Pastor Carl Lentz, leader of Hillsong Church New York, said the Old Testament Bible verse banning tattoos does not apply to life today.
Lentz was asked about his views on tattoos in a recent interview with World Religion News and responded with the importance that Biblical interpretation plays in the issue.
He referred to Leviticus 19:28: "Do not cut your bodies for the dead, and do not mark your skin with tattoos. I am the LORD."
He said: "...We say that is the Old Testament scripture; there is no New Testament verification of that.
"That law that had to do with slaves, that identified you as part of a tribe we don't believe that came through the cross.
"We don't believe that when Jesus died and rose again that old Levitical scripture applied to our modern life. That is ridiculous."
He added that there are some things carried from the Old Testament to the New Testament and those rules should be obeyed and are "eternal".
"Are you kidding me?," he asked. "Jesus was pretty clear in every detail... that stuff died on the cross."
He said the issue is also a matter of personal conviction and that his belief on the issue is not "theology or doctrine".
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Article by Tola Mbakwe
Tola Mbakwe is a multimedia journalist for Premier.
