But it's more about whether it's "a good and necessary thing to do."
Will Honeycutt, a professor at Liberty University, believes that while "the Bible does not explicitly forbid tattoos," Christians should remember that "the Bible has a high view of the body as God's handiwork, which is not to be disfigured."
Also, he argued, one should not get a tattoo out of rebellion. Rather, "our primary motive for anything we do should be to glorify God."
"Are you seeking to direct people's thoughts toward God or yourself?" Honeycutt posed.
Those sounds like good reasons to ask. Thanks.
For health reasons, most likely.
Same reason for pork or other “unclean” animals.
I think you've stumbled upon Natural law.
Our spiritual bodies will have no marks or piercings.
Jesus’ body had all the marks and piercings we will ever need..........
Well Joyce, you’ve got one of those grotesque “faces” that I see so many women getting today so I suppose it wouldn’t matter if you got tattoo’s all over or wherever.......
Most Christians I know are more concerned about being in line with Christian culture than real Christian living.
While not all people with tattoos are low lifes, nearly all low lifes have tattoos.
What was it Hank Hill said about tattoos and piercings on the show King of the Hill? I think it was something like “the good thing about tattoos and piercings is you can tell a person’s wrong just by lookin’ at ‘em.”
I had no idea she was still around. Last I heard about her was when her head security man strangled his wife and kids in their sleep to be with a cocktail waitress. She gives me the creeps.
Seem to me for a religious person and leader, she should reconsider the 'why' of her position. God wont care whether she has a tattoo or not. God might care about why she made that decision.
I like her and Jim Robinson. Both had really rough starts in life. They overcame big time.
She is kind of sassy sometimes but she has a good heart. She has done good works.
Tis better to remain unadorned, and let the world think you a fool, than to get a tat, and remove all doubt.
I don’t place much importance on the entire argument (pro and con). I just believe they’re ugly. They look like bruises from a distance and look like juvenile artwork up close. They diminish my regard for such a person.
Of course tattooed people need a Savior as much as the rest of us.
Meyer is a charismatic. Charismatics, for as long as I can remember, abominated anything that smacked of “doctrine.” They said of those who held to certain doctrines of Christianity, their doctrines were “religious.” This is what Meyer means when she speaks against those who are “religious.”
They like to say their movement is all about the “experience” (i.e., Spirit baptism), as opposed to “doctrine.” Never mind the many references in the Bible to “doctrine,” for instance Titus 1:9 -
“Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound DOCTRINE, both to exhort and convince the gainsayers.”
All Meyers is doing is just including tattoos in with what charismatics call “religious,” or “doctrine.” “Religious” is a code word to them, you have to know what they mean by it.
While Jesus' substitutionary death, resurrection, and reconciliation provides escape from God's condemnation, it does not signify that spiritual maturity includes displeasing God to assert one's own preferences contrary to His Will.
Quoting from the great Bible commentator Albert Barnes, re his discussion of Leviticus 19:28 and tattooing, "Any voluntary disfigurement of the person was in itself an outrage upon God’s workmanship." That is, printing marks upon one's own flesh, or altering it by decorative cuttings (cosmetic surgery, lip/nose/ear perforations), says that the possessor of a body thinks they can improve upon the glory God imparted to it in His creation of it.
But Joyce Meyer, who simply denies that God's chosen gender for her predetermine the ways in which she should play out her life as a woman, not superseding her limitations when God has reserved the teaching ministry of the doctrines of His Word for men alone. In that she also defies the Will of The God.
This woman is a Deity-defier, and should not be accepting her definition of a holiness that contradicts God's.
WWJD.
So all tattooed Freepers are fools? Sanctimonious much?
How would we know?
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