Tattoo

Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. (Leviticus 19:28)

Today's word is "tattoo"! I ran a search of the photos on my phone, and this is the only "tattoo" photo I had. I took it last week, when Scout was getting her hair cut:

I remembered reading about tattoos in Leviticus a few months ago, so I returned to that verse today, where it says, "Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves."

When I first read that, I was like, "Huh? Seriously? The Bible addresses tattoos? And tattoos are against God's Law?"

Well, they're against the Mosaic Law, and Christians, or course, are not subject to the Mosaic law. As Paul tells the new Christians in Romans, “You have died to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God." (Romans 7:4) So even if I had a tattoo, I wouldn't need to worry that I'd committed some terrible sin by getting one.

I did a bit of reading this morning, and it was interesting to learn why tattoos were forbidden for the Hebrews. Like many of the seemingly arbitrary laws in Leviticus, this one had a primary purpose of helping to set Israel apart from the surrounding nations. Israel wasn't to intermarry with those nations, they weren't to adopt their cultures, and they particularly weren't to worship their gods. The absence of tattoos--like the absence of pork in their diet--helped to distinguish Israel as God's people, apart from the Canaanites and other cultures.

When I was growing up, the only people who had tattoos were sailors, truckers, and people who had been in prison. Nearly all of them were men. Today, I'm just about the only mom-of-tweens I know who doesn't have a tattoo. Sometimes it seems that my lack of a tattoo sets me apart from them--not as one of God's people, but as a Gen-Xer, an old person, someone who's maybe a little out of touch with the times.

All of which are accurate. But that's okay. :)

I think it's always good to ask ourselves, "How does my life set me apart from the surrounding culture? How do my actions point to Jesus? Is it clear to others that I'm part of the family of God?" I honestly don't know if I like the answers to those questions when I ask them about myself. I'm not sure that I do act in a way that sets me apart, at least not on a regular basis. Mostly I just stay quiet and keep my head down.

My prayer for today is my eyes will be opened to ways I can more effectively and obviously be "set apart," and that I'll have the courage to take advantage of those opportunities when they come.