Bible Errors & Tattoos

BEHOLD, I HAVE INSCRIBED YOU ON THE PALMS OF MY HANDS;

YOUR WALLS ARE CONTINUALLY BEFORE ME.”

 Isaiah 49:16 (NASB)

 This post today is different from others I have written. I am going to address a serious error I came across on social media yesterday morning involving Joyce Meyer. Before I get into the main point I will say I do not follow Joyce Meyer or any other Word of Faith movement teachers; these people twist God’s Holy Word and teach a bucket load of false doctrines. Incidentally, the main point I am about to address proves without any doubt how Joyce Meyer twists scripture.

Recently Joyce Meyer made a public and very proud announcement that she now has tattoos, “to honour God” she claims. That is her choice, being between her and God. I will state clearly that I am not judging Joyce Meyer, that is God’s Work. But what we are all allowed to question is her defending it from scripture and teaching it to others, and leading them astray. She quotes our main verse, Isaiah 49:16, as her justification claiming that God has tattoos! In my own reading of it this scripture does not speak of literal tattoos, I say this for two reasons. First, God is spirit, not having a physical body thus He is using figurative language. He wants to remind His people He will not forget them or leave them. Second, her interpretation of the verse is in direct conflict with this other well known scripture :

You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord. Leviticus 19:28

This verse (together with the preceding two verses) clearly forbids God’s children from copying the practices of worshippers of other gods. Tattooing was probably practiced in ancient Egypt, and was connected with superstitious notions. Any voluntary disfigurement of the person is in itself an outrage upon God’s workmanship, and disobedience to God (Albert Barnes). This creates a contradiction between Joyce’s reading of Isaiah 49:16 and Leviticus 19:28, which should ring alarm bells in the mind of any Bible student.

Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness,
And Your law is truth.
Psalm 119:142

 Dear Reader, our God is utterly Holy, righteous and beyond fault; and that also goes for the Bible – the Word of God. When someone teaches you something that shows two scriptures in contradiction to each other they are in error, and dishonour God. If that person can teach one error, there is no saying how many errors they have already shared. This is why we must study the Word of God ourselves letting it be it’s own commentator to us, that we may beware of such false teaching.

Alan Kearns is a Christian father and grandfather from Scotland. He was raised in the mining villages of Fife and came to know Jesus as his Lord and Savior in 1984. A major influence that leads Alan to Jesus was his Christian mum, grandparents and an aunt. Alan writes regular devotionals in his blog Devotional Treasures

https://devotionaltreasure.wordpress.com/

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash