It has always amazed me how the Church of God loves to meddle in its member's lives. Many churches do this, but the COG movement is extremely good at it. This week United Church of God struck out at people who have tattoos. It has always been a hypocritical stance the church has taken considering the number of ministers that have tattoo's, from Garner Ted and on down the food chain. Oh, but these men got their tattoo's when they were unconverted...HA!, not so in many of the cases. I know evangelists and ministers that got them while still part of WCG.
United Church of God says:
When will the Church of God learn to shut up about all the silly nonsense they concern themselves over and actually be "the church?"We are to reflect God’s thinking and values, and strive to follow His instructions for us carefully and respectfully. “Therefore ‘Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you’” (2 Corinthians 6:17). That is the context of Leviticus 19, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). A variety of actions which make one unholy are prohibited in this chapter, such as not revering one’s parents, breaking the Sabbath, idolatry, stealing or dealing falsely, prostituting your daughter, false weights, and making marks or patterns on the skin by pricking it with a needle coated with pigment (tattooing).God’s clear intent with the above scriptures in mind is that our bodies should not be marked with tattoos. Statement From the Council of Elders
12 comments:
For those who want to know what God said in His laws as recorded in His Bible for your own good:
“Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:28, NIV).
Don't gash your self or tattoo yourself for the dead. It says nothing about tattoo's today.
Anonymous on January 31, 2018 at 8:48 PM said...“Don't gash your self or tattoo yourself for the dead. It says nothing about tattoo's today.”
What would be the point of God saying not to gash yourself or tattoo yourself for the dead if you can gash yourself or tattoo yourself for any other reason under the sun, or just for the heck of it, or even for no reason at all?
“It has always been a hypocritical stance the church has taken considering the number of ministers that have tattoo's, from Garner Ted and on down the food chain. Oh, but these men got their tattoo's when they were unconverted...HA!, not so in many of the cases. I know evangelists and ministers that got them while still part of WCG.”
One should try to do better than Teddy the Dink did, and better than those evangelists and ministers who never read the Bible or obeyed God or even seemed to know what the WCG actually taught.
This looks like another one of those crazy posts where the wicked are complaining about God meddling in people's lives and are going to try to encourage people to waste their time and money on permanently messing up their bodies.
If the false prophets like Flurry and Pack don't mess people up enough, maybe the godless types here can finish the job.
Nehemia Gordon's explanation - https://www.nehemiaswall.com/shaving-beards-sidelocks
I got a tattoo of the Union Jack on my upper right arm back when I was in the church and nobody ever knew except my wife and some non-church friends. Frankly, I don't see a problem with it.
Is ear piercing out, also?
Anon at 9:18
You got that a little wrong, we are not complaining about God meddling in people’s minds. It’s the we know everything mindset of the COG people. Bell bottom pants are wrong, makeup is wrong no wait it’s ok, no wait a minute it’s wrong oh what ever. No hair spray no it’s ok. Only white shirts, suits and ties for men, no blue shirts are ok but never a pink one. Red dresses for women are only worn br harlots. No white flour, no white sugar, only raw milk, on and on and on........
Tattoos fall into a vague "dont ask , dont tell" area of COG life. How do you police someone who gets one...tell them to erase it? Good luck with that! Because of their permanence, it is not a good idea to get one, for you have to live with that fashion statement for the rest of your life. To get a tat is not wisdom IMHO.
Fashion and fads change as often as the wind. At least with clothes and hairstyles, you can toss them out and buy new ones, or change your haircut.
As far as a church policy is concerned, it is good to discourage the practice.
Discipline?... having them live with that tattoo for the rest of their life is probably punishment enough. HOWEVER... (if I were advising the UCG) anyone who gets at tat that has a "Warner Brothers" cartoon character , ie, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Road Runner, Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy Gonzalez, Pepe Lepeau , etc, SHOULD BE IMMEDIATELY & PERMANENTLY DISFELLOWSHIPPED AND MARKED and cast into the "Land of Nod, East of Eden" ! ;-)
January 31 8:58 PM asks: "What would be the point of God saying not to gash yourself or tattoo yourself for the dead if you can gash yourself or tattoo yourself for any other reason under the sun, or just for the heck of it, or even for no reason at all?"
My guess it was to forbid a practice associated with worship of some other god. It wasn't the tattooing itself that was bad. It was that believers in a different religion honored their dead by scarifying and tattooing, and Israelites didn't want to risk bringing down the wrath of their jealous god if they did it too.
The principle is the same as the prohibition against cooking a lamb it it's mother's milk. It was okay for Israelites to slaughter the lamb and eat it, and it was okay to milk the ewe and use the milk, but cooking the two together was part of a ritual for worshipping Baal. So that combination was strictly forbidden.
Oops, bad editing. I put an apostrophe in the possessive form "its." How many times have I instructed students not to do that and marked up their papers in red if they did? All have sinned and come short of orthographic glory.
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