How Do We Respect Others While Rejecting Their False Beliefs?
00:00:00.000 | How do we honor people around us who hold to false ideas about God?
00:00:09.840 | The question is specific, but it opens a broader discussion I think is relevant for all of
00:00:14.320 | us.
00:00:15.320 | The question itself comes from a listener in Sri Lanka, a man who writes in, "Dear
00:00:19.720 | Pastor John, we Christians are a minority in a predominantly Buddhist country.
00:00:25.400 | Bowing before a Buddhist priest with both hands folded is how the Buddhist clergy are
00:00:30.640 | greeted in our culture.
00:00:33.360 | Buddhists themselves will often bow face down before the priests.
00:00:37.560 | As Christians, some of us are uncomfortable with this.
00:00:40.480 | We haven't found clear direction from Scripture here.
00:00:43.560 | Could you help us honor the Lord and His name in our land?"
00:00:47.480 | Well, I love getting questions from situations and relationships and places that are so different
00:00:54.560 | from my own.
00:00:56.000 | It helps me realize how provincial I am in some of the things I deal with, and yet how
00:01:05.760 | universal and relevant Christ and His Word are everywhere in the world.
00:01:12.400 | It's a thrilling thing to me to think that somebody in Sri Lanka might think that a pastor
00:01:19.760 | sitting in a room in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 10,000 miles away, might have something from
00:01:26.520 | God's Word to say that would be useful in that culture.
00:01:30.280 | That's just stunning to me, and I hope it is.
00:01:34.520 | I consider myself a little presumptuous even to make any effort here, but if I can just
00:01:40.440 | stick close to God's Word, perhaps God would make it useful.
00:01:44.920 | So the way I pose the question to myself is, "How can I honor—how can we—I'm thinking
00:01:50.480 | myself and this Christian in the same boat—how can we honor two kinds of teaching in the
00:01:56.560 | New Testament that together, no matter how much tension we may feel between them, should—both,
00:02:03.040 | both of them—should shape our relationships with people in other religions, whether in
00:02:09.160 | America or in Sri Lanka, including the leaders of those religions?
00:02:14.320 | In this case, we're thinking about a Buddhist priest.
00:02:18.440 | So here are the two kinds of teaching I have in mind.
00:02:20.800 | On the one hand, Peter tells us in 1 Peter 2:17, "Honor everyone.
00:02:28.520 | Love the brotherhood.
00:02:29.520 | Fear God.
00:02:30.520 | Honor the emperor."
00:02:31.900 | So there is a kind of honor that Christians show to everyone, simply because they're
00:02:38.120 | human, made in the image of God, and because they're potential brothers and sisters.
00:02:42.840 | We would love it if they would be our brothers and sisters forever.
00:02:47.440 | We would be delighted, and we should try to help them feel we would be delighted if you
00:02:53.120 | would join us in everlasting joy and submission to Jesus Christ.
00:02:58.600 | Secondly, there's a special kind of love and affection and bond that exists between
00:03:03.760 | Christian brothers and sisters.
00:03:05.880 | And third, there's an absolutely unique kind of respect and reverence and submission
00:03:11.880 | that we owe God, the Creator and Sustainer and Redeemer.
00:03:17.160 | And fourth, there's a peculiar honor—same word is used at the end of that verse for
00:03:22.440 | honor the emperor—there's a peculiar honor that we pay for those whom God has put in
00:03:30.320 | civil authority over us as we are exiles and sojourners in the world.
00:03:37.960 | Now the Buddhist priests in Sri Lanka are not Christian brothers, so they're not in
00:03:43.520 | that category.
00:03:44.520 | They're not civil authorities, I presume.
00:03:47.680 | I don't know my cultural story that well, but I'm assuming they are not in the role
00:03:53.040 | of governors and kings and princes.
00:03:57.160 | They are, however, human.
00:03:59.680 | And so there is a kind of honor or respect that Christians will show them, and I'll
00:04:05.640 | come back in a minute to try to flesh that out just a little bit.
00:04:09.500 | So that's the first kind of teaching that we have in the New Testament—honor all people.
00:04:15.120 | Here's the second kind of teaching.
00:04:19.920 | It cautions us against three things.
00:04:24.040 | The New Testament says we should not do or say anything that would cause immature or
00:04:32.480 | unstable Christian believers to stumble into doubt or unbelief or disobedience.
00:04:38.000 | And I'm thinking of 1 Corinthians 8, 4-7.
00:04:43.300 | As to the eating of food offered to idols, you could say, or the bowing before Buddhist
00:04:49.760 | priests, as to the bowing before Buddhist priests, we know that an idol or a Buddhist
00:04:56.920 | priest and what he represents has no real existence.
00:05:00.860 | That is, what he stands for has no real existence, and there is no god but one.
00:05:06.960 | However, not all possess this knowledge, but some, through former association with idols
00:05:12.160 | or with Buddhist temples and priests, eat food as really offered to an idol—that is,
00:05:18.680 | bow as really honoring what those priests stand for.
00:05:22.360 | And their conscience, being weak, is defiled.
00:05:25.420 | So in that text, it seems to me, for the sake of such younger or immature or weaker believers,
00:05:34.680 | we who might have the freedom to pay a Buddhist priest some kind of respect and not intend
00:05:42.000 | anything religious by it, should probably avoid such public symbols of religious honor
00:05:48.440 | for the sake of the weaker brothers.
00:05:51.040 | So that's one warning.
00:05:52.400 | Here's the second warning.
00:05:54.720 | The New Testament says we should not do things or say things or relate to people in a way
00:05:59.960 | that would blur the distinctions between Christ and his way of salvation, on the one hand,
00:06:06.760 | and the teachings of other religions, on the other.
00:06:09.000 | I'm thinking of 2 Corinthians 6, 14-18.
00:06:13.060 | Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship has light with darkness?
00:06:20.100 | What accord has Christ with Belial or with Buddha?
00:06:24.600 | Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?
00:06:29.760 | What agreement has the temple of God with idols?
00:06:33.860 | Therefore go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord.
00:06:38.840 | I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Almighty.
00:06:44.900 | Now the point of those rhetorical questions seems to be that we shouldn't give the impression
00:06:52.900 | of having more in common with another religion than we really do.
00:06:59.540 | So we need to find ways of distinguishing ourselves from the religion that we have come
00:07:06.940 | out of so as to make the differences clearer rather than blurry or obscure.
00:07:14.260 | And here's the third warning that the New Testament gives.
00:07:18.500 | Actually, the New Testament says positively that we do and say things that would make
00:07:27.420 | clear the unique and necessary gospel of the grace of God.
00:07:32.180 | I'm thinking Acts 20-24 where Paul says, "I do not account my life of any value or as precious
00:07:39.420 | to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the
00:07:45.660 | Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God."
00:07:51.480 | So this is the great goal, to give and to speak—that is, to give testimony, to give
00:07:56.980 | clear evidence and to speak so as to make our witness to the gospel of the grace of
00:08:04.860 | God crystal clear, even if it costs us our lives.
00:08:10.620 | So those are the two kinds of teaching in the New Testament that we need to follow.
00:08:15.980 | The one stresses honor all persons, including Buddhist priests, and the other stresses that
00:08:23.100 | we need to maintain separation and distinction from our former religion.
00:08:29.460 | So let me end by returning to what that honor of a Buddhist priest might look like.
00:08:37.620 | Seems to me that there are probably in every culture ways to show respect for people as
00:08:46.740 | people but not for what they stand for.
00:08:50.660 | Now that's a real challenge, but there's the challenge—respect for people as people
00:08:55.300 | but not for what they stand for.
00:08:57.860 | That's the cultural challenge, not just in Sri Lanka, but right here in Minneapolis.
00:09:04.500 | And I don't live in Sri Lanka, and I'm not sure exactly what that's going to look
00:09:08.580 | like there, but it would at least look something like this.
00:09:13.820 | We don't act in a mean-spirited way.
00:09:18.220 | We seek to avoid pride and self-exaltation.
00:09:24.100 | We don't act in a way to shun a personal relationship as if we hold a person in contempt.
00:09:32.980 | We seek to be outgoing in our testimony to the grace of God.
00:09:38.300 | We stand ready to lay our lives down for the good of others, including others of different
00:09:46.540 | religions.
00:09:48.000 | We stand ready to serve.
00:09:50.780 | Paul talks about counting others more significant than ourselves, and I think he means by that
00:09:56.140 | stand ready to serve them, get down low, and do good things for them in the paths of love.
00:10:04.240 | But we do not send signals—cultural signals, personal signals—that the difference between
00:10:12.940 | us is minor, or what the priest stands for in his religion is admirable or true or helpful
00:10:21.900 | when it's not.
00:10:23.620 | It is, in fact, eternally destructive.
00:10:27.420 | So there's the challenge.
00:10:28.700 | One set of teachings, find a way to personally honor a priest who is created in the image
00:10:35.540 | of God in at least those ways, and find a way to communicate that we do not share these
00:10:45.580 | religious convictions with you.
00:10:47.580 | That's good counsel for a difficult scenario, and one faced by all of us in various ways.
00:10:53.500 | Thanks for the response, Pastor John, and thanks for the excellent question.
00:10:56.620 | We get a lot of really good questions coming in now from international listeners, and we
00:11:00.300 | really appreciate it.
00:11:01.940 | Thank you for sending those in.
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00:11:26.460 | Well, the Apostle Paul is pretty clear.
00:11:29.460 | Long hair on men is just plain wrong.
00:11:33.540 | It's wrong because it violates nature.
00:11:37.180 | But isn't nature why men can grow long hair in the first place?
00:11:42.220 | So how can Paul argue from nature against long hair on men?
00:11:47.460 | That's actually a really good question, and it's next time on Monday when we return.
00:11:52.380 | I'm your host, Tony Reiki.
00:11:53.380 | Thanks for listening to the podcast.
00:11:55.180 | Have a great weekend.
00:11:56.180 | [END]
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