How do we honor people around us who hold to false ideas about God?

The question is specific, but it opens a broader discussion, I think it's relevant for

all of us.

The question itself comes from a listener in Sri Lanka, a man who writes in Dear Pastor

John, we Christians are a minority in a predominantly Buddhist country.

Bowing before a Buddhist priest with both hands folded is how the Buddhist clergy are

greeted in our culture.

Buddhists themselves will often bow face down before the priests.

As Christians, some of us are uncomfortable with this.

We haven't found clear direction from Scripture here.

Could you help us honor the Lord and His name in our land?

Well, I love getting questions from situations and relationships in places that are so different

from my own.

It helps me realize how provincial I am in some of the things I deal with and yet how universal

and relevant Christ and His Word are everywhere in the world.

It's a thrilling thing to me to think that somebody in Sri Lanka might think that a pastor

sitting in a room in Minneapolis, Minnesota, like 10,000 miles away, might have something

from God's Word to say that would be useful in that culture.

That's just stunning to me and I hope it is.

I consider myself a little presumptuous even to make any effort here, but if I can just

stick close to God's Word, perhaps God would make it useful.

So the way I pose the question to myself is how can I honor, how can we, how I'm thinking

...