God and Your Body, Part 3

My name is Mike Berry. I'm one of the pastors here at Cornerstone. And it's my privilege to build a Fill the pulpit this morning. we're continuing a series that we've entitled God in Your Body, and this will actually be part 3.

You could go back and look at the online for the first sermon in August, the second one. In September and I want to thank you guys for just the interaction and questions that you guys have emailed or spoken to me about. And I just want to encourage you to keep that coming. this type of series, will raise more questions than we can answer, in a sermon format.

so if you'd like to email me a question or, or dialogue about something, you can hit me at my email address, Mikeb@ Cornerstone Bible.org, Mike B at Cornerstone Bible.org or you can Facebook me, we'll also be available down here in the front after this message if you'd like to. Ask some individual questions. So our title is of the series is God and Your Body. Our theme verses, you are not your own, for you were bought with a price, so glorify God.

In your body. Remember when I was in seminary, Katie and I moved up to a little town called Lebeck, which is right on top of the grapevine. I don't know if anybody's ever driven by it, but it's a very small city and I was leading, a youth group up there as a pastoral intern. And one of our, our deacons was just a wonderful guy that rented a, a trailer to us.

I started off making $400 a month and he rented his trailer for $400 a month and then we had to fill in the gaps as we're going through seminary. Of a really neat believer, neat Christian guy, but I remember one time our trailer was on his property at his home and then we had our trailer and I went out to talk to him while he was watering his grass and it's the first time I'd seen him in a tank top. And I looked on his arm and he had a tattoo of a naked mermaid, topless. And so I'm sitting here trying to have this conversation with him, keeping my eyes on his eyes and try not to stare down at the tattoo that was on his arm as if I didn't know that he had a tattoo.

But it was interesting having this conversation with him because I was trying to consciously avert my eyes from his arm and it's the first time the thought ever went through my mind that I wish this Christian believer had another tattoo. I wish he had some coconuts or some bikini top. And, And I just have no idea why he decided not to cover that particular aspect of his tattoo, but to his credit, I've never really seen it, never seen it around church, and so it just, we, we didn't really talk about it., from that point on, I have to say that if I ever saw him out in the front yard, I checked to see if he had the, the tank top on, or if he was fully covered and that would normally govern some of my interactions with him, going forward.

but just raises an issue that, that we're gonna be talking about this morning and that is Are all things allowable for Christians to put onto their bodies?

We're gonna be talking about the issue of the body and this morning we're gonna be getting to the topic of does God care what we put on our bodies, whether it's clothing, whether it's, body enhancements, whether it's makeup, and there's been various responses to these types of questions in church history and, and so we're gonna try to deal with some of that this morning. I wanna do a little bit of review, however. And we'll try to make this. as fast as possible.

The first message back in August, I basically tried to introduce why we're doing this series, and we had actually 4 different questions. Why are we doing this series? And we answered by basically saying because God indicates that he cares about the body and he talks about the body all over the Bible and we suggested in the opening remarks of the series. That what we do with our bodies really is probably the best reflection of what we really believe.

We can say certain things that we believe X or Y or Z, but what we actually do with our bodies, many people would argue is our true theology and so it's important for us to look at the body. And then we suggested how we're gonna approach this particular study and that is we want to give due deference to the authority of God's word. We want to be humbly reliant upon God's authoritative sufficient word. And so part of what that means is, is we want to encourage everybody, myself included, to lay allegiances aside, come to the Bible, and let's affirm what the Bible says.

And, and let's not try to affirm with too strenuously things that the Bible does not affirm. And so this is a challenge for all Christians. It has been for all of church history and so we want to come to God's word. But we also suggested at in the first message what the big idea of this series is and that is this, that as we examine the scriptures and as we did in that first sermon, what we find is that your body is God's on loan to you.

That's the big idea of this whole series. And hopefully, you're gonna see this theme in every single message. We want to reinforce this idea, your body, my body is really God's on loan to us. It's been created by Him.

It was created good and yet it's fallen. it's been redeemed by God through Christ. It's been joined to God, so our bodies are not just individual bodies. They've been joined, to God Himself.

In fact, they've been in dwelt by God, the Holy Spirit. And God tells us that he's gonna raise our bodies from the dead. So the body is something that God created and he will raise and will go on into eternity. So it must be something that is important to him.

And then we, Tried to hit the idea of, of where are we going from here. And so, last time in, September, we hit the issue, does God, God cares about what we do, with our bodies. And so in that particular message, we tried to answer what amounts to 3 questions in September. we hit the question of what is the, what exactly is the body.

What is the body for and so what? And so in answering that first question, what is the body? We first of all said the body is not a prison. The body is not a machine.

It's not like you're just inside your body controlling the levers and the body is not just an interesting collection of chemicals and electrical, electrical impulses like some people say, but the definition that we gave, and this is actually in your insert is this. As we assemble everything that we can see in the Bible about the body, here's at least one attempt to define it. is the human body is an organized, animated, self-directed creation distinct from any other creation in the universe, being virtually indistinguishable from man himself who is the image of God.

It's a mouthful, but basically we argued in the last sermon that the body, it's not just a lump of clay, it was organized by God, but it's not just organized clay.

It was actually animated, made to life by God. And God gave us the ability to self-direct. So it's not just that God is controlling everything that we do, but he gives us the ability to direct our bodies and in that respect, we're distinct from the rest of creation and yet our bodies are virtually indistinguishable from ourselves. It's almost like salt, sodium chloride.

It's like there's this conditional unity in the body, body. Yes, my soul can be separated from my body at death. But at this moment, when we look at all the relative passages, it's almost impossible to distinguish myself from my body, being made in the image of God. If you want to get more on that, you can go back to the last, sermon.

We also asked the question, what is the body for? And we said, well, first of all, it's not just for consumption. Remember Jesus says in Matthew 6:23, don't your life, isn't your life more than drinking and your body more than just putting on clothes and so on? Is it more than eating?

so it's not just about consumption and it's not for sexual immorality. So what is the body for? And we argue that the body is primarily for what? Does anybody remember?

Worship. Yeah, exactly. The Bible is for worship. Romans 12:1, 1 of the passages we looked at.

Paul says, therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Now, when we define worship in this way, we're talking about really all of life is worship. It's not just what we're doing this morning, but everything we do in life, we're doing it to magnify God, to give honor to God, and so the so what is we want to, whatever we're gonna do with our body, we want to make sure that it fits into these categories of worship or waiting for the redemption of our bodies.

We worship the Lord with our body but we also wait for the redemption of our bodies. We talk about the waiting aspect of the so what. The waiting helps us with the fact that our body is decaying. The waiting helps us deal with the fact that maybe we're disabled, maybe there's things about our body we're not satisfied with, but we're waiting for this day of redemption, this day that we'll be resurrected.

And so that was the, the big idea of the last two sermons. This morning, we get to the idea of God cares what you put on your body. And as we hit this particular subject today. we could.

I have focused on clothing. In fact, you can go back to a message I delivered in June of 2013. Pastor Milton hit this issue when he was in First Timothy. We've hit it in 2009 and 2005, 2007.

And so if you want to go back and hit the message on clothing, you can. We have that online just to give you just one slide on what that message was about is that how we clothe our bodies reflects our understanding and experience of the gospel, particularly the imputed righteousness of Christ, which teaches us that we are dressed in Christ's righteous life. In other words, clothing has theological import. We don't just dress because cavemen one day decided to put on clothes.

We put clothes on because God clothed us in the garden and it's a type of Christ and so that's the theological backdrop of clothing and that shouldn't impact the way that we think about clothing. So we could have talked about clothing. we could have talked about 1 Corinthians 11. Pastor Milton preached some messages on head coverings and hats and things like that.

there's a reason why when, you go to the baseball park and Everybody says take your hat off for the Pledge of Allli or the Star Spangled Banner. we call this biblical residue. It's still, there's this residue that's carried over into our culture. People don't know why they take their hats off, but it ultimately goes back to 1 Corinthians 11.

We've just forgotten all that. however, today we will use the issue of tattoos as our test case and, and so as we talk about tattoos as our test case. I'm calling it a test case because I believe that a lot of the principles that we're going to talk about this morning also apply to clothing, also apply to other issues that have to do with the body. And so part of when we focus on tattoos, we're really focusing on a subgroup of a movement that we would call the body modification movement.

Over the past like 2025 years in the United States, there's been this tremendous move towards body modification. We'll talk about some of the statistics here and tattoos are just one subgroup of that body modification movement. In the church, in the 1990s, you had what was called the great tattoo wars. You may have If unless you've done the study that I've been doing on this topic, you may have never heard that subject, but, some people call it the great tattoo wars.

And by the way, those who are pro tattoo won the wars. we are now in an age where evangelicals, generally speaking, believe that tattoos are perfectly OK, that those that are anti-tattoo fit into the category of either ill-informed or legalistic. And so for the most part, the church has moved on from that issue. In one respect, tattoos are relatively inconsistent, insignificant when it comes to other what we call bioethical issues.

Is it more important to talk about maybe sexual immorality? shouldn't we be preaching a sermon maybe on the poor? should we be preaching a sermon on evangelism? I remember years ago when Pastor Milton was preaching on 1 Corinthians 11, a friend of mine came up to me and said, why are we spending so much time on 1 Corinthians 11?

What about the gospel? What about all the people that need to get saved? and my only answer to that is that's somewhat minimalistic when the Bible talks about a whole host of issues, by the way, through the lens of the Gospel. 1 Corinthians 11 is not divorced from the gospel.

Gospel is actually in that chapter through and through if you take time to look at it. And so we're gonna be talking about an issue that has to do with the body and we're hoping to, to apply the gospel to this, to this question. let me, and so here's the basic outline of this is what we're going to attempt to follow, to tat or not to tat. we're gonna talk about the boundaries, the agreements, the disagreements.

We talk about agreements, we're gonna talk about what does everybody agree on, both the pro-tat and the anti-Tat people, what do they all agree on? What do they disagree on, and then I'm gonna give some pastoral council and then some. Try to draw the line between personal opinions as we, as we move forward. By the way, let me give you guys some statistics that I was completely unaware of until the last month or so.

The annual amount of US spending, this is recent. This is as of August 2016. The amount of spending on tattoos in the United States is $1.65 billion. total percentage of Americans who have at least one tattoo, 14%.

Percentage of US adults 26 to 40 who have at least one tattoo, 40%. percentage of adults 18 to 25 who have at least one tattoo, 36%. That's probably because 1819 year olds are still listen to mom and dad, but eventually they'll become 26 and 40 year olds. Total number of Americans that have at least one tattoo, 45 million.

let's see. The cost of a small tattoo, about $45. Larger tattoos, $150 an hour. people that claim to be addicted to ink out of those that, tattoo themselves, 32%.

and we'll get to a, oh, this, this is the one that's pretty amazing to me, the gender gap. I would have never thought this, but, nearly half of women, let me see, people aged 45, 1st of all, are twice as likely to get a tattoo as those who are under 45. nearly half of women under age 35, have tattoos, 45% versus 25% of males. So if you take 35-year-old women and down.

47% of the women have tattoos as opposed to 25% of males. It's almost double on the, on the side of women. It's like I, I, I have to research that to really believe that, but that's what everybody is saying. I, I looked up several sites and they said it is almost 2 to 1 women to to men.

so let's, let's talk about first of all, some boundaries. I'm under no illusion that everybody in this room is on one side or the other of this issue. As I look around. as I walk around on any given Sunday, I see some people with tattoos and I see some people without tattoos.

Let me just give some ground rules or some things of what we're doing and what we're not doing. First of all, this is a message for Christians. This is an in-house discussion. people who are without Christ are going to do exactly what people without Christ do.

They do whatever the world is doing. And so this is not a message to say, hey everybody run out to your non-Christian friends and, and tell them they shouldn't get tattoos or they should get tattoos. This is more a message about how should the family of God think about this issue because within the family of God, there is division. Even though there's, a large percent much larger percentage of people getting tattoos today, there's still this conflict over the issues.

And so how is it that Christians should think about their bodies in this respect? I also want to just suggest to you that the issues that we're talking about today are great fodder for discipleship and teaching Christian maturity. Because when you talk about issues like clothing and dress and tattoos or head head head coverings or how much makeup or how little makeup and things like that, you're dealing with principles that should guide us like the worship of God and love for neighbor, but you're dealing with a lot of issues where the Bible just plain doesn't give us all the particulars and there's reasons why I believe the Holy Spirit hasn't given us all the particulars.

And so we're left to try to figure out the particulars in Christian wisdom and maturity.

And so something like the issue of tattoos is this wonderful fodder for discipleship. Here's why. let's say in my family, I'm, I'm talking to my family about why my children, should not get a tattoo and then right after I have this little Bible study, we're driving around and they see nonbelievers with tattoos, they're like, oh, we don't wanna be with them. Now what do I gotta do?

I've got to self-correct and I've got to help them see this isn't not, that's not what I meant. Then they see somebody at Cornerstone who has a tattoo and they're like, oh, Dad said we should get tattoos. That person's a Christian, they got a tattoo. Now I've got to bring in some discipleship.

How do you deal with people that have a different viewpoint from you? How do you understand why they've made decisions that are different from the Berry family? this happens in youth groups, this happens in college groups, this happens in churches, not just in the area of tattoos. I'll tell you what, back in the day when Pastor Milton was preaching to 1 Corinthians 11, there was a ton of discipleship that was going on.

You want to know the age group that was most open to our teaching in 1 Corinthians 11? Do you think it was the young people or the older people? It was the younger people. Why?

Why were the younger people more open to our teaching of 1 Corinthians 11 than the older people? Because the older people had lived a long time believing a certain thing about 1 Corinthians 11 and now to suddenly say I was wrong. I'm 60 years old and I was wrong. That's tough.

But when you're like 20 years old, 25 years old, 22 years old and Pastor Milton's up there preaching a certain viewpoint, you're like, all right. Great, I'll just believe in the Bible. You don't have this track record that you've got to undo and the same thing applies with a lot of these body issues. If you're out there today and you have a tattoo, there's work that you would have to do if we were to try to get you to a different opinion because you already have a tattoo.

How am I gonna get you to a different, different opinion? If you've got certain baggage in your life where you believe that all people who tattoo themselves are of the devil. And, and that's your background and I try to present information to you that would try to convince you otherwise, you've got some work to do. And so there's lots of fodder for discipleship as we talk about these issues.

That's basically the boundaries in a nutshell. Let me just give you a couple of other things. There's always the danger when we talk about things like this, legalism and licentiousness are legitimate dangers. I wanna give you a quote from a, a book that I've used in the past by Jeff Pollard.

He says this about legalism. The legalist is one who creates laws and rules foreign to the scripture by which he hopes to bind the consciences of men. Alternatively, he is that individual who teaches that one's entrance to heaven is predicated on submission to a code of conduct. So if you're trying to argue that That you have to do something that the Bible doesn't require you to do in order to be saved.

In other words, anything other than faith, that's legalism. But also if you're trying to encourage people to participate in a particular practice that the Bible just doesn't communicate, that can also be legalism, depending on how it's handled. On the flip side, licentiousness can be to ignore principles that the Bible does deal with, whether it's in the area of sanctification or In the area of salvation or justification. One of the rules that, I've tried to live out myself, I've communicated this in other messages when we've hit like topics, comes from Samuel Bolton.

He says love will lend us one safe rule. So this is one of our boundaries that we impose a severe law upon ourselves and allow a larger indulgence to others. The rule of our own conversation should be with the strictest, but by which that by which we censor others a little more with the largest. That's a very good discipleship principle when we're dealing just with the body of Christ on issues that may be considered gray matters.

is we're severe on ourselves than with others. We give other people grace. OK, we don't know why they've made that particular decision. There's lots of reasons.

Maybe there's something that we feel is a very strong biblical principle that somebody else isn't buying into. What are the possible reasons? Could it be they're a brand new Christian? Could it be they're ill-informed?

Could it be that we're actually wrong on the issue? There's lots of things that we can think about as we consider these ideas. Let's talk about the agreements. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to run through these slow enough for you to get the short note version, but if you don't pick it up, you can get it on the, you can ask me for my notes or you can pick it up on the, audio.

But there are actually several when you, when you consider people who since the 19, let's go back to, well, it's around the 1990s is when you have the big movement towards tattoos in America and the church tends to be about 10 years behind the world when it comes to these issues and so in the church, it's been rolling for about the last 15 years or so. But within the church for people who say yes, tattoos are permissible and those that say no tattoos should not be permissible, there is a fair amount of agreement and you might be surprised in some of the things that they agree upon.

And so I want to list some of those for you. First of all, is, everybody agrees that there's a lot of people getting tattooed today.

Everybody agrees. There's no debate. 40% of people aged 26 to 40 are getting or have tattoos and in the church, I, I can point you that there's tons of websites that are titled something like this, I'm a pastor and I tat or blogs and, and these pastors are making arguments about why they tattoo themselves. One guy was talking about how he's going to get a tattoo with his dad later this week and so on and so forth.

but everybody agrees that there are more people tattooing themselves today than ever before. Secondly Most would agree that there's nothing inherently evil about injecting ink into the skin. On whatever side you're on, very few are arguing that there's something evil about putting indelible ink into the skin of a person. When Jews were tattooed during World War II with a number, there wasn't anything inherently evil about the ink itself.

It was the meaning. They were being told that they were a, a slave or, or just a number that was being ready to be executed, right? there's nothing necessarily evil about a Coptic Christian that puts cross tattoos on their children so that if they get kidnapped by Islamicist, that they will not be converted to Islam because Islamicists despise tattoos and so they tattoo their kids with a cross to try to protect them from being kidnapped and forced into conversion by Muslims. And so most people agree with that.

Thirdly, both sides agree that Leviticus 1926, you want to write that down? It's one of the key passages that we will talk about. Both sides agree that Leviticus 1926 prohibits tattooing for Israel. However, both sides also agree that this does not make a slam dunk case that Christians should not participate in body modification.

In other words, both sides agree that Leviticus 1926 is not a slam dunk issue, and we'll talk about Well, we'll talk about now that now is part of it is, is you're dealing with The Mosaic law, you're talking about commands that are given to Israel, not necessarily given to the church. You're also dealing in a context where there's other commands like do not shave off the side of your beards, do not mix various types of clothing, different types of clothing, and so if, if we're going to enforce the tattoo., regulation there in Leviticus 19.

Do we also need to not shave the sides of our beards? Do we need to not mix our clothing?

All of us would not be in compliance, I assume, with our clothing. If you have mixed, unless it's like 100% cotton, then you're probably OK. but if you have mixed clothing, then you're, you're probably in trouble. so, so all I have to say that most people agree that Leviticus 19 forbids Israel from tattooing themselves for various reasons, but, and they also understand that it's not a slam dunk case.

Does that make sense? OK, so number 4, this is agreement. both sides agree that the New Testament is relatively silent. It doesn't speak directly to the issue.

So there are, there's a couple of places some people try to point out the stigmata that Paul talks about in Galatians 6. That's very unclear. Most people say that doesn't have anything to do with the issue. there's the mark of the beast in Revelation.

There's also marks on the heads of the 144,000. So, but most people would say that the New Testament is relatively silent. On Tattooing and we'll talk about why I think that is here in a second. Part of, I'll let a little bit of the cat out of the bag is the idea of tattooing for the sake of artistic beautification of the body is a relatively new phenomenon.

That's part of it, but I'll come back to that. The other thing, number 5, the fifth thing that they're agreed upon is that the Revelation passage, that is Revelation 19:16 has been misunderstood. Revelation 19:16 is that passage that in the King James says that there is a name on his thigh that is written King of kings and Lord of Lords, and pro tattoo people say, yep, Jesus is coming back with a tat and the second coming, so therefore, we should all get tatts or it's OK. Both sides, pro and con sides both agree that that's the wrong reading of the text.

biblical scholar Grant Osborne points out that grammatically the verse is better translated along the lines of, on his robe covering his thigh, he has a name written. So the writing is actually on the robe, not on the thigh, and, and if you read the, the people who have done good research on both sides, they both agree on that. Sixthly, 6th point of agreement. Jews and Christians have traditionally been against tattooing themselves with a few exceptions.

If you go back to the history of Israel all the way up until really about 25 years ago, Christians for the most part have been against tattooing their bodies with a few exceptions. The, two examples from church history, In, in the Christian church history, Constantine, when he came to power, one of his edicts was to forbid the tattooing of people's face for punishment. They used to give people tattoos on their face to mark them out for punishment, almost like the Mike Tyson tattoo, if you've seen that.

That was a regular practice in the Roman Empire.

Constantine outlawed that, based on what he understood to be Christian principles. Basil the Great said no man shall tattoo himself as do the heathen. So this is early church. However, the Crusaders, when they got back from their crusade, they'd be like, yeah man, and they'd put a cross.

They a lot of times they'd tattoo a cross on their arm or something just to say, hey, I've been on a crusade, almost, like soldiers, well, people in the navy might tattoo themselves about their trips. If you've been to prison, which I haven't yet., you got the little teardrop, right? Each teardrop is how many times you've been in prison and so these soldiers would would tattoo themselves when they got back from a crusade and also we mentioned Coptic Christians would tattoo across On their hands, not to actually to go with the culture.

Actually it's a, it was a countercultural move because they live in Islamic countries and it's a way to try to to stand apart from Islam and also to protect their children from forced conversion.

7th, we've got 88 total agreements, although there might be more, but here's one. both sides agree there are good reasons not to get a tattoo. Both sides would say there are good reasons to not get a tattoo. In fact, one of the sites that was most helpful for me, a guy named Pastor Joe Thorn.

he, he gives all the reasons not to get a tattoo and then he gives advice if you're going to get a tattoo and he's a guy that does tattoo. He does, he's a pro tattoo guy, but he has a whole page on why you should not get a tattoo. his name is Joe Thorn if you want to look him up. So there, so both sides agree that there are good reasons not to get a tattoo and then eighthly, they both agree that this is an in-house debate for Christians, not an argument with unbelievers.

We're not, we're not going to unbelievers and saying, hey, you unbelievers, the first thing I wanna tell you, the, the most important thing I want to tell you is don't get a tattoo. That's not what either side is saying. Let's talk about the disagreements now. How, how do the sides disagree?

And, and then we're gonna flesh more of this out in our 4th point. The pro and the cons sides of tattooing disagree on the impact of Leviticus 1928. And so go ahead and open up that passage. They both agree That Israel is commanded not to tattoo themselves.

They both agree that it's not a slam dunk argument. Against tattooing because it's in the mosaic law and so on and so forth. Some of the context is difficult. But there's still a disagreement on, on how impactful this verse should be in our thought process.

So if you start in, let's start in verse 26, You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor shall you practice divination or soothsaying. You shall not shave around the sides of your beard, of your head, nor shall you disfigure the edges of your beard. You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you. I am the Lord.

So you can see Those that are pro tattoo would say, all right, if you want to argue that this is a, a verse against tattooing, then why are you guys shaving the sides of your beards?, why are you guys, shaving the sides of your head? You need to get rid of all that. And then there's just other things in Leviticus that couldn't possibly carry over to today. And so they would argue that that nullifies the the complete impact of this passage.

The pro tattoo people, I would say the con people that would say that we, we believe that tattooing should not be preferred or should not be practiced by Christians on the, on the whole. would argue basically. That there is a meaning behind the tattoo in this culture. And the meaning behind the tattoo in, in this setting was Worship of false gods and, and it had something to do with the pagan practice of tattooing.

And that historically, tattooing has always had meaning. And that Christians have largely disassociated with tattooing because of the meanings that are associated with those marks. so it wasn't at all uncommon, in as Christian missionaries would move into areas, many of the pagan peoples would have tattoos showing, demonstrating allegiance to their gods. demonstrating, sometimes in the Old Testament tattoos could symbolize, somebody was enslaved, well, particularly in the Greco-Roman Empire, Jews would actually pierce, pierce body parts to indicate, indicate slavery, which probably indicated the non-permanent nature of Jewish slavery.

So what, what the Khan people would argue is that you need to look at what is that, what is tattooing in any given culture mean? If it's, if the meaning in our culture is basically of, of tattooing is basically that communicating something good and noble and worthy of praise, then there wouldn't necessarily be anything wrong with it. But if there are associations in our culture today that are less than admirable. Then there may be reason to, to at least consider the spirit behind Leviticus 19.

Does that make sense? It's not a carryover of God said it to the Jews, therefore, it applies automatically to us. It's tattoos have meaning in Israel's culture, tattoos have meaning in our culture. Let's discern what the meaning is and let's also ask the question, why in the last 25 years has this become such a phenomenon?

why is it that the church pretty universally rejected tattooing until about the last 25 years? There's a couple of different reasons. It could be that the church has understood that we want to be less legalistic and more true to the scriptures, therefore, we've moved towards tattooing. It could be that there's a real concern.

We've decided that, what, helping the poor, getting the gospel out is so much more important than worrying about things like tattoos. It could be that we've actually grown in holiness and we want to express our holiness on our bodies. Or it could be, that our world has grown accustomed to beautification, body modification, and the church is following on the coattails of the world. So however you answer that question is going to impact, how much you think Leviticus 19 applies.

Now turn to Isaiah 46:19. This is another second disagreement. Isaiah 46:19. Because we just sang a song.

I don't know if you guys realize this, but we just sang a song this morning. That said, my name is what? Graven on his hands. I was gonna ask them to sing that song and I forgot it was already on the list.

OK, it's not 46. Where am I at? Anybody know what it's, it's chapters, it's verse 16, but anybody got the chapter? I missed our chapter.

Might be 40. It's verse 16 of Isaiah. Oh, it's 49. I got the 6 upside, the 9 upside down.

OK, Isaiah 49, look at verse 16. The context here is God speaking of Zion. He says, see, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me.

The idea here inscribed seems to be to either etch or to put some indelible mark. This is not something that could be washed away. This is an indelible mark that God is saying, at least figuratively because we know that God doesn't have literal hands, but figuratively, he's saying, Zion or Israel, your name is on my hands. That's how permanent my love is and my commitment is to the covenant.

Look at verse 15. Can a woman forget her nursing child and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget. He's arguing to Zion, he's arguing to Israel that my memory, my care for you is so great.

It's greater than the love a woman has for a nursing child and the name Zion or actually the idea would be here is the picture of Zion. The actual walls are inscribed on God's hands, figuratively speaking. And so the question becomes, if God is willing to figuratively tattoo his own hands, in what sense would it be wrong for a Jew or a Christian to tattoo their hands? In fact, if you look online, there's people who have this verse tattooed right on their palms.

And, and they would do it as a reminder of God's love and concern for them. And so the sides, the pro and cons sides, obviously those that would be pro tattoo would say, hey, right here in the Bible, we have God tattooing Himself. And those on the other side would argue, well, this is a figure of speech. God doesn't have literal hands.

Would this mean that Jews who clearly are commanded not to tattoo themselves and historically we know they didn't tattoo themselves, does this give them the prerogative to then go out and follow an image that God takes to Himself? is there not a creator-c creature distinction? Some things that God does that we cannot do. For instance, God can pour out his wrath when we're called to leave wrath to God, so on and so forth.

And so there's a disagreement on exactly the impact of this passage. But if there's any passage in the Bible that would tend towards a pro tattoo viewpoint, I would think that would be it. In my opinion, you have God figuratively speaking with indelible marks on his hands, not just indelible marks, a picture. Of Zion on his hands.

I turned back to 1 Corinthians 6, the other disagreement. Is this Is the impact of 1 Corinthians 6. And then after this one, we'll get to one more disagreement and move into council. Council time for all you want people.

OK, so in 1 Corinthians 6, starting at verse 19, we've read this passage many times. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, some translations say, which are God's. And so the argument from a con viewpoint says our body is God's, it is not our own.

do we have the right to just do with our bodies anything that we wish? the pro side says you're begging the question. You're already assuming that tattoos are wrong before you even apply it to this particular situation. is it wrong for a woman to put on lipstick?

Is it wrong for somebody to cut their hair in a particular way? Are we bringing dishonor to God if, if we shave our beard in a particularly stylistic way? If you look at, the reformers, it's pretty popular today sometimes for people to get these t-shirts that say like Calvin's my homeboy or whatever. And, there's Calvin in his, 1500s garb and he's got the long goatee and I, I've met, I have, people that I dialogue with online that are reformers who, who try to grow their beards just like Calvin.

They wanna look like Calvin or they wanna look like Zlingly, whatnot. So are they, are, are you somehow dishonoring God merely because you grow a long beard that could be associated with bikers or ZZ Top? does that make you somehow immoral to, to wear your, your body in that way or your hair in that way. And so there's disagreement on the impact of these passages, but lastly, there's other disagreements we could talk about.

But I want to hit is what I think is the most significant. Disagreement that really cuts through everything and gets to a real core basic issue. And I think, in my opinion, I think if this question can be answered, then there would be a lot more unity on how to think about these issues and that, that is what do we mean or what does the Bible mean by become all things to all men. Because 11 of the arguments that you hear for people today who would tattoo themselves, they would say, this isn't the day of your grandpappy.

Right? People aren't just, it's not just like sailors like Popeye who get tattoos. It's not just Marines, it's not prisoners. It's not just bikers and gang bangers.

It's not just Chicanos, laugh now, cry later, right? It's, this is the norm. And if we're going to reach our culture, if we're gonna impact people for the gospel, then we need to adapt. If we keep living in the 1950s with the Beaver family, guess what?

We're not gonna have an impact on the culture. And so what does it mean for us to become all things to all men and that's where I want to take us is I want to give some pastoral counsel and some personal opinions. I'll try to tell you if I know when, when it's one or the other, right? if I can discern when it's personal opinion, you guys can discern it for yourselves.

But open up to 1 Corinthians 19. So I'm gonna ask, I'm gonna ask several different questions by way of pastoral council as we've looked at trying to build the boundaries. This is an in-house discussion. we're not here trying to judge anybody who, who has a one side of the issue.

We want to use this for discipleship purposes and apply it to other arenas. There's ways in which we agree, there's ways in which we clearly disagree, and so, as one of the pastors of this church, I want to give you some counsel. from various passes of scripture, and this is one of the passage of scripture is. And so I want to headline this passage of scripture with the question, is concern for the gospel a controlling factor in your thinking?

Is concern for the gospel a controlling factor in your thinking, whether it has to do with tattoos or dress or anything else? Let's read starting in verse 19. Let's, let's get the full idea of what Paul is arguing here. In verse 19, he says, for, and I'm reading from a New King James, by the way, for though I am free from all men.

I have made myself a slave to all. He's like I'm free. I have this freedom and we're gonna see later. What's he talking about?

He's talking about freedom in Christ from the Mosaic law. I have freedom but I've made myself a what? What is it? A slave.

I have freedom but I've made myself a slave. Why did he do that? That I might what? Win the more how your whatever your translation says that I may win the more.

Verse 20. To the Jews, I became as a Jew that I might win Jews to those who are under the law, as under the law, though not myself being under the law that I might win those who are under the law. That sounds, what are you talking about Paul? I, I am not under the law for the sake of salvation, but I'm, I'm willing to put myself under the law if it'll give me the opportunity to win more people to Christ.

In other words, if it doesn't have to do with justification, and it's just this is the way people are applying the law in their particular cultural setting, particularly Jews, I'm gonna go ahead and go along with what, I'm gonna set myself up to win Jews. So for, for example, he knows he's not underneath dietary laws. He's not underneath circumcision laws. He's not underneath Levitical law, but he says, I'm going to make myself a slave.

Why? Why does Paul want to make himself a slave? To win More. Keep going verse 21.

To those who are without law, as without law, though not being without law of God, but under the law of Christ, that I might win those who are without law. Who's he talking about there? Who are the folks in his culture that are without law? Yeah, the Greco-Romans, right?

So these would be the Gentiles. So if he's around a bunch of Gentiles, he's willing to eat meat. He's willing to, to do things that maybe he wouldn't necessarily do when he's around Jews because he wants to win them to Christ. Then he concludes 22 and 23.

To the weak I became weak that I might win the weak, I have become all things to all men that I might by all means save some. I do all things for the sake of the gospel that I may become a fellow partaker of it. And I've heard teenagers quote this verse and say, see, Mom, I should be able to get that tattoo. I'm I'm becoming all things to all men.

But verse 22, what is he really saying? He says to the weak, I became weak. That I might win the week. I have become all things to all men that I might win, by all means save some.

Here's his all consuming motivation here. I do all things for the sake of what? The gospel that I may become a fellow partaker of it. So let me ask that question again.

Is concern for the gospel a controlling factor in your thinking? When you're thinking about clothing choices, when you're thinking about tattoos or any other issue, is one of the primary things that comes to mind. As a Christian, how will this impact my gospel ministry? Now, let me ask you a couple of other, let me make a couple of other suggestions based upon this passage.

What does Paul mean by all things? I believe that Paul means he is willing to adopt to adapt to the scruples of others in order to give no offense to the gospel. In other words, he's willing to not eat meat. And such in order to have a hearing amongst Jews and so on.

Let me ask you some questions. Would Paul offend Greeks if he was circumcised and ate certain meats? Would he offend Greco-Romans if he got circumcised and ate meat offered to idols? Clearly not.

He would not offend them at all. They, they wouldn't care. Circumcised, uncircumcised, eating meat, not eat any meat, he wouldn't care. So there's no reason for Paul to adapt himself to the Greeks because they wouldn't care.

They wouldn't be offended. They would be open to the gospel either way, right? And so that's not the issue here. Would Paul, offend certain Jews if he wasn't circumcised and ate certain meats?

Yes. And we're gonna look at an example of what he does in a second here. Therefore, he would be more liberal around Greeks in this setting and more conservative around Jews, correct? So we're talking about Paul's context.

So around Greeks, he'd be like, yeah, pass the meat, right? Around Jews, he would say, he wouldn't, he wouldn't do that and he would adapt himself, he would make himself a slave to all. Turn to Acts 16. I want you to give an example, a very extreme example of where Paul puts this into practice.

Acts 16. And he puts us into the practice, not with himself but with Timothy, poor Timothy. Acts 16:1, and he came also to Derby and to Lystra. And behold, a certain disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was Greek.

And he was well spoken of by the brethren who were in Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted this man to go with him, and he took him and circumcised him because the Jews who were in those parts, for they all know that his father was Greek. Now here, this is the Paul who in Galatians says if some Christian comes into the church and says you must be circumcised to be saved, he says, let them go to hell. In fact, let him cut himself off.

But when it comes to opportunities to share the gospel with unbelievers, And he recognized if I bring Timothy along, the Jews will not listen to the gospel. He's willing to do something permanent or have Timothy do something permanent to his body that is unchangeable. Would you agree that circumcision is unchangeable? I don't know of any like circums, how to undo that.

so he does something permanent for the sake of the gospel. Now, I want you to track with me the line of thinking here and you can critique it if you want. Ask me questions later. Why did Paul have Timothy circumcised if circumcision was of the Mosaic law?

Circumcision clearly is of the mosaic law, correct? Circumcision has been set aside in Christ. But he's practicing the 1 Corinthians 9 principle. He's making himself a slave so that he may by all means win all and he says, Timothy, we're going into an area where they are just flat out not going to be open to the gospel if you're uncircumcised.

They all know you. Don't tell me how they check for this stuff. I have no idea. But they would know and Timothy agrees to it and, and he is circumcised.

Could Timothy be uncircumcised after he was circumcised? No, this is permanent. Was there any chance of offending Greeks and closing off the gospel witness by virtue of him being circumcised? No, there was not.

At least probably not, we would say. Would Paul have had Timothy circumcised if Greeks would be offended? If he knew that Greeks would be offended by Timothy getting circumcised, would he have gotten them circumcised? That's a tougher call, but probably not.

Unless he was sure that they're only gonna stay with Jews, but probably he wouldn't, he wouldn't have done it. So let's draw some principles. I want to lay out some principles for you here. From this section, these passages.

We should be willing to adapt to the scruples of others in order to give no offense to the gospel. That's principle one. Let me say that again. We should be willing to adapt to the scruples of others in order to give no offense to the gospel.

That's a clear principle that Paul lays out in my opinion from Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 9 and it is practiced in Acts 16. So we have both the prescriptive and the descriptive evidence in the Bible. A lot of times if you see something just in the book of Acts described, you don't really know how to apply it. You have to be careful.

But when you have prescription and description, now you're getting to some pretty, pretty strong principles. Principle 2, if we're going to do something permanent to ourselves, it should create more openness to the gospel, not less. Let me say that again. If we're going to do something permanent to ourselves, it should create more openness to the gospel, not less.

And that was Paul's principle. By getting Timothy circumcised, it created more openness to the gospel, not less, even though this was a permanent thing and even though it was part of the Mosaic law. Now, let me give you my view and my opinion on this. This is where my opinion comes in and you can take it for what it's worth.

In my view and in my experience, no one has been offended by my lack of tattoos. I've never been in any setting where I've shared the gospel where somebody got offended or would not allow me to be part of their conversation because I didn't have a tattoo that they were aware of, that you're aware of. No, I don't have any. And yet, in my evangelism, I love talking to people about their tattoos.

It's one of the, it's a great way to get into the gospel with people. There's so many people that have tattoos these days. All you gotta do is say, hey, what does that mean? And they just want to talk about it.

And so then you start talking to them and there's ways to segue to the gospel. I've never walked up to an unbeliever and said, I can't believe you got that tattoo. No, I, I use their tattoos as a bridge for the gospel, but I personally have never been, nobody's ever looked at me and said, I'm not gonna talk to you. You don't have a tattoo.

And so I've, I have complete openness with that culture. However, a person's tattoos may close them off to some opportunities. I want to suggest that a person's tattoos may close them off to some opportunities whether, whether you like it or not. in one of the, it's called Brainats.com, I think, did, that's where a lot of the stats I got from earlier, 73% of people who have tattoos feel like it, it can impact them negatively in a job interview.

they just know that going into a job interview, if their tattoos are revealed, it, there's a 75, 73% of those people think that it can impact them negatively. So even in the tattoo culture, they know that certain opportunities may be closed off to them. and in ministry culture, it's just undeniable. If you want to go work in Islamic countries, and you have visible tattoos, you will not be accepted.

You're just not allowed because they do not. Believe in tattoos. it's similar to trying to visit and minister to Mexican Indian villages up in the Sierras. If you're a gal and you walk into the village in pants, guess what?

Ministry is over. You have to be wearing a dress and there's many parts of the world that if a woman is not wearing a dress and she walks into a particular culture to try to administer the gospel, she will not be received at all. And so what do you do in that situation? Our gals, when we go on these mission trips, they put on a dress so that there's an openness for the gospel.

And so it can have an impact in those respects. And so that's one of the big ideas or requests that I ask you to consider on this issue. I do not believe there's anything inherently evil about putting ink on skin. I do believe that there are Christians who can come to different conclusions on both sides, partially because the scriptural evidence is there seems to be some evidence that is on both sides and there seems to be some debatable issues.

Also in church history, there are some debatable issues. But I think there are a list of questions that we should at least ask ourselves and kids, I'll just give you a hint. If your parents aren't letting you get a tattoo and you really want to get a tattoo, run through this gamut of questions and demonstrate to your parents, I've really thought through the issues. And that you're doing this for the right reason and who knows, maybe your parents will let you have that tattoo.

But are you asking yourself, is, is the, is concern for the gospel a controlling factor in your thinking? Is love for God and neighbor a controlling factor in your thinking? Remember Jesus said, the lawyers and the Pharisees were asking him, what is the greatest commandment? He says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, right?

He says, the next is second, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments, all the law and prophets hang. So the commands about tattooing and cutting and this and that, all the different Levitical commands, they can all be summed up. Jesus says, and love your neighbor as yourself.

And so if we're just thinking about that ethic, what we would call a dualistic ethic that I'm giving consideration not just for me but for others, that my body is not just about me. My body is connected to God, my body is connected to fellow human beings. My body is connected to this church as we're all in Christ. And so my dualistic ethics says I need to approach all body issues, not just as an individual but as part of a community.

Choices I make about the body entrusted to me by God should be made with an idea of worship for God and love for neighbor. our approach to bioethics, in other words, is never individualistic. so that's, that's another point of pastoral council. The third point of pastoral council.

Is this a natural outgrowth of my love for Christ? Is it bearing fruit for God? Like other art. most people that participate in the modern body modification movement, they would argue that it's art and it's expression.

it's no different than a painting or a portrait or photography or a poem. Well, when we're doing photography or poems or artistic expression, those are bearing fruit for God. They come from somewhere. write this down, we don't have time to look at it, but Romans 7:4, where Paul says that we've died to the law.

So that we might bear fruit. So we're not under that Levitical law, but we're not under it just to do whatever we want with our own bodies in an individualism type of sense. We're now underneath the law of Christ and we're part of this community and we want to bear fruit. So the choices that we're making with our bodies, does it, does it help us bear, bear fruit?

It could. I think legitimately it could on either side of the issue. And this is probably the last one that we're gonna get into because of time, as far as pastoral council slash opinion, you guys judge which. does service or submission to others factor into your thinking?

Does service that is ministry or submission to others factor into your thinking about that, Shaq O'Neill tattoo that you got back in the 1990s or so on. are you understanding if you're still living in your home? Are you understanding the biblical commands to be submitted to your parents? It's pretty easy and everybody agrees on this.

What side you're on the issue, you need to submit to your parents. If your parents say no, then it's pretty easy for you. but also, what does your spouse think because Paul tells us that your spouse owns your body. And if you think you're gonna get married or even if you don't think you're gonna get married, some future spouse owns your body, right?

And so if you're touting yourself now as a single person, you're gonna get married and the Bible says that she has rights over your body. So you're messing with a body that may not be completely yours in the future as if it was ever yours in the first place. also, we just flat out know that that tattooing can impact, employment. And so are you willing to submit to your boss or your employer on the issue, whether it's covering up or not getting?

Are you willing to submit to your church and church leadership? You might be attending a church at some point that's totally fine and no big deal, or you might in some future have some future ministry opportunities where they require everybody on leadership to not have tattoos. And I think that's a biblical option for that leadership group. Are you willing to submit to the particular leadership group that is over you?

your mission field now in the future, are you giving due consideration of not just your mission field now, but what if the Lord wants to send you elsewhere, like to a really conservative part of the United States or a really conservative part of Mexico or to an Islamic country? will it impact you? it can impact you wherever you go. the choices that you go one way or the other.

And then have you considered those who look up to you? Have you considered that, the choices that I make, it might be fine for me and my conscience might be perfectly settled on any particular issue. But how will my choices impact somebody else? am I willing to step into the gap and, and help them?

I want to encourage you to take finally a look. There's a couple of things online I want you to look at. One is, John Piper has two little blogs. one of the blogs is, 6 reasons why he suggests that you should not get a tattoo.

And he does a great job laying out the issues. He says, a lot of this is my opinion. I'm not saying that people who get tattoos are evil or the ink is evil, but here's 6 reasons why I think you should think about it before you do it. You want, would, would you check that out?

John Piper, 6 reasons why you should think about it. On the flip side, there's a guy named Joe Thorn that gives 10 reasons why not to get a tattoo and then in his very next blog, he says, here's advice if you're going to get one. That's another one I'd encourage you to take a look at. This is a guy that's on the pro tattoo side that's actually giving you reasons why he thinks you should not get one.

And so I would suggest both of those to you. The so what is important for as we close, Again, like we talked about earlier, why are we even talking about the body? why aren't we talking about grander matters? Because the body, the Bible talks about the body and what we do with our body really reflects our core beliefs.

If God really cares about the body, he created it, he's gonna resurrect it, it's gonna be in heaven forever, then we should care about the body and we should think rightly about it. We should do everything we can to bring all thoughts and subject them to Christ. whatever the issues are. Issues like this, again, are fodder for great discipleship.

As you guys leave today, there's all kinds of temptations. There's the temptation to go out and judge people that are completely on the other side from you. there's the temptation to reject everything that you've said because you're already in a certain camp. Everything that you've heard.

what if you already have a tattoo? then I would just encourage you to go back and rethink through all of your, if you've, if you've thought through your tattoo and the ways that we've described this morning and you claimed, came to that particular conclusion, then that's all I think anybody can ask for. Because there isn't anything, any like direct commandment in the New Testament that says thou shalt not get a tattoo. But I think that these principles apply to all body issues and so if you've really thought through those issues, then great, that's what we're asking for.

How should you view people, let's say how should you view Christians who have tattoos? Well, I'll just say the same thing I'd want to encourage my children is you have no idea where they've come from, what journey they've been on, where they're at in their thinking. Talk to them, dialogue with them, learn from them, but don't just automatically assume carnality. how should you view people without tattoos?

Same thing applies. don't automatically assume, that, that we're somehow the beaver family, that somehow we, all of our reasons are just merely legalistic, that there's, we haven't really thought through the issues. We just heard some brill cream prophet talking about Leviticus 19 and we just believed it. how should you view someone who has come to different conclusions from you?

So, so you've studied the issue. Somebody else who really loves the Lord studied the issue. They've come to completely different conclusions from you. How should we deal with brothers and sisters in the church who come to completely different conclusions than us on issues like this that I would consider gray areas?

Well, you could call them a legalistic cataphobe. Or you could call them a compromising modern pagan. Or you could speak the truth and love and say, hey, sometimes we're just not gonna agree on everything and we can still love each other, on these things. what if you've already decided to get one and you're here?

We'll run through the grid that we talked about, talk to your parents, so on and so forth, see all the different, questions that we've raised. and then lastly we've talked about this, but, how can you use tattoos and evangelism, and this is one thing I'd, I'd leave you with. we have a culture. For one reason or another, that has moved largely towards, artistic beautification, the modification body movement in the last 20 years.

And so there's 40% of the people that you're gonna engage with out there have some tattoo. I went to Starbucks this morning. A girl reached out to give me her change and she had tattoos on her arm. And in my mind, those are just like invitations screaming out to share the gospel.

Why did you get that? Hey, what does that mean? that's interesting. That's a, that's an interesting look.

I, I can say to someone, hey, that's, that's a cool look without necessarily saying, hey, I think everybody ought to get a tattoo. and let people, sometimes I've found that people, I remember coming across this guy who, had these huge earplugs and he had tattooed all over the place and he wanted to cut his tongue in half like a lizard. And so I started talking to him and I found out that this guy had tremendous spiritual needs and that he, in his mind was being accosted by demons.

And, and I got to sit down over a course of about 60 minutes and just share the gospel with him.

I didn't tell, I didn't rebuke him on his earplugs or his tats or anything like that. I just used it as a bridge to share the gospel and, and the, the cool thing is, is, is, is, is we are in a culture where there's lots and lots of opportunities. To share the gospel and tattoos are not in, an, something to get in the way of your gospel witness. It's something that you can use for gospel witness regardless of where you land on this particular issue.

Does that make sense? we're over time. I'm gonna be up here if, if you have some individual questions or you can Facebook or email me, to preach a message like this, it's almost impossible to not step on somebody's toes or step on somebody's tats. And so let's go ahead and let's pray.

Lord, we just thank you so much for your word. And we thank You, Lord, that each one of us, had the stain of sin. your word tells us how can a leopard change its spots and yet you have come and washed us clean with the blood of Christ as we have just simply placed faith in you. And now you've made us, salt and light in this world, so that we may be able to go out and, and to broadcast your name.

Lord, let our good works be the ultimate branding. Let love be the ultimate branding as we, go out and, and, and stand for you and before a lost and dying world. We pray, Father, you protect us from all the various temptations when we consider issues like this, judgmentalism, licentiousness. but help us to be guided by your Spirit through your word, and help us to grow, thereby, we pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior.

Amen.