So, you think you can dance? Then, do-si-do even though your partner has too many toes.
Peter addresses women married to unbelieving husbands who “do not obey the word.”
The Command
He commands them, “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands” (1 Peter 3:1). She submits first to Christ before submitting to her husband. Like Christ, she will not respond with sinful actions or return reviling with angry threats. She will die to her own sin and live for righteousness as she submits by faith to “the Shepherd and Overseer” of her soul (2:22–25). Her submission is not dependent on her husband’s character, for she first submits to Christ.
The Motivation
In the first century, Christian wives meant trouble for pagan husbands as they worshiped a strange God and lived by biblical moral standards. So, Peter calls them to place themselves beneath their husband’s authority that “they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct” (3:1b–2). Christian wife, let actions translate the gospel into a language your husband understands (2:12). Win his eye before you win his ear. Never stop proclaiming Christ (v. 9) but be prayerfully discerning to speak of Jesus without excessive, nagging, pressure-filled words. No unbelieving husband gets hen-pecked into heaven.
A Christian wife remains “respectful and pure” as she submits to her husband in fear of the Lord. Her holiness counters his unbelief. She doesn’t criticize, argue, or revile in return. She does not sin if he tells her to sin nor does she tolerate abuse. Submission does not mean you leave your brain at the altar or put his will before the will of Christ. Jesus must be your Lord, so don’t replace him with your husband. Instead, adorn the gospel with “a gentle and quiet spirit,” for the way your treat your husband reveals how well you love the Lord.
Peter continues, “Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (3:3-4). The Greco-Roman women in Peter’s day would dress seductively and fashion ostentatious hairdos. Yet they had many insecurities and obsessions with external beauty like women often have today. Some even equated physical attractiveness to the measure of their husband’s love.
Peter addresses the Christian wife, “Don’t focus on outward adornment or think that the best way to please your husband is to spend all day at the beauty parlor.” He’s not saying such accoutrements were forbidden or that women should be drabby for Jesus. If you sit around in pajamas all day and neglect your personal hygiene, you might drive your husband not just away from you but also away from Christ. Peter simply warns against placing your trust in accessorizing as the means to a happy marriage because, at some point, the money runs out, fashions change, or a woman ages. Even if she’s got it all, it still might fail to satisfy her husband. So, cultivate beauty that can’t be seen, but never perishes. Get dressed each day from the inside-out and grow more beautiful with age as you grow in godliness. Your “adornment” will be makeup that makes God lovely to your husband. Your gentleness will display the Spirit’s fruit and your lasting hope may win your husband’s heart (vv. 15–16). More valuable than gold, jewels, and fancy clothes, the Lord delights in being fully trusted by his beloved daughters.
The Example
Peter then highlights Old Testament women whose inner beauty set them apart as holy: “For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening” (vv. 5–6). These women placed their hope in God—not in their husbands’ strength or intellect or spiritual qualities. And Peter’s prime example was that of Sarah. Though not the paradigm of submission that many would have chosen, Sarah married the father of God’s covenant people. So, any believing man would be “Abraham’s son” and any believing woman would be “Sarah’s daughter.”
Peter recalls how the Lord had just informed Abraham he would be a first-time father at the ripe, old age of 100. As Sarah eavesdropped, the thought of pregnancy at 90 seemed so ridiculous that she “laughed to herself, saying, ‘After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?’” (Genesis 18:12). Certain things you just can’t do when you’re 90. Sarah knows her body is tired, and her husband is ancient, but with God all things are possible. So, although the story reflects a lack of faith, God still blessed Abraham and Sarah as the first parents of his covenant people. Peter draws out Sarah’s attitude of submission toward her husband. She lacked faith, but still she called him “lord”—a term of honor and respect. In this casual, impromptu, unguarded comment to herself, her natural tendency was to speak well of him. And even though she’d laughed, Sarah did conceive of a son whom she and her husband would call, “Laughter,” as their own private joke. Sarah obeyed her husband as she obeyed the Lord, and she became the “first lady” of God’s covenant people—their spiritual grandmother.
The godly wife’s motivation begins with hope in God, which leads to holiness as she belongs to God. For this reason, she lives with a fear of God greater than her fear of man. Her heart is quiet in the face of terror and her default spirit is to let her husband lead. This then grants her the freedom to do good deeds which will bless her entire family (Proverbs 31:28).
The Application
So, how do Christian wives live this out in the modern world? First, don’t focus on your husband’s faults because your submission is not about him. Instead, focus on your good and sovereign God until submission to your husband flows out of submission to Christ. Every day, come before God’s Word and ask in prayer, “Lord, teach me to represent you well in my marriage and my family.”
Then, honor your husband every day both in speech and action. Be wise in what you say, holy in how you act, and all with a gentle and quiet spirit. This doesn’t mean you can’t be loud or funny or vivacious on the outside. Rather, it means you are not noisy on the inside. When your husband does something you don’t like, your immediate response is not of anger, but peace with God and a desire to make peace with your husband. When he frightens you, you must not fear him more than you fear the Lord. When he does you wrong, you keep on doing good. Even when alone with your thoughts, you respect him in your heart.
Submission is sometimes like dancing with a clumsy partner. You must be wise about when to open your mouth and when to keep it shut. You must guard yourself against taking the lead except in crisis. You certainly don’t throw up your hands and stomp from the dance floor because he stepped on your toes one too many times. By committing in marriage, you have made yourself vulnerable to a man who doesn’t always measure up. Only through the empowerment and the example of Christ, the perfect man, can a Christian wife let her husband lead.
Read Part 1 – The Love of a Leading Man here.
