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| PUTTING OUT THE REAL DEAL |
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| I was surfing the Internet recently, and came across a message posted on one of the message boards. This particular message happened to catch my eye, "Tattoo's what does the Bible say about them"? A young lady was seeking information on what the Bible had to say on the subject. I have one (two actually), and I have read what the scriptures say concerning them. Needless to say, I opened the message to see what my fellow brother in Christ had to say to her. I expected to find the quote out of the Old Testament, Leviticus 19:28 "You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the LORD". The scripture was there, along with the personal thoughts of the man replying to her. Things looked ok, except there wasn't any education to the young lady concerning the, who, what, when, where, and why. They sounded as if they were the personal thoughts of a man, a man that was trying to impose his personal beliefs on others. No surprise really, fore I have become accustomed to being looked down on due to the marks on my body, at least from persons who has none, by both self-confessed Christians and non-believers alike. |
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| What's my point, you ask? My point is this, we are taught in 2 Timothy 2:15 "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth". To study, we must research our subject. Too many present day messengers of God's word turn too many unsaved persons away from His true love and forgiveness. The same is true of untold numbers of congregation members in churches around the world. At times it's unintentional, other times, intentional, because of the lack of understanding of God's word and taking things "out of context". Why must others look down their noses? What would Jesus do? |
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| Thinking on what I had read over a period of several weeks, the whole subject of the young lady really ate at me. I had to start asking questions so I could answer them. Who wrote the book of Leviticus? Where did it come from? Who were the people that it applied to? To answer those questions, I too had to refer to the Holy Scriptures and research the subject to refresh my own memory. We know that it was written by Moses and gets its name from the Septuagint. It means "relating to the Levites". The Leviets were put in charge of all religious services for the Israelites. To my knowledge, the Israelite's were God's chosen people, commonly referred today as the Jews. Now, from my study and education, the Holy Scriptures, all tell us that the folks referred to as "God's chosen people" fell under the Mosaic Law. What's my point? Since I am a gentile (non-Jew), and did not live before Jesus was born, I am not under that law. I fall under the "New Covenant" and I'm so very thankful that I am. Meaning what? Leviticus is a nice history lesson, not necessarily a rulebook for a Gentile! Now do you get my meaning? |
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| It's kind of funny in a strange sort of way because in Leviticus 19:27 it says "Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard". Makes me wonder if my fellow brother in Christ looks like a stereotypical rock-n-roll artist like the gentelmen in ZZ Top! We must all be very careful not to judge our brothers; judgement is reserved for God alone. The old saying goes, "you can't judge a book by its' cover" is so true. As believers of the Gospel, Christians, and especially ministers, we have special warnings to us to not leading his flock astray. How can we lead them astray? By putting out the word in a way that wasn't intended to be. We need to ensure that the word of God we put out to the world isn't jaded. And my fellow ministers, since we have to be held accountable to a higher standard, why would we even chance having judgment, severe judgement, imposed on us by trying to impose our personal beliefs on someone in the name of our Father? |
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| I'll close by giving you all what I consider sound advice. Before any Christian, minister, deacon, church elder, etc., does anything that relates to the Father, we need to pray for His guidance on where He would have us take His message. By doing so, the Holy Spirit will lead us to the way that would be pleasing to the Father. Let's make sure that others can differentiate what are "our" personal thoughts on a subject, and what is the scriptural Word of God. |
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| Brother Jay |
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