Good morning everyone, MB here. Today I’m going to tackle one of the biggest theological issues that I have heard about and witnessed in practice in my short time following Christ. It’s the concept of “drawing a bloodline”

when I first heard about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I was much younger. I was about eight years old. I had never heard that phrase in church at that time all the way up to when I was 16 and I drifted away from the faith.

Not once had I heard the leader of my church saying “I draw a bloodline around…”

I heard the leader pray for people many times, yes, but that phrase was never used. I heard prayers for protection, I heard prayers for healing, I heard prayers for deliverance… I heard many kinds of prayers, but that concept was never mentioned.

Fast forward a decade or two, and you find the me of the past few years starting to hear this verbiage more and more; a few of the pastors I found online tend to say it a lot, for example. Since hearing it, I have been questioning it greatly.

Which has led me to research the topic and today I want to share with you my findings, in hopes that you will do some of your own research and come to your own conclusion about the church you are in, should they be a church that uses this verbiage.

Apparently… This verbiage has some sort of very loose and out-of-context basis to it; from reading the scriptures, you can only see a very tentative connection if any at all. I personally don’t see one.

It apparently comes from the story of Passover (exodus 12) and the story of rahab the prostitute (Joshua 2)

these two stories are great examples of God’s mercy, love, power and faithfulness.

However, nowhere in these stories or in any portion of the Bible, for that matter is the term “draw a bloodline around…” ever used.

In the story of Passover, which is the stronger of the two backup scriptures for the bloodline concept, the blood of a lamb is used to mark the doorways of the homes of the Israelites in Egypt. It is used as a signal to God’s angel of death to skip over or pass over the houses of the Israelites. Anyone who did not put the blood of a lamb on their door would have had their house visited by death.

This was during the 10th plague of Egypt, the death of all the first born.

If the Hebrews did not put the blood on their doorways, the angel of death would carry out the plague upon them just like they were the Egyptians.

The way I have learned to look at that portion of scripture is that that show of mercy also shows what Jesus’s blood does for us. “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23)

this scripture tells you plainly that if you sin, you die; that is what’s due to you, that is your wage for your actions. But the blood of Jesus saves us from that eternal consequence.

In my eyes, the story of passover also shows that Jesus is the eternal passover lamb.

Accepting his sacrifice on the cross for the propitiation of our sins leaves his blood on us. And because of that, the wages of our sins…death, will pass over us.

The next portion of scripture, the story of rahab found in Joshua 2 is significantly weaker as a support for the bloodline doctrine, but it is still used as such.

In this story, rahab a prostitute in the city of Jericho saves two Israelite spies sent by Moses from being captured by hiding them in her house. She does so because she has heard the stories of the Israelites and their God. She asks the two men that she hid to swear that they will spare her and her family when they come to conquer Jericho, to which they agree in the following scriptures found in Joshua 2.

 18 Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and you shall gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your father’s household. 

19 Then if anyone goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we shall be guiltless. But if a hand is laid on anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head. 

This was a vow that they made to rahab to protect her and her family during the Israelite siege of Jericho. I say that this is the weakest of the two scriptures that support bloodline doctrine because this has no mention of blood but instead a scarlet cord.

It is also a promise that was made to a single individual and her family. From what I understand, the bloodline doctrine is supposed to be protection from demonic happenings. It sounds all well and good, but it is not supported by scripture.

The only place I could actually find anything about drawing a bloodline around someone was actually in texts about blood magic, witchcraft.  

Before I present my findings for this, I want to say that I do not study witchcraft, nor will I because it is against our Lord and Savior. It spits in the face of our almighty God. With that being said, this is what I found.

Drawing a blood line or circle around someone is a specific practice within blood magic, which is a branch of witchcraft and occultism. (Source: Wikipedia and others, see below)

Purpose and Function (from Wikipedia)

In magical traditions, this act is typically used for:

    •    Protection: Creating a “blood circle” or boundary acts as an energetic shield to ward off harmful entities or negative spirits.

    •    Binding: Using blood to draw a line can create a “tether” or unbreakable spiritual bond between people or between a practitioner and their spell.

    •    Sacred Space: Marking a perimeter with blood can hallow or consecrate a space, separating it from the mundane world for ritual use. 

Context within Witchcraft (more wiki)

While the concept exists, its practice varies significantly across different paths:

    •    Modern Witchcraft: Many contemporary practitioners (such as Wiccans) avoid actual blood, viewing it as “not beginner friendly” or ethically complex. They may use symbolic substitutes like red ink or wine.

    •    Chaos Magic and Traditionalism: Some practitioners use small amounts of their own blood (e.g., a finger prick) to add personal intensity or “life force” to a ritual.

    •    Ethics: Modern occultism heavily emphasizes consent; using someone else’s blood without permission is considered harmful or “dark” magic. 

Historically, similar practices of drawing magic circles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_circle) for protection—sometimes using sacrificial blood—appeared in ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Norse traditions. (End Wikipedia snippets)

Now, obviously, this is different to speaking the phrase “i/we draw a bloodline around….” because it doesn’t use actual blood like witchcraft does.

However, the “Christian” practice of drawing a bloodline around someone for protection is a modern interpretation rooted in the belief in the power of Jesus’s blood.

This practice IS NOT part of traditional Christian doctrine; it emerged in the 20th century, particularly among Pentecostals and charismatic groups.

It involves drawing a line around a person or property while invoking the blood of Jesus to provide spiritual protection.

Read that again… It involves drawing a circle around a person or property… which is a component of witchcraft as written above.

If they weren’t doing this in the first century, if it’s not written in the Bible, as something we should do, why are we doing it?

To me, this seems like a seed planted in modern Christian doctrine by the devil himself.

It seems like it was put there as a gateway for much worse practices to show up down the line, as they have begun to do so in recent years.

It’s a way to cast doubt on true Christian doctrine and the traditions therein.

It’s a way to begin to dismantle the bridge that Jesus built through his death and resurrection.

In closing, I say this… In scripture, Jesus says “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” This can be found in the book of John chapter 14 verse 13.

His name is what has power.

His name is what drives God the father to move when our prayers align to his will.

Invoking the power of Jesus’s blood like it is some sort of magical spell does not do anything.

It’s theatrical showmanship that is a poison to true doctrine, theology, and tradition.