Respect, Conscience, and Culture

1 Corinthians 9:19-23

John and the Tardy Taxi Driver: I once heard the true story of a man from the United States who flew to another country on business. (We’ll call him John.) John was told that when he arrived at the destination airport, the friend of a friend, who was native to that country, would give him a ride to the hotel. John also heard that his friend’s friend had been given the time his estimated arrival.

When John arrived at his destination, he retrieved his luggage from baggage claim and quickly made his way to the outside curb, hoping to catch a fast ride to his hotel, where he would get a good meal and hot shower, then collapse into his bed. The long, grueling international flight left him thoroughly exhausted.

Yet as other passenger’s hailed taxis and connected with their rides, John kept waiting. One hour passed, and no one came. Two hours passed, and still no ride. Three hours past, then three-and-a-half.

At last, the friend of his friend arrived at the curb, where John sat wearily on his luggage, all worn out and frustrated by the waiting. Yet when he crumpled into the back seat of the car, the driver offered no apology. Nothing at all. This offended John greatly. “After making me wait so long, the least he could do is offer an apology!” John muttered under his breath.

But the driver just smiled and made small talk, as though everything was perfectly fine and normal. He asked about John’s family, his hobbies, and his reason for the trip, then he offered tips for where to dine and things to do. He even ignored his phone when it rang. When they arrived hotel at last, the driver cheerfully helped John unload his luggage, then grinned ear to ear, expressing how honored he was to serve him and that he hoped he would enjoy a wonderful stay.

Do you sympathize with John?

As you listen to this story, do you sympathize with John? Or do you feel that he was being rude, impatient, and self-absorbed? The way you answer this question will reveal how you view and practice respect.

You see, from John’s cultural vantage point, a person shows respect to another person by honoring his time. He shows up on time to an appointment, no matter who or what he must quit or leave behind to do so. To John, showing up late (esp. 3.5 hours late!) was the epitome of disrespect. But to his driver, respect requires you to give yourself 100% to the person you’re with at the moment, no matter what that means to the person you’re going to next.

In John’s case, for instance, his driver had been giving a ride to another person before John. From his cultural vantage point, it would have been disrespectful to drop what he was doing to go serve John instead. It would even have been disrespectful to interrupt what he was doing to make a phone call. Whoever he served at the moment he gave his undivided attention. When finished with that person, he would go immediately to the next person and give them the same undivided attention and wholehearted service.

How do you show respect to people?

I share this illustration to point out that no matter who we are, our cultural background and customs shape our conscience. This is true, for instance, in the way that we show respect, both to other people and to God. Here are eight examples of how our cultural background may influence the way you show respect to other people:

• Do you open gifts publicly, when the giver is present, or privately, when the giver is absent?
• Do you remove your shoes when you enter another person’s home?
• Do you avoid showing the soles of your feet in a group of people?
• Do you stand up when an older person (or a lady) enters the room?
• Do you look an older person in the eye when you speak with them or not?
• Do you (if you’re a man) open the door for a lady?
• Do you address an older person as Mr./Mrs., Sir/Ma’am, Uncle/Aunt, by surname only, or by first name?
• In a group of people, who should eat first? Children, ladies, or men?

It’s possible that within any church, especially a multiethnic one, there will be a variety of answers to these questions. In fact, to some, the way another culture answers one of these questions may even be viewed as offensive or wrong.

How do you show respect to God?

Now here are eight examples of how our cultural background may influence the way we show respect to God:

• Do you refuse to use only a paper Bible and not an electronic one?
• Do refuse to sit anything on top of your paper Bible or to place your Bible on the floor?
• Are you unable to throw away a Bible that’s old, worn out, and unusable?
• Do you have a certain type of clothing that you must always wear to church (such as a suit and tie, a formal dress, a special kind of shirt, etc.)?
• Must you fold your hands and close your eyes when you pray?
• Must you stand when you read the Bible (in private, in a small group, in a large group, always)?
• Must you call the room where a church worships something special, like a sanctuary or “God’s house,” and must we treat that room with special reverence and respect?
• Are you bothered when a person calls the front of a church the platform or a stage?

Once again, it’s possible that within any church, especially a multiethnic one, there will be a variety of answers to these questions. In fact, to some, the way another culture answers one of these questions may even be viewed as offensive or wrong. Well-meaning Christians may even leave their church for another one over one of these things or another. Having grown up as a pastor’s kid in the 80’s and 90’s and then being involved in leadership ministry of one kind or another for the past 20 years, I can tell you that I’ve witnessed this very thing with my very own eyes.

Meatballs at a Potluck Meal

In the 90’s, for instance, my father started a small country church in central Indiana. After one Sunday service, we hosted an afternoon dinner in which every family brought some food for everyone to share. After we thanked God for the food, a problem ensued. One lady got upset and started complaining to another lady because the children of the church (I don’t remember if I was one of them) had gotten food first before the adults. “After all,” she insisted, “everyone knows that the men should always get their food first and the children should go last.” To make matters worse, this lady had apparently brought a crockpot filled with barbequed meatballs which she intended for her husband and some guests to enjoy, but the children had loaded up on the meatballs before the adults had a chance to get any. This resulted in a real rift in the church.

The next Sunday, our church observed the Lord’s Table. As he customarily did, my father reminded the members to participate in a worthy manner, and if they had any grievances between each other they should make things right before they ate the bread and drank the juice. To Dad’s surprise, during a time of quiet reflection, the lady who complained about the meatballs approached the lady from a family who was guilty of eating them first and they stepped aside to talk together privately. My father was thrilled because he thought revival was taking place! When the service had ended, he spoke to the lady and asked her how the conversation had played out. To his dismay, she said, “I told the lady she and her family needed to apologize for eating the meatballs and she refused.” I’m sad to report that one of those families eventually stopped coming to the church altogether.

Embrace biblical principles of respect.

No matter what your cultural background or traditions may be, it is always important to practice biblical principles of respect. By respect, I am referring to the attitude that honors others as more important than yourself and as therefore worthy of your attention and proper response.

To be sure, this is not a popular truth today, especially in America. We are like the people that King Agur spoke about when he said, “There is a generation that curses its father, and does not bless its mother” (Prov 30:11).

We are like the generation of people that characterize the “last days” which we are living in, as Paul describes: “Know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!” (2 Tim 3:1-5).

We live in a culture and generation that respects no one and insists that everyone must earn our respect or else. We say that we respect God, but the only person we really respect is ourselves and we insist that everyone else show respect to us, though we don’t show respect to others. This is the spirit of our age, but it is not a good spirit. It is not of God’s Spirit. It is the spirit of the antichrist and the spirit of the devil masquerading as a spirit of light.

So, to emphasize the importance to which God gives the principle of respect, let’s consider the following examples from Scripture:

• Children should respect their parents (Deut 5:16; Eph 6:2).
• Wives should respect their husbands (Eph 5:33; 1 Pet 3:1-6).
• Husbands should respect to their wives (1 Pet 3:7).
• Church members should show mutual respect to one another (Eph 5:21; Phil 2:3).
• Younger church members should respect to older church members (1 Pet 5:5).
• All people should respect their government officials (Rom 13:1-7; 1 Pet 2:13-17).
• Servants and employees should respect masters and employers (Eph 6:5-8; 1 Pet 2:18).
• Masters and employers should respect to servants and employees (Eph 6:9; Col 4:1).
• Church members should respect their pastors (1 Tim 5:17; Heb 13:17).
• We should show respect to all people (1 Pet 2:17).
• Most importantly, we should show respect to God above all (Psa 34:11; Eccl 12:13; 1 Pet 2:17).

Having walked through this list, we have recognized the fact that God expects us to take the principle of respect to heart on a very broad scale – even when it’s culturally out-of-touch, apparently undeserved, and offered to imperfect people. This list of biblical references covers all sorts of relationships that we must take to heart.

What’s more, if you go back to study any one of these scenarios that require us to show respect, you will discover that the Bible gives some helpful explanations and clarifications about how to show respect in each case. Obey your parents, pay your taxes, protect your wife, and so on.

Yet here’s what I want to emphasize in this study. Though we must embrace the principle of godly respect (out of a deep respect for God most of all), we must know what the Bible says this respect requires. It is primarily an attitude of the heart but it also entails certain actions. Yet there is also an aspect in which those actions will vary from culture to culture, from church to church, and from family to family in specific ways. So, how should we handle such differences in a diverse group like the church?

Be flexible in your expectations and expressions of respect.

Now, this is true for any other matter of difference between cultures that is not a matter of sin and disobedience before God. For instance, if one culture believes it’s okay to kill the widow of a man who died of natural causes by burying her with his corpse in his grave, we can’t simply dismiss this as a cultural difference, can we? This is a clear violation of God’s command, “Do not murder.”

But what if your culture teaches you that it’s disrespectful to look an older person in the eye when you speak with them? And what if another culture teaches the opposite, that it’s disrespectful to *not* look an older person in the eye when you speak with them? This is a good example of how we need to be flexible – recognizing that each of our consciences may understand the way we show respect differently. Therefore, we should be flexible in both our expectations of how to receive respect and our ways of expressing respect to others.

Paul describes this important, Christlike attitude in 1 Cor 9:19-21: “Though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law.”

What he’s saying here is this. He’s saying that he has worked very hard to align his conscience with Scripture, with God’s Word. He’s done this to such a degree that he’s able to stand firm on what really matters, while also being very flexible on everything else.

If he was around Jewish people, he would have no problem eating kosher foods, following Jewish hygiene protocols, observing Jewish holidays, and so on. But if he was around non-Jewish people from other cultures, he had no problem abandoning those Jewish customs and traditions, and he had no problem eating Gentile foods, following looser hygienic practices, and speaking about things which they enjoyed. (Consider, for instance, how he mixed in pagan philosophers and poets into his teachings and how he even referred to non-Jewish entertainment and sporting events like boxing, wrestling, and long-distance running.)

You see, Paul lived in a way that respected God first. If God said that something was sin, it was sin. Paul never used his liberty in Christ as an excuse to disrespect God by sinning or to do “whatever he wanted to do.” No, he used his liberty in Christ to be flexible on all the things that were truly flexible. For instance, if he was around a culture that used eye contact as a form of respect, he would give eye contact. If he was around a culture that avoided eye contact as a form of respect, he would avoid eye contact. That’s the idea.

Paul was liberated from his preferences for the benefit of the gospel.

In fact, you might say that Paul viewed his liberty in Christ as being liberated from his own cultural traditions and customary background. He was able to tell the difference between what was right and wrong and what was simply customary in a particular time and place. Are we able to do the same? Or do we have certain pet customs and traditions that we insist upon, which we expect others to follow or we insist on doing ourselves no matter what other people think about it. Being flexible for Jesus is a mark that you have truly learned what it means to die to yourself for the benefit of others.

Why did Paul live this way? We see the answer to that in 1 Cor 9:22-23, which says: “To the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.” He learned to be very flexible on anything that wasn’t important so that he would be able to win (“or gain”) people for Jesus.

Paul allowed himself to be flexible on literally “all sorts of things” so that he could save (or “deliver” people from their enslavement to sin into the kingdom of God) from “all sorts of avenues.” And why did he do this? “For the gospel’s sake,” because reaching people with the gospel was more important to him than preserving his personal preferences and pet traditions. Because he wanted to be a partner, partaker, sharer, and fellow participant with all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds through the common bond of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

As a church, let’s embrace the principle of respect in all our relationships as the Bible clearly teaches. But let’s also be flexible in how we expect to receive that respect and how we intend to express it to others. Let’s be committed to what the Bible clearly says about this and then distinguish that from our personal and cultural traditions. By doing this, we’ll be able to serve Christ together in a far better, more united way. And the same is true for all sorts of other cultural traditions as well.

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Thomas Overmiller serves as pastor for Faith Baptist Church in Corona, NY and blogs at Shepherd Thoughts. This article first appeared at Shepherd Thoughts, used here with permission.