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"Strangers in Marriage
Too" Text Comments v.1 The adverb translated "in the same way" harks back to the statement introducing this section in v. 13: "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority..." (only, you remember, we said a more likely translation was "submit yourselves to every human being"). Peter has so far given two examples of how Christians may do this: all believers should be subject to the state; Christian slaves should be subject to their masters; and, now, Christians wives to their husbands. Peter is going to address specifically the case of wives whose husbands were still pagan, a not unfamiliar situation in early Christianity. But, then he is going to proceed to general exhortations that apply to all Christian wives. Peter writes, literally, "any of them do not obey the word"; the gospel is also a command and faith is also an act of obedience to God. v.3 Clearly there were some wealthy women in these churches. The Bible, of course, is not against the cultivation of feminine appearance; it speaks of that positively in many places. A Christian college professor I heard not so long ago, said that he had come to realize that commenting on a woman student's appearance was discriminatory, because, of course, some women are more attractive than others. On politically correct secular campuses they call this "lookism," the prejudice against less attractive women and in favor of more attractive. Well, the problem is: the Bible very often draws attention to a beautiful woman's appearance and regards it, clearly, as a gift from God. Like all gifts it is perfectly to be expected that it would be enjoyed and cultivated. But, for a Christian woman, Peter is saying, it must not be the basis of one's confidence or hope for happiness in life, it must not be made an effort to draw attention to herself in a selfish or sinful way, it must not be a matter of pride and self-assertion over against others -- rich women parading their adornment before poorer women who must dress more simply -- and outward appearance must be cultivated in such moderation as is appropriate for a woman who clearly believes that the beauty of one's character, the holiness of one's life is much, much more important than physical appearance. What the NIV renders "fine clothes" in v. 3 is, in Peter's Greek, simply "wearing clothes." The NIV has caught the meaning, but the literal reading reminds us that there is nothing wrong with clothes per se. Obviously we must wear clothes. The problem comes when one "wears clothes" for reasons and with an immoderation that is inconsistent with the teaching of Jesus Christ. v.5 As always, there is never any perceived difference between the spiritual world of OT saints and that of the NT. The godly today are simply told to imitate the godly of that ancient epoch. v.6 The reference is to Genesis 18:12, where Sarah refers to Abraham as "her master." It is important, perhaps especially for women who find themselves struggling to reconcile the Bible's teaching about women in marriage, society, and church with what our culture teaches them to aspire to, to recognize how revolutionary Peter's teaching here was. He addresses women directly, without a view to the views of their husbands, urges them to live their lives on the basis of the highest conceivable principles, and to remain faithful to those principles even though it may bring them into some conflict with their husbands. In that world, at that time, women were expected to follow the religious leadership of their husbands; but Peter addresses them as independent moral agents. The most surprising thing here to a first century reader of the Bible would perhaps be that women and wives were addressed separately in the first place. v.7 The husband also has a special calling in that area of duty defined in 2:13, to show respect to their wives and to treat them with a special consideration. This is a direct attack on the contempt of women that was so common in the Ancient World. "Weaker Vessel." Only in a politically correct world such as ours does it become problematic to discuss and to admit what everyone has always recognized, facts around which human society has been organized from the beginning of history. Women are more vulnerable in some -- not all -- but in some very significant ways in relation to men. They are more physically vulnerable because they are not so strong; and they are emotionally vulnerable because they are more dependent upon social interaction, upon their relationships, they are more inclined to depression, and so on. My goodness, nowadays we even know the highly technical biological and bio-chemical sources of these differences that it is impolitic to mention or discuss! Remember "weaker" is being used in a context. A ming vase is weaker than a five dollar hammer; a Rembrandt canvas is weaker than a razor blade; and Mother Teresa was weaker than Mike Tyson! Peter is not talking about comparative worth, he is speaking of the reason why men have a special responsibility, laid upon them by their Creator, to show a particular regard for women and their wives in particular. It was not so long ago, even in secular Western societies that a man's manhood was judged according to the way in which he protected and provided for the women in his life. Only a feminist ideologue surveying the wreckage of American society can really believe that the abandonment of this viewpoint has improved the lot of women and children. Now we have already discussed, several times over, the basic thrust of these three illustrations that Peter employs to make his main point. That point, with which he began in 2:11-12 concerned the great difference that ought to distinguish the life of Christians in this world, a point he elaborated in three respects: their being strangers in this world, their resisting the desires of the flesh, and seeking, in their behavior, to raise a witness to the glory of God. In the following three illustrations, in each case, Peter urges them to live accordingly, not as those seeking immediate and temporary gratification for themselves. Christians have a unique set of principles and purposes governing their lives. These are sufficient to justify a Christian slave treating even the most boorish master with respect, Christian citizens offering their civic duty to even the most unjust of governments, and, now, sufficient to justify a Christian wife treating even the most boorish unbelieving husband with honor. Nowadays, a minister is sorely tempted to turn this passage into a defense of the Bible's and historic Christianity's doctrine of gender, of man and woman as separate creations of God, each suited to fulfil separate callings, however much they may have in common as divine image-bearers and as objects of Christ's redeeming work and the Holy Spirit's indwelling. Here is a teaching of the Bible -- and it is found from the beginning to end of Holy Scripture -- that many so-called evangelicals today simply will not tolerate. They have set themselves to prove that the Bible doesn't say what everyone has always thought it said perfectly clearly. And they have largely satisfied themselves on that point. Not because they won the exegetical debate -- for they lost it decisively at every significant point -- but because, it now appears, the issue was never really what the Bible taught. The issue was what they were willing to believe. They did some biblical work that quieted their consciences and permitted them to believe that they were still taking the Bible seriously and then rested secure in their original conclusion: that it is perfectly obvious, and should be to everyone that the old views of manhood and womanhood, the views of historic Christianity, are impossibly archaic, outmoded, unfair, demeaning to women, restrict their freedom and opportunity, and perpetuate unjust stereotypes. One of many demonstrations of the fact that this is what has happened is that the biblical work done by the so-called evangelical feminists is respected by themselves alone. Liberal biblical scholarship doesn't buy it. Liberals can often be very perceptive interpreters of Holy Scripture precisely because they are set free from any obligation to believe and obey what the Bible says. They can take a dispassionate view of the text because they don't have anything at stake in it. If Paul taught the headship of the man and the subordination of the woman in marriage and church, so be it. It doesn't mean that they have to believe or practice such things, for as people who don't take seriously the idea that the Bible is the very Word of God they feel no obligation to believe its teaching or obey its commands. Liberal scholarship knows very well that what the Christian church has always believed about the nature of gender and the relationship between men and women is what is actually taught in the Bible. And that scholarship, for that reason, has been little impressed with certain evangelical efforts to prove that it isn't so. What I have come to think is the best commentary on 1 Peter in my possession, the one I have found most useful in my preparing these sermons, is written by such a scholar. He does not hesitate to affirm that Peter taught that same view of gender and calling that can be found in the rest of the Bible which is that view that so offends modern sensibilities. As I have said before, if I am allowed to use the techniques evangelical feminists are using today to interpret the Bible to teach their so-called egalitarian doctrine, to interpret the Bible to approve of gender-interchangeability in life generally, the ordination of women to church office, and so on, I can make the Bible say absolutely anything I want. But, enough of that. Peter doesn't argue the distinction between men and women in calling and role here, he assumes it, he presupposes it -- as a fact of revelation and as a fact of life. He wants to say, instead, something directly relevant to the lives of Christian wives and husbands. Just as he told Christian slaves what, in their behavior, would be a fine thing in God's sight; here he tells Christian wives what, in their behavior, would be "of great worth in God's sight." And, strangely, to modern ears, it is not that they should seek "empowerment" or liberation from "patriarchal stereotypes." It is rather that they should be subject to their husbands, even their pagan husbands (for what Peter says to women married to unsaved men is not much different from what Paul says to women married to Christian men). And, the reason for this is that such behavior on a woman's part "is of great worth in God's sight." Let's be candid about this. The real difference between biblical teaching and so-called Christian feminism lies right here. The Bible wants Christian women, and Christian wives, to live as strangers and aliens in this world, and to view their life and their conduct sub specie aeternitatis, that is, from the vantage point or aspect of eternity. A great deal of what the Bible demands of us makes no sense if there is no judgment day, if there is no heaven, if there is no God who will someday delight to receive and reward those who did what pleased him. If this world and this life is all there is, and the rewards one may obtain here are all the rewards that a man or woman will ever enjoy, then it makes sense for women to grab all the power they can while they can and it makes sense to judge everything by the effect it has on people here and now. The woman seems to be just throwing her life away who is submissive to a pagan husband and dedicates herself to the cultivation of a quiet and gentle spirit if, in fact, these things are not of great worth in God's sight and it will never be demonstrated that they are. But that is precisely what Christians believe on the authority of the Word of God. No, that is what Christians know! That everything in this world and in this life must be evaluated in terms of its meaning and its significance for the world to come. Good looks, conduct in one's marriage, happiness in marriage, and a thousand other things, all mean one thing when viewed in terms of this world and this life alone, and mean something very different when viewed from the vantage point of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, the Day of Judgement, the acceptance and approval or rejection and disapproval of the living God, and so from the vantage point of heaven and hell. The way that Christian ethics cut across the normal views of human beings in this world is almost entirely due to the fact that Christianity has this forward look to it, it views things in terms of the future judgment, in terms of another world. Feminism, even so-called evangelical feminism, is a movement that has gained strength precisely because the world to come no longer weighs on the minds of many Christians, they no longer think of their lives here in terms of their connection to another world, or, in Peter's language, they no longer think of themselves as strangers and aliens in the world. Feminism is a movement for those whose home is here, in this world. It is a natural development in a secularized world that has lost sight almost completely of the world to come and of the will of God to be revealed in the Last Judgment. This "looking forward" is always the Bible's viewpoint in regard to this subject. In Proverbs 31 we read, "Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but the woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." Beauty does not last; physical attractiveness must go the way of all flesh. But the fear of the Lord lasts forever, it takes a woman to the world of endless joy, because it takes her to God. Simone Weil, the French Jewess philosopher, who became a Christian, in part through the poems of George Herbert, and who struggled, as many women do, with maintaining a positive view of herself, was very plain in appearance and knew she was plain. She struggled all her life at this point. In a kind of vengeance against her appearance she went far too far in the other direction: refusing to make any effort to cultivate her appearance -- perhaps so afraid of failure; perhaps determined not to seek fulfillment where she could not find it; perhaps, to some extent, liberated by her plainness to forsake appearance altogether. In any case, her typical costume was a caricature of the woman with no taste, no interest in appearance: an oversize brown beret, a shapeless cape, large, floppy shoes. In her life she made a principle of avoiding charm. Perhaps for that reason, she caught Peter's point here, and the entire Bible's point, with unusual sympathy.
Is that not Peter's point in the context of our holy faith. Some things are temporary and must, therefore, have a minor place in our living. The true meaning of a human being is found in the things that last forever, the things that have to do with our faith, our love of Christ, our obtaining an inheritance in the world to come, our giving glory to our God and Savior, these must have clearly, unmistakably the first place; always, the first place, far above and beyond all else. We Christians can, of course, very well -- indeed, because God did make us and make the world, and because his law is the true transcript of human happiness -- I say, we Christians can make the case that the Bible's way is the best way even for this world, that biblical ethics lead to the happiest and the best lives, and that human beings are far more likely to enjoy the fulfillment of life living God's way than following the world's advice. In this particular case, Peter as much as says, that Christian women who respond to their husbands with a gentle and quiet spirit, even their unbelieving husbands, are far more likely to win them over and far more likely to gain a happy union in marriage for themselves, than are those women who insist on their rights at every turn. Believe me, there has never been in this world, a complaining and whining and criticizing wife who won over her husband to love and good deeds. Christian ethics work in the real world. They are, after all, the way human life was meant to be lived. God has suited his laws to our natures as he made them. But, we Christians are quite ready to admit that the world will not buy that argument, will not believe us, and will not adjust its behavior, until and unless it comes to believe that God will judge all men and that the great significance of a man or woman's behavior here is precisely the effect it has on a person's destiny in the world and life to come. Who says, after all, that outward beauty is not nearly so important as the beauty of the inner self? Well, people may think that they should say it is so, but a great many more people admired Mother Teresa than imitated her. Who says that it is a greater thing to remain in a marriage with a man who has no sympathy for your deepest beliefs and longings in the hope -- perhaps the vain hope -- that you may be able by your example to win him to your faith, than it is to seek some happiness for yourself while you still can? And who says that in a woman a gentle and quiet spirit is more beautiful than an assertive commanding spirit? Well, God says these things! Well, what difference does it make if God has such opinions? Well, as Peter will say in chapter 4, God will someday reveal to the whole world the glory of his Son, and will bring all men into judgment, to reward those who have done his will and condemn those who have not. As Peter says, in 4:4, of the unbelievers around these Christians to whom he is writing, "they think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you." We might say today, "they think it strange that you cling to such outmoded, unjust principles, by which women are kept from power and influence in the church and the culture and they heap abuse on you for it." And what does Peter say about that? "But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead." There is the key! It all comes down to this! What does God want of me and what will I want to have been and done when I open my eyes upon the Great White Throne? For, fact is, some day I will open my eyes on the Great White Throne and so will every other human being who has ever lived. Peter makes the same point for the husbands. They should live together with their wives in a manner appropriate to the fact that both of them together are "heirs of the gracious gift of life." That life, at least in its fullness, its completeness, is not something we get in this world. Otherwise, we would not be called "heirs" of that life. An heir is someone who has been promised, but who has not yet received, an inheritance. You husbands love your wives in view of what is still to come, of the will of your God whom someday soon you will see face to face. Peter makes the same point again when he urges husbands to honor their wives so that nothing will hinder their prayers. Again the reason for godly conduct, for self-forgetful and humble self-giving, the reason for a Christ-like life, is not because it will make things immediately happy for you here -- it may, but it may not. The reason is that it will bring you into conformity with the will of God, make you a more fruitful Christian, bring down the smile of God upon your heart, all of which is infinitely more important in the long run, with eternity in view than the happiness of the moment. "Live your marriage so that you can pray" is an adage that clearly indicates what is most important in life, as well as in marriage. In other words, this instruction to wives and husbands here in 1 Peter 3:1-7 is but one single instance of the point Paul made in 1 Corinthians 15, when he said that, "if Christ be not raised" and, therefore, if there be no resurrection and no judgment day and no everlasting life for those who trust in Christ and follow him, then we Christians are of all men most to be pitied. For our entire view of our lives and their meaning and their significance and what is right to do and what is wrong in this life absolutely rests on the prospect of that future. If that future does not exist, then "eat, drink, and be merry" and, wives, grab for all the happiness you can, while you can, and don't let your oaf of a husband stand in your way. There are so many reasons to believe that Christianity's message about the coming reckoning is absolutely true, that there is a God who cares about the lives we live and will reward forever those who do his will. Peter assumes our confidence in these facts. We have every reason to be confident in them. Our Savior told us in no uncertain terms, "If it were not true, I would have told you." And we stand in a long train of those who have believed and lived according to our Christian faith. Wives and husbands, you are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, who have lived their lives looking for the city with foundations and now are there, among the spirits of just men made perfect. And, along the way, many of those godly women won their husbands, just as Peter said. Here is Augustine, in his immortal Confessions, speaking of his mother, Monica, and her influence on his father Patricius.
The world thinks, what a waste, what an injustice! But then the world does not understand or appreciate that the angels in heaven rejoice over one sinner who repents, but that no one in heaven is ever said to rejoice over one woman who is empowered. Whose daughter do you wish to be, Christian sisters? Simone de Beauvoir? Gloria Steinem? Kate Millet? Or Sarah? Or Monica?.....Or Mary? Whose entire life was summed up in the words she spoke to Gabriel: "I am the Lord's servant..."
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