Lesson Three, Women of Grace

The Universal Rightness of a Wife's Submission to Her Husband

When Peter says that unbelieving husbands may be won over for Christ by the behavior of their wives when they are submissive to their husbands, there is a significant implication for the question of whether such submission is appropriate for all cultures and all times. The attractiveness of a wife's submissive behavior even to an unbelieving husband suggests that God has inscribed on the hearts of all mankind the rightness and beauty of role distinctions in marriage (including male leadership or headship in the family and female acceptance of and responsiveness to that leadership). Someone might object that female submissiveness is attractive to the unbelieving husband only because he is selfishly interested in gaining power for himself or because it fits his culture's current (and presumably wrong) perception of appropriate male-female relationships, and in either case-this position would argue-such role distinctions are still wrong or still incongruent with God's ideal plan for marriage. A similar objection would be made by those who say that this command was only a missionary strategy for that culture, to make the gospel inoffensive to non-Christians, but that it is not universally binding today. In fact, those who make this objection would often say it would be wrong today to require all Christian wives to be subject to their husbands-it would fall short of God's ideal for marriage.

However, this position is unpersuasive because Peter would not encourage a morally objectionable behavior pattern (whether in the culture or in the husband himself) to continue in order to bring someone to faith. It is pure behavior, not behavior that falls short of God's ideal, that attracts unbelievers to Christ (1 Peter 3:2). And this pure behavior (verse 2), Peter says, especially involves wives being subject to their own husbands. The unbelieving husband sees this behavior and deep within perceives the beauty of it. Within his heart there is a witness that this is right, this is how God intended men and women to relate as husband and wife. He concludes, therefore, that the gospel that his wife believes must be true as well. Perhaps, indeed, he sees his wife's submission to him in contrast with his own refusal to submit to God, who is infinitely more worthy of his submission, and is convicted of his own sinfulness by it.

Two other approaches that evade the implication that wives should submit to the authority of their husbands today are represented by Ruth Tucker and Walter Liefeld, who suggest that Peter's directions here are culture-specific and therefore need not apply today. They note that some maintain that although Sarah is said to have expressed her submission to Abraham by obeying him and calling him 'lord' (or 'master'), that certainly does not mean that submission is expressed in every culture by obedience and calling one's husband 'lord.' Few would insist on the second part of Sarah's submission. 2\They also note that another way some argue that these injunctions are not binding on Christians today is to realize that they belong to a form of instruction known as a household code that was common in the ancient world and was included by the New Testament authors as a reminder that Christians should act in ways that would not give offense to unbelievers, but that the New Testament does not imply that these household codes were to be followed by all Christians in all cultures. Although both of these approaches are simply presented as possible interpretations on pp. 81, 83, Tucker and Liefeld seem to adopt them as their own in the discussion of exegetical issues in Appendix B (pp. 462, 463).

The problem with the first argument is that it fails to recognize that Peter is requiring a general pattern of behavior (submission that results in obedience) rather than a carbon copy imitation of every word Sarah said (such as calling Abraham lord or master ). The point is that Sarah gave respectful obedience to Abraham even in the words she used to refer to him, and so should Christian wives today be respectful (whatever words may be used from culture to culture to signify that respect). To say instead that submission itself is the general pattern and obedience to a husband's authority is the specific form that may vary from culture to culture (as Tucker and Liefeld do on p. 463) is to neglect the fact that submission in the New Testament (expressed by the word hupotasso ) is always submission to an authority, and, therefore, the idea of obedience to authority seems inherent in this type of submission. Moreover, they neglect that it is not Sarah's specific words but her general obedience itself that Peter refers to when he says that Old Testament women who hoped in God were submissive to their husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham (verses 5-6). Obedience is one form that submission took for all of those referred to, but the mention of Sarah's words is simply a reminder of a specific example in Sarah's life.

As for the household codes, there were lists of expected behavior for husbands and wives, parents and children, and servants and masters in the ancient world, but close comparison of ancient lists with those in the New Testament shows very few exact parallels except that these various groups are named. The form (if the New Testament authors were even conscious of using such a form) was extensively Christianized, so that few similarities remain. And at any rate, what we have in Scripture now is the morally binding authority of God's own words. If we say that no unique authority or leadership for husbands in marriage was the ideal, but that Peter gave in to cultural expectations and failed to teach that ideal, this would seem to impugn Peter's courage and integrity, because it implies that Peter was willing (and Paul, too!) to command Christians to follow a sinful, sub-Christian pattern of behavior in their homes-a most unlikely course of action for those accustomed to running against the tide! Moreover, it implies that God would command Christians to follow a sinful pattern of marriage just to attract unbelievers to the gospel-something inconsistent with God's own pattern of telling His people to use morally righteous means to achieve righteous ends. We may conclude that both of these attempts to avoid the force of Peter's directions today fail to be persuasive.

Another way that people sometimes have tried to avoid the permanence of these commands is to look at the commands about hair and jewelry and say that those are no longer binding today. This view says that Peter is forbidding the wearing of gold or braiding of hair when he writes, Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes (verse 3). This view reasons: (a) these commands are for that culture only, and cannot apply today; (b) therefore the other command in this paragraph, that a wife should be subject to her husband, does not apply today either.

But this view is certainly incorrect, because it misunderstands Peter. In this section Peter emphasizes not external, visible things that perish but unseen spiritual realities that are eternal, just as he has done frequently in the letter to this point (see 1 Peter 1:1 [ strangers ], 4, 7-9, 18-19, 23-25; 2:2, 5, 9, 11). Let not yours be the outward adorning (rsv) gives the sense of the phrase quite well and prepares the reader for the contrast with inward adorning (rsv) in verse 4. Adorning refers to what one uses to make oneself beautiful to others. The point is that Christian wives should depend for their own attractiveness not on outward things like braiding their hair, decorations of gold, and wearing fine clothing, but on inward qualities of life, especially a gentle and quiet spirit (verse 4). Furthermore, although theRSV andNIV speak of fine clothing, the Greek text does not include an adjective modifying himation, clothing, and the text literally says, Let not your adorning be the outward adorning of braiding of hair and wearing of gold or putting on of clothing. It is incorrect, therefore, to say that this text prohibits women from braiding their hair or wearing gold jewelry, for by the same reasoning one would have to prohibit putting on of clothing. Peter's point is not that any of these is forbidden, but that these should not be a woman's adorning, her source of beauty.

In fact, we should rather note that Peter in this very text is opposing dominant ideas in that culture. When he rejects the use of hairstyle, jewelry, or clothing as a means of winning the unbelieving husband, Peter writes counterculturally. He commends not just any behavior or dress that would be approved by the culture, but a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious (verse 4). Peter goes right to the heart of the Christian faith-hope in God (verse 5) and the gentle and quiet spirit that stems from faith and is of great worth in God's sight (verse 4). Peter is functioning from the center of the Christian faith here; he is not merely adapting to culture.