Ben Higgins is one of the nicest Bachelors around — he’s sweet, he’s quiet, and he seems (so far) to be a good listener. I have a secret to tell you all — Ben has a little bit of a wild streak in him. It’s true. This “nice guy” Bachelor isn’t as nice as you thought. He has… I’m just going to say it… this is hard for me… a tattoo. The humanity! But while you sit there wondering how Ben of all people ended up inked, I'm a little more focused on what Ben Higgins’ tattoo means.
Of course, I'm being ridiculous here. It’s pretty common for people to sport some ink these days, and most seasons of The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and Bachelor In Paradise are basically tattoo exhibitions because the contestants have so much body art. Remember all of JJ’s and Joshua’s tattoos on the last season of Bachelor In Paradise? They should have just had an in-house laser tattoo removal parlor in Mexico with them. Chris Harrison even made fun of the egregious body art on an episode of Bachelor Live last summer. The interesting thing about Ben Higgins' is that he doesn’t really look like they type of guy to have any tattoos, but his ink has a special meaning — It’s a reflection of his Christian faith. I don’t think that Harrison could make fun of this one (though I give him full permission to keep poking fun at the really bad ones on other contestants).
According to Ok Here Is The Situation, Ben served as a director for a faith-based volunteer association in Peru while he was in college, and while still living in his hometown, he was an intern at the Warsaw Community Church. Ben’s tattoo is from the Bible (Proverbs 16:3, to be exact), and it says, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” I think the meaning here is pretty straight forward, folks: Ben is leaving his future path up to God and his faith.
Interestingly enough, the tattoo is actually incorrect. On the Channel 33 podcast, Ben let it slip that the artist who did his tattoo made an error at the time of inking. You see, the tattoo has an extra “4” in it — it says “Proverbs 16:34” and not “Proverbs 16:3,” as Ben had intended. Apparently the artist was confused by Ben’s spacing and included the written out “4” that Ben had meant to designate a fourth line of text. Woops. Luckily, Ben went back to the tattoo parlor, got some of his dough back, and then got them to cover up the “4” with a cross.
Ben is obviously really religious, but that fact hasn’t appeared to affect anything in his season of The Bachelor. When I first realized that he was going to be the man handing out the roses, I thought perhaps he would inject more of his faith into the show, as Sean Lowe and Jake Pavelka did on theirs, but nope. Ben has largely left his faith out of the series and focused on being just an average guy — well as average as one can be when he’s on a television show dating 25 women and looking to bring home a wife.
Images: Rick Rowell/ABC; ABC
