1 Peter: Christian Submission (Part 3)
Notes
Transcript
This sermon, or parts thereof, may be used with attribution.
Exegetical Point: Christian wives and husbands should submit out of reverence to Christ, albeit in different ways.
Homiletical Point: Same as exegetical.
Introduction
Introduction
Look at my two props today. What are they kids?
The’re similar to each other, but do you notice they’re different?
How are they similar? How are they different?
These two balls are designed to do different jobs. Despite the fact that both are balls, and both are used to play team sports, both are expanded with air and passed back & forth between players, both bounce. But the thing is, they still have very obvious differences like shape and feel.
In a pinch, if you didn’t have a football, you could play footy with a basket ball, but it wouldn’t work really great.
Why? Because each ball is designed for the game. It’s design corresponds to the purpose.
It’s OK to be different, and have differences between balls! How silly would it be if someone came along to basket ball players and said “basket balls are just a social construct, so you can play basket ball with footballs now”.
It’s just plain silly to live and act and think as if there’s no difference between these two categories of things, when it is very obvious that there are differences. We don’t even need to cut them open and examine their insides, or to do scientific tests on the performance of each - we can plainly see with our eyes that these two balls are different by their shape and texture.
You can probably see where I’m going with this...
Men and Women are different too, despite the fact they share many things in common.
Venn diagram
Like the example with this football and basketball, we find that there’s a great number of similarities between them. Men & women share a great amount of commonality - so that it is clear that we share humanity, but there's distinctly two types of humans - male and female.
Physically, we can see that there are definite differences between the sexes. Genetically, we are either one or the other - even in the small number of cases where there is some physical gender disorder , there too the presence or absence of an Y chromosome determines gender.
And if the genetic and physical differences weren’t clear enough, our personality traits present as masculine and feminine. To be sure, most personality traits can be found in either gender, but there are some that are more likely to show show up in one gender despite our cultural context.
We are designed distinctly different for different purposes. Yes, there’s a huge amount of common ground in how we are to live and act, embodying a flourishing humanity, but on top of that shared identity of humanity, there’s a binary distinction of gender that enables us to glorify God in different ways.
And you know what? That’s good.
It’s good that there are both men and women, and that both are different.
God tells us as much in the opening part of the Bible:
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
and
The New International Version Chapter 1
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good
Now, you might take this for granted, especially if you’ve grown up as a Christian, and you may have seen healthy masculinity and femininity modeled to you. The sad thing is that there’s many people who haven’t had good models of man & woman. There are increasing numbers of people who haven’t seen the good purpose in the way that God made us. So, we needed to start here, with the basics.
God made both male and female. And it was very good.
God made men and women to go together - as two expressions of humanity with particular dignity and purpose.
Now, the place where the “fitting together” of man & woman is most apparent is in marriage. Marriage is where the complementary nature of men and women is most clearly manifested.
Not all men or women will get married, and that’s OK. Some of us choose not to get married so that we are able to serve God with our singleness. Some of us desire to be married, but have not had the opportunity in God’s providence to do so. Some of us were married, but are not anymore - we mourn together for that loss.
When we start talking about christian marriage, we are not implying that this is a “higher mode” of being, or that you are more or less of a man/woman if you aren’t married. Marriage is a particular part of God’s creation, but your value and purpose do not depend on experiencing it.
Whether or not you are married, Marriage is a huge deal to all of us. It is a fundamental building block of our community. While there are many efforts to erode it, we can still see the value in it. So why should you tune in to hear about it today?
1. Christian couples need to be encouraged in how to live out this particular role in their service of Christ.
2. People who want to be married some day need to get their head around what they’re signing up for, and looking for in a spouse.
3. All of us should be equipped to support our brothers & sisters in Christ, including those who are married. While their experiences and challenges may be different to yours, you can encourage them to glorify God in their marriage.
Last week I read (listened to) an excellent book by Kevin DeYoung called “Men and Women in the Church”. It is a great, short, and to the point overview of many of the biblical concepts we’re looking at this morning. I adapted my opening illustration with the balls from that book. I recommend you check it out if you’re looking for further reading after today.
We have to acknowledge as we’re broaching this topic that there is in the cultural mileu and in the wider church, some differences of opinion. As with most biblical doctrines we can disagree on the implications of the biblical text, have a discussion about it, agree to disagree, shake hands and get on with life. On any given disagreement about biblical doctrine at least one of us is wrong. But, for the most part where it doesn’t affect the core elements of orthodoxy we can learn to live with one another in love.
It is worth noting, that the difficulties that we face in broaching these topics are rather novel. That is to say for most of church history, and even in most of the world today, these topics are not controversial, but that’s where we are in our cultural moment when this is the most fearful topic I could think to preach on. And not because I’m afraid of what God’s word says, but because I don’t want to cause any undue pain in the way I speak about it. I ask forgiveness in advance for any fumbles that do not help you spiritually.
SO, today we are looking at the next part in 1 Peter, where Peter continues to apply his doctrine of Christian submission, BUT we have to go back in time briefly to make it work!
Like any good TV show we need a flashback in order to propel the narrative forward!
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
As we read earlier, and I have already briefly mentioned, Go made man & woman, male and female as part of his very good creation. He made them to go together. I like how the CSB translation puts it, until God made woman, there was no-one “corresponding to [man].” It’s as through man was incomplete until God made woman. One is no good without the other. And God saw it as good to institute what we now call marriage from the start of the world.
We can’t get into the weeds too much, or we’d be here all day, but a clear picture emerges from the creation narrative: In that very good, pre-fall world Adam was made to name, rule and protect, and Eve to nurture, help, and support. God gives humanity as a whole (male & female) a mandate to be fruitful, multiply rule and guard the earth, but they each have distinctive roles to play in creation that complement each other. Our very genetics, the way our bodies are made, hint at how those distinctive roles are tied to our gender, and how we must work together in complementary ways in order to achieve the goal.
Unfortunately for humanity - the very good world that God created was corrupted by Adam & Eve’s sin. They disobeyed God - that classic tale where the serpent tempts Eve to eat the fruit, and Adam joins in.
Then God holds Adam responsible - despite the fact that Eve was the initial eater of fruit. Why? Because Adam’s job was to protect and lead, and he did neither when he let his wife be persuaded to sin by a deceiving serpent. Adam failed to fulfill his role because of his passivity.
As we read before - they are cursed as a result. But interestingly, the curse affect the areas of the gender roles.
First
To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
The woman who will nurture children to multiply humanity, has her ability to give birth affected. And, she will find it difficult to be under the leadership of her husband - she will want to take charge.
Then the man will find it hard to provide and protect, because the earth will essentially turn against him:
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Sin has entered into the world and all now live under it’s corruption. We are cursed - and we must in this life live under that shadow.
We are creatures now born to death, who struggle to obey God and love each other well. Our relationships are tainted by selfishness and malice.
We have seen in history, and perhaps even in our own lives, how the very good picture of marriage from before the fall has been corrupted. There are men who ride roughshot over their wives and treat them like dirt. There’s women who manipulate and demean their husbands into submission. There’s men who are passive and won’t lift a finger to help their family. There’s men and women who want the perks of marriage but don’t want the responsibility and longevity of marriage so they just hook up with anybody who’s keen. There’s men who don’t want to protect and provide for their children, and women who don’t want to nurture their children so they turn to pills and procedures to make their consequences go away. There’s folks who try and make a marriage out of two people of the same sex. We see people who grow weary of their responsibilities to their spouse and families, so they just leave.
Isn’t it interesting that so many of the problems we Christians lament in society stems from corruption of marriage?
SO, marriage was very good. Men & women in their distinctive, purposeful design was very good.
But it’s all messed up. Sin is in everything. Marriage is messed up. People are messed up - corrupted and broken. All of us are infected with sin.
The Solution
The Solution
God knows that.
God knew that we would mess it all up pretty badly - marriages and all, so he sent somebody to save us from the mess that we have made.
That was Jesus the Christ.
We were burdened by sins that we could never atone for. We were being crushed under the weight of guilt and shame. We’re afflicted by the curse and bound for death.
But Jesus, son of God came into the world as a man to take away that sin, to take away death, to take away guilt and shame.
It’s as if he picked up all our burdens and laid them on his own back - taking them to the grave with him. In place of those burdens, he gives life and righteousness. He justifies and purifies lose that he sets free from sin!
He heals us!
As we read last week:
“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”
Christ has borne our sins. They are taken away. They are dealt with. They have no power over us anymore if only we would relinquish our sins to him.
Yet now, we still live here. We have not yet entered into the eternal life promised to us. We have to learn how to live as freed people - no longer slaves to sin and death, but slaves of righteousness, Children of God!
Even though our sins are forgiven, and our guilt lifted, we still have sin at war within us. We can stumble and succumb to the old power of sin. We have to learn what it looks like to live with one another in godly love. We need to know how we ought to interact with the world, especially those who don’t believe in Jesus.
This is where we come back to 1 Peter.
These last few weeks we have been seeing how Peter taught the early church to live in light of the salvation they have received. They have a new identity, now Peter is teaching them the implications of how to live in a world that’s not keen on Jesus, and in particular how Christians submit to one another and to outsiders.
We’ve talked about how we submit to governmental authorities and how slaves submit to their masters, but now Peter closes off the section by addressing how husbands and wives are to relate to one another in submission.
We’ve talked about the fact that submission is not a matter of equality. Jesus himself is a great example of being in submission to God the Father while he himself is God the son!
We submit to our governments who lead us, but that does not mean that we are less valuable than the people in government. Those who have power and authority should be using it to serve and protect those under their care.
There is great freedom in submission too, I for one have thought many times over the past year or so that I am glad I’m not the PM or a premier. I find great freedom in not having to take on the burden of deciding how the whole state should respond to COVID stuff, how hard to go on lock down, what to close and open and when. While there may be things I wish were done differently, I would not wish to take on their responsibility for everything. It is more freeing to be under their leadership rather than be in leadership.
We all submit to people all the time in life, it is nothing out of the ordinary.
These principles of submission also carry into marriage.
Wives Submit to your Husbands
Wives Submit to your Husbands
Peter comes right out and says something that just sounds so weird to our modern ears:
Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives,
Wives submit to your husbands.
Oof.
How quaint. How old fashioned. How archaic.
At least that’s how we think if we follow the catechism of a world that opposes God. Peter calls Christian women, whether their husbands be Christians or not, to come under the leadership of their husbands.
And I repeat, this is not a matter of equality of value or dignity.
Support roles are not less important - In fact in these past few years with Virus and natural disasters we see more than ever how our emergency & health services are so important to our community. The health system and the fireys support us without being in authority over us, and without being any less important than community leaders. It would be stupid to try and figure out whether a mayor is more important than a doctor. Both are important, both serve, both have different strengths and both act in different, but overlapping fields. Support roles are not less valuable than leadership roles. Just different.
Paul calls Christian women of that day to embody their good distinctive from creation and to resist the curse which desires to rise up and take over their husbands. But just because they are submitting to their husbands, doesn’t mean that they are passive wallflowers!
Kevin DeYoung says:
“We should not equate male leadership with female passivity. Women are not bit players in the drama of redemptive history. The Old Testament is full of heroic women influencing history, exercising personal agency, and displaying a range of godly virtues.” DeYoung, Kevin. Men and Women in the Church (p. 34). Crossway. Kindle Edition.
We will touch on one of those women soon!
Peter instructs men and women in a world where husbands taking the lead was taken for granted. It was normal in society for Men to lead and provide in marriage and wives to submit and support. Yet knowing the effects of sin Peter needs to encourage them not to give in to it, but instead to act as model citizens so that Jesus is glorified.
At the very least, he didn’t want people to reject Jesus because of bad attitudes from Christians. They could run around flaunting their freedom in God, with him as their only Lord, yet Peter tells Christians that here and now we must submit to earthly masters, whether they belong to God or not.
And in that submission, they are to live such Godly lives that it is a testimony to the beauty and power of Christ, winning people over, not by external beauty, but by an internal beauty:
Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.
It’s “easy” to make yourself beautiful on the outside if you dress up and wear the finest clothes. You can take something off the shelf and put it on and the beauty is received. There are whole industries built around this premise! Much harder, and much more precious in God’s sight, is the inner beauty of a quiet and gentle spirit.
Meekness is something all Christians are to embody - it is not only for Christian wives, but in the situation that Peter is writing - with many women who probably have unbelieving husbands, it would be easy for the them to get riled up and angry and annoyed at their husbands. I’m sure you can imagine how argumentative things could get!
“Why are you believing this Jesus stuff! You’ve going to bring down the wrath of the God on our house for abandoning the ways of our ancestors!”
“Why can’t you see the that Jesus is the savior of our souls? Why do you refuse to believe?”
Many of these women were in difficult circumstances, and they needed to be encouraged in how to honour God in the way that they lived with their husbands.
Then Peter give an example of a woman who lived in less than ideal circumstances with here husbands. She is a hero of the faith for the way that she served God, despit having a husband who would palm her off to a kings harem if it kept him out of trouble.
Yet even she was able to show respect and honor to her husband, serving as a na example to others:
For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.
Peter is not saying wives need to call their husbands “lord” or “sir” but he is using Sarah as a example of how willing she was to honor her husband, in a way that was culturally appropriate at that time.
Speaking of “cultural appropriateness” does the idea of submissive wives go out the window with that cultural change?
No. As we have already seen, there is a creation design in men and women that is expressed in marriage with leadership and submission. Although Peter does not here refer to it, Paul does. The very good design of men and women is not superseded. Despite changes in cultural context, this design has not changed. How we live out this design in a way that is attractive and beautiful may take some more thinking through, because our alot of our society is not a fan of God’s design.
But we need to remember this is a good design. And it in fact expresses somthing of God nature. Sometimes we minimize the support or helping nature of wives to husbands, but it mimics God:
“Being a helper carries no connotations of diminished worth or status; for God is sometimes called the helper of Israel (Ex. 18:4; Pss. 33:20; 146:5). Ezer (helper) is a functional term, not a demeaning one.” DeYoung, Kevin. Men and Women in the Church (p. 25). Crossway. Kindle Edition.
Men & Women are similar but different - like a basket ball & a soccer ball. Both have a very similar shape, and behave in overlapping ways but they are made for slightly different purpose.
Peter says that in marriage, that is expressed in wives submitting to husbands, even when the husbands are not following Jesus. In that way of life, coupled with beautiful godly character you will be able to bring much Glory to God and perhaps win over those stubborn men.
Husbands Honour your Wives
Husbands Honour your Wives
In case you thought men were off the hook, think again!
Peter takes great care to instruct the men as well, not leaving them to think that because their wives are called to submit that they need not act in a reciprocal loving way:
Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.
Be considerate - don’t ride roughshod ofver them. Be understanding. Care and protect them!
Take on your distinctive design, own it, and love your wives in the way you live that out as a Christian.
“Weaker” not in the sense of character or inner fortitude, but simply men usually, have more strength than women. In that physical power that you have, don’t use to hurt or harm them.
Like all power and responsibility, God is concerned that you use it for good and not for evil as the superhero cliche goes.
Peter lifts the social value of wives. Wives are on equal footing footing with you in salvation, their have just as much in Christ as you do, so treat them as such.
The way that you treat you wives may hinder your prayers! a cary thought.
Treat your wives with such respect and honour, that you lay down your life for them. Sacrifice yourself for them, like Christ did for us!
Chrysostom said it this way:
Wouldest thou have thy wife obedient unto thee, as the Church is to Christ? Take then thyself the same provident care for her, as Christ takes for the Church. Yea, even if it shall be needful for thee to give thy life for her, yea, and to be cut into pieces ten thousand times, yea, and to endure and undergo any suffering whatever,—refuse it not. Though thou shouldest undergo all this, yet wilt thou not, no, not even then, have done anything like Christ
Your love should be so complete and so full that it is a joy for them to follow you even as you follow Christ!
What now?
What now?
God’s good design
The world is broken
Christ somes to sort it out
Living in the in between - live out the good design under Christ
“According to Genesis 3:16, the marriage relationship after the fall became one of mutual struggle and frustration. The inclination of a sinful wife is to rebel against her husband’s authority and try to control him. Paul’s command aims to reverse the effects of the curse and have Christian wives submit rather than usurp. Likewise, men, who are supposed to lead and protect and provide for their wives, now, tainted by sin, treat their wives harshly. The inclination of the sinful man is to exercise ungodly rule over his wife. Paul’s command aims to reverse the effects of the curse and have Christian husbands love rather than domineer.” DeYoung, Kevin. Men and Women in the Church (p. 55). Crossway. Kindle Edition.