There’s a certain irony that it has recently been International Women’s Day, and I am writing about 1 Peter 3v1-6, which starts, "Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands…." If there is any topic that makes people view Christianity as outdated or anti-women, this is the one.
Yet our conviction as evangelicals is that the commands of the Bible are not just true; they are good. Here are three ways in which these instructions by the Apostle Peter are good for women.
- Wives have an active calling to be models of Christian living
Apparently there was lots of writing in the Roman world telling men to make sure their wives submitted to them. Peter is radical; the apostle of Jesus Christ addresses the wives personally. As with slaves, he considers wives to be people with moral agency, led by God and accountable first and foremost to Him for their behaviour.
The "in the same way" of verse one takes us back to 2v13 and 2v18. Wives are to live as Christians, acting for the Lord’s sake and living in reverent fear of God. Their submission to their husbands is their responsibility, not that of the husband.
Submission challenges us. Wives are called to model the submission that every Christian owes to human authority and that every Christian slave owes to his or her master. And remember that slaves are, for Peter, the great example of Christian living (2v16)!
You may not be a wife. But you may be in a context where people think you have very little agency, where choices are often made on your behalf (rightly or wrongly). Peter shows us, through the example of wives, that every Christian, in every context, has an active calling to be a model of Christian living.
How would you characterise a Christian?
Every preacher should love 1 Peter 3v8. The verse begins, “Finally”, but he is only half-way through chapter three: you …