Should a 19 Year Old Get A Tattoo?

A 19 year old who is still living with his parents wrote to Dr. Russell Moore and asked a legitimate question about getting a tattoo.  Read the question and Dr. Moore’s incredibly gracious and wise response below. 

Dear Dr. Moore,

I want to get a tattoo. I’d like it on my stomach, with a cross,
with the words, “Flee Immorality: You Were Bought with a Price.” I’d
like this as a measure of accountability for myself as the years go by,
in case the zeal I have for the gospel ever wains and I’m ever in a
place of temptation this will be an ever-present reminder of what I
know to be true.

I am really convicted that this is what the Lord would have me to do. Here’s my problem.

I am 19 years old and a college student. I live at home
with my parents. I work and pay for my own school, but I live with
them. I love my parents and truly believe I honor them, but where does
“honor your Father and mother” end? I really believe this is an issue
of obedience in doing what the Lord seems to be directing me to do.

You probably agree with my parents that I shouldn’t get the
tattoo and I can respect that. I’ve thought it all through. My question
isn’t whether I should get the tattoo; it’s whether I’d be sinning
against God and my parents if I did it.

If I am under their authority right now, when does that end?
When I’m 21? When I’m out of the house? Or does it ever end, when it
comes to making decisions like this?

Sincerely,

Bought with a Price

Dear Bought,

First of all, I hope my sons grow up to be like you, in all sorts of
ways seen in this question. Your letter evidences a lot of commendable
qualities: a desire to identify yourself radically with Christ, the
recognition that you must protect yourself from your own potential
future rebellion, concern for honoring your father and mother.

The command to honor father and mother never ends. It is part of the
holy will of God, and is applicable to every person, regardless of age.
When your ninety, you’ll still have an obligation to honor your
parents, even if only in memory and in speech. The way one honors one’s
parents changes, though, throughout the span of life. Jesus lived this
life before you. His honoring of his father Joseph and his blessed
mother Mary was of obedience in all things in childhood (Lk. 2:51), of
listening to pleas for help in adulthood (Jn. 2:1-5), and of caring for
weakness at the end of life (Jn. 19:26-27). All of this was an honoring
of father and mother.

What you’re asking is less about Exodus 20 than about Ephesians 6.
When does your obedience to parents end or, better put, when are you
responsible for making your own decisions.

It isn’t at eighteen. The Bible never puts eighteen or twenty-one as
some arbitrary mark between childhood and maturity. Instead, in
Scripture, maturity is less a chronological or biological matter than
an economic one. When are you able to establish a household, a
household for which you are responsible. The creation pattern is that a
man is equipped to provide for his household (Gen. 2:15). He then
“leaves father and mother” as he cleaves to his wife and forms (within
the larger tribe) a new household (Gen. 2:24).

Between childhood and maturity, your parents are working to prepare
you for this responsibility, handing over more and more of it to you as
you prepare to give yourself over for the provision and protection of a
wife and family (Eph. 5) or for the sake of the mission (1 Cor. 7).

In Scripture, submission of any kind has limits. If your parents
demanded you to sin against God, you couldn’t do it. But that’s not
what they’ve done.

It seems to me, though, that this is less about obedience than about listening to wisdom. And I think your parents are right.

I’m not making an anti-tattoo statement here. Whether tattoos are
permissible for followers of Jesus is debatable, but really extraneous
to this discussion. Your parents understand, I’m sure, your zeal.
They’re also though able to imagine a fuller arc of life than you can
right now. They know there are a lot of things one can decide at
eighteen that one would see differently at a later time.

A tattoo is (apart from expensive, extensive work) a permanent
decision, a permanent decision made by a very young man that his older
self, his wife, his children, and everyone in his life will, in some
way, have to live with.

It may be that getting this tattoo is precisely what you ought to
do. If so, then work toward being on your own, cultivating the maturity
and the wisdom to hear outside counsel and to think this through with
the mind of Christ. In the meantime, though, be a sign of the gospel by
submitting to your parents even in something in which you think they’re
short-sighted. Submission, after all, isn’t to things one readily sees
as good ideas; that’s called “agreement.” Submission is often in
matters in which one thinks one knows better. God will bless that.

One more thing: a tattoo won’t stop you from wrecking your life, no
matter what it says. The rebellious heart gets what it wants, and will
do what it takes to get there. An immoral man can easily scoff at the
tattoo, or even blaspheme as a result of it in the throes of his
rebellion. Instead of working to embed the gospel on your skin, embed
it on your conscience. Cultivate repentance, confession, and seeking
the life of Christ. The answer for you isn’t your own skin ink but
Someone Else’s nail scars.