1 Peter 3:1 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Peter 3:1

Comments

Marriage is an arrangement, an institution of God. Just as must all submit to governments and to institutions such as employment, so wives must submit to husbands and husbands must submit to God’s rules for marriage, so there are four submissions that Peter deals with in the course of these verses. ‘Be in subjection’, says the apostle Peter, ‘to your own husbands.’ ‘Place yourself under’ is the sense. Some translate it ‘be obedient’, but that has a slightly different meaning. This echoes what the apostle Paul has in Ephesians 5, where an almost identical exhortation is accompanied with the words ‘as unto the Lord’. As you are unto the Lord, and in obedience to him, so ye wives be in subjection to your own husbands. We learn that there is an order in marriage, and the order is that ultimately the husband is the head of the household, of the wife, and wife is to help and strengthen and be a blessing to her husband and her family. We must be clear that it does not mean that the wife is inferior to her husband. Yes, God has made men and women in such a way that their roles in marriage are that the husband is the head of the home, and the wife supports him in that. He is ultimately responsible before God for the home, and God has made husbands and wives to be suited to these roles. But it doesn’t mean she is in any way inferior to him. In any land, certain officers of state may be far more intelligent than the sovereign, or the prime minister, or the president. You may be very glad that they are. Nevertheless the arrangement is that he will be the head and, for the sake of order so that there won’t be anarchy in the cabinet, everybody will take their position under him. So we remember in husbands and wives that this is not a matter of personal superiority/inferiority. Of course, just as with submission to government, the rule which we find in the book of Acts applies: that we obey God rather than man. So, if that institution to which we are to submit transgresses the law of God, then we must obey God, because all authority is ultimately delegated authority, not a personal authority. The husband must not expect to have his wife support him if he is doing anything dishonourable, immoral, unfair, unrighteous. The most difficult case of a believing wife living with an unbelieving husband is considered first. Now that is a very difficult situation in any age, but think of it in that age, particularly, when the it was almost a treasonable matter to vary in religion from your husband, and you may well incur his considerable anger and wrath. You were doing something which he considered to be insulting and belittling, and it was an outrage. Of course this is not a licence for husbands to behave as they wish, and it's quite certain that if husbands are impossible and violent, or utterly abusive, then that breaks a marriage. We are not among those who would give this absurd teaching, that a Christian wife must put up with literally anything. Scripture is very gracious to those wives who are married to unconverted husbands, who ‘obey not the word.’ These are husbands who have heard the word and have probably understood much, but who resent and angrily reject it. What a difficult thing for a Christian wife to live with a husband, who is not just unconverted, but is objectionable about these things. Maybe she and her husband were both pagans when they were married, but now she has been converted. What is the instruction to her? That if there is a deliberate rejection of the word, they also may without the word be won by the behaviour of the wives.

Application

The very easiest teacher for a proud person to learn from is one that presents no threat to his pride and therefore the submissive wife who evidently shows that she desires only the good of her husband is most suitable under the hand of God to open his heart to gospel truth. She becomes a living example of the graciousness of God. This humble conduct of the wife will have a melting effect upon the unbelieving husband as she also prays constantly for the change she longs for in him. This will be a difficult calling for her, and she will perhaps experience much pain and need to exercise much patience before she sees God answer her prayers, but Peter says that her conduct may be the instrument that God uses in such cases to win the one who is far away from him.

Questions

Can someone be won without the word? Well, of course not! The apostle Peter doesn’t mean that. These are husbands who know the word and have repudiated it, so they are not being won without any knowledge of the gospel. But something else beside the word has come in to influence them greatly. They behold or fix their gaze upon and watch carefully the behaviour of the wife. Her chaste behaviour, her character, her devotion and reverence to God has made a deep impression on them. It may be that this leads to the salvation of the unconverted husband. Further attempts to speak directly to him may antagonise him more, and even though that response would be sinful, the believing wife is to employ wisdom. She must wait for God to act. Her gracious responses and evident intention to submit to her husband will soften his heart under the hand of God. What she must not do is reason that her own conversion has set her free from an obligation to live within the bounds of marriage. Marriage is for this world not the next, but while we are here we cannot overturn this institution of God.

Why, coupled with fear? Fear of your husband who is an unbeliever? Fear of your wife who is an unbeliever? No, the fear word means fear of discrediting God or the gospel, fear of falling into self-pity and misery, and perhaps even bitterness. ‘Coupled with fear’, reverence and respect for God, and fear of not being a witness.

What is the Christian’s attitude to divorce? Divorce should only follow adultery or desertion (and desertion may well include violence), when somebody repudiates their marriage and refuses to live peaceably and properly with the other party. Divorce is for these extreme situations. There is no such thing in the New Testament as light divorce for Christians. ‘Oh, we don’t get on’, or, ‘I don’t love him anymore’, or, ‘I don’t love her anymore.’ Love is a choice. Don’t ever let our thinking be influenced by the world around us, which has rejected the word of God and created its own rules and standards. ‘Should we be separated, should we be divorced?’ Well, is there serious adultery? Is there violence? Is there desertion? ‘Oh, no.’ Well, then, there is no question of divorce, not in the Scripture. That is not unsympathetic. We are as sympathetic as we can possibly be to anybody who for the Lord stands for him in a marriage, where their spouse does not trust in God or love him. But it is not a case for divorce.

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

1 Peter 3:1 Commentary and Bible Study