Why shouldn't Christians get tattoos?

The desecration of the flesh has always been rejected by Biblical Christianity, for a believer’s body is to be kept clean and healthy, for it is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19)—we are to care for it. When men cease to clean themselves, God often punishes them with disease and infection. One cannot simply wash off that heathen ink, for it was cut into the flesh. This leads to another reason tattoos and scarification is sinful—self inflicted harm for reasons of vanity and/or superstition.

Tattoos require the individual to harm oneself by constant cutting of the flesh, causing continuous bleeding and a serious chance of infection (i.e., HIV and Hepatitis). This violates the extremely basic New Testament command “Do yourself no harm” (Acts 16:28).

The sinful reasons for getting tattoos are usually vanity, rebelling against parental authority, honoring the dead, or violations of the 2nd Commandment (crosses/images of Jesus, etc.). The church in the Old Testament was instructed to NOT learn the ways of the heathen (Jeremiah 10:2). The heathens in the land of Canaan were covered in tattoos and scarification patterns. To be visibly separated, the church in the Old Testament was told not to: “make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, NOR PRINT ANY MARKS UPON YOU” Leviticus 19:28.

Not being satisfied with the way one looks, but sinfully coveting tattoos have often led to wasting money, tattoo addictions, serious infections, and has even been a gateway to other sinful lifestyles.

Christians should be spiritually minded, not obsessed with the flesh and the cares of the wicked world: “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit” Romans 8:5.

When the United States turned from God and entered into our current post-Christian society, towards the end of the 19th century, nominal Protestants began accepting evolution, abortion, homosexuality, cross-dressing, and tattoos, along with a host of other heathen practices.

In the old days, English speaking Christians would visit heathen lands and encounter naked savages covered in tattoos and more—and living in all manner of perverse ways. Christians introduced the savages to the Bible, taught them to read, to properly worship Christ alone, by faith alone, according to Scripture alone—to be civilized, to clean up and care for themselves. Now the people of the United States have forgotten the Bible and now have begun to resemble those very savages of old.