You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord. Leviticus 19:28 ESV https://bible.com/bible/59/lev.19.28.ESV It's becoming increasingly popular to have tattoos of Bible verses. I've never yet seen a tattoo of Leviticus 19:28! Leviticus can be hard to unpick: does it matter if we have tattoos nowadays? Tattoos will have been a symbol of pagan unbelief in God the Creator. If tattoos were an improvement to our skin, God will have given us them in the first place. The proliferation of tattoos even amongst professing Christians today illustrates how ungodly the professing Church is, in my opinion. Clearly, we have to contextualise Leviticus. The food laws for example have been abolished by Jesus, when He pronounced all foods to be clean. Yet this verse refers to self harm as well, which we should clearly continue to discourage. In the context of the chapter, this is the one that commands us to love our neighbours. Does getting a tat...
But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.Exodus 9:16 ESVhttps://bible.com/bible/59/exo.9.16.ESV Secular historians point to the lack of extra-biblical evidence of Hebrew slavery in Egypt and ensuing exodus. But here in this verse, God describes how this anonymous Pharoah has been immortalised in the annals of the Hebrews, so that God is proclaimed in all the earth. The mighty men of the world might think they can stand against God and win, but resistance is futile! The more stubborn Pharoah was, the more the Lord was able to display His power. The more insistent Pharoah was of keeping his slaves, the more unreasonable he appeared. It was a battle of wills, and the will of Yahweh prevailed. In the end, Pharoah will have been broken by the plagues. In the final plague, his own firstborn son was killed, the next in line to the throne of the world superpower. He might have tried to put a brave...
Ezra 10:2 ESV And Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, addressed Ezra: “We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. God's people were at a low ebb. Although they were restored to the promised land, they were still in thrall to their Persian occupiers. Instead of committing to God, they had adulterated themselves with the unbelieving people around them. We might wonder what this has to do with us. Even in the new covenant era, we're commanded not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. In other words, it's wrong for a Christian to marry a pagan. Ezra had led his people in a powerful prayer of repentance. It seemed to have had the desired effect. The people reacted well, as this verse begins to reveal. The people confessed their sin, but they didn't wallow in it. They don't nurse the hurt and indulge the misery. They were hopeful God would have mer...
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