Honoring Christ at Home

Last week, we began looking at some of the ways we live honorably among those who don’t know Christ.

Peter teaches us that one of the main ways we live honorably is by submitting to the authorities God has placed over us.

By submitting when possible, we reduce the number of objections people may have to the Gospel.

It is critical to remember that, in those days, Christians were beginning to be accused of creating civil unrest because they wouldn’t do everything the Romans asked.

Although the accusations are different now, some still accuse followers of Christ of being bigoted and narrow-minded.

We acknowledge that, at the core, the message of the gospel is offensive. However, we want to live in a way that reduces other objections whenever possible.

Last week, we saw that meant we are to be good citizens who submit to the government whenever possible.

Not only that, we saw that even if we were to be enslaved, we would be called to submit to unjust masters who are over us.

Christ serves as our example in all of this.

Today, we see how Peter applies these principles to life at home.

As we begin, we have to acknowledge that the passage has often been taught improperly and has done great harm.

If you are automatically dismissing it, I would respectfully ask you to listen as we go through the full implications of what is being taught here—it may differ from what you have heard before.

Let’s dive in and talk about it, beginning with the first seven verses of chapter three...

As we put these verses together, we see that God calls us to...

1) Wives, submit to your husband’s leadership.

Here, God instructs wives to submit to their husband’s leadership in the home.

We will get to the husband’s responsibility in a moment, but as we read through, I hope you noticed that husbands are called to demonstrate compassion and concern in the way they lead—you are not called to be the dictator in your home.

As we mentioned earlier, this passage and other similar passages have been used to teach that women are inferior to men in many different ways.

Some have used this passage and others to say that a woman should never work outside of the home, or, at the very least, not be in a leadership role over men in the workplace or government.

Let’s be clear that Peter is not saying that at all. Who are these wives being called to submit to? “Their own husbands.”

This does not mean that women are called to submit to men in general; rather, God calls wives honor God and their husbands by deferring the primary leadership of the home to their husbands.

That does not make a wife inferior in any way, just like submission doesn’t make an enslaved person inferior to their master or make Jesus inferior to the Father’s will and the earthly authorities who had him killed.

In fact, verse 7 makes it clear that men and women are “coheirs of the grace of life,” meaning both genders enjoy equal standing with God.

This passage has also been used to encourage women to stay in abusive and damaging relationships, asserting that the wife doesn’t have any choice but to stay.

We mentioned last week that our ultimate call is to submit to Christ. That means we do not have to submit to someone who calls us to violate God’s law. I believe that applies to situations where a wife remaining in a marriage enables her husband to sin against God and her through abuse.

Here is how my friend Jesse Furey put it when he preached this passage recently:

Submission within God’s marriage order simply means a disposition to honor your husband in his callings of responsibility and care. By the way, this means that if you have an abusive husband—someone who physically, sexually, emotionally harms and terrifies you—you honor his call of responsible care under God’s rule by leaving. That may be for a time or for good, and that may also involve reporting him to authorities, both to the state and the church, depending on the context.

In other words, if your husband is abusive, he is not obeying God in caring for you and is, in fact, disobeying God by treating you that way. By leaving, for a time or for good, you no longer enable him to be disobedient in this area. If the abuse has risen to the point of breaking the law, you have the right to and even can honor Christ by reporting him to the authorities. God has put the government in place to protect you in situations like these.

What if he isn’t abusive, though?

Then, God calls a wife to honor the responsibilities given the husband by submitting herself to his leadership, even if that husband does not know Jesus.

That does not mean that a wife is not entitled to express her opinions or have input into family decisions. Ultimately, though, God’s call to her is to support her husband as he fulfills his role of leading the home.

That is especially difficult in situations where the wife is saved and the husband is not.

It was common in those days for a wife to come into a relationship with Christ while her husband still rejected him.

The same takes place today.

If she refused to recognize his role in the family, she could very well drive him away from Christ.

Those husbands are not going to be won to Christ through bickering or arguing; instead, a wife’s example of godliness and submission may soften his heart and be one of the main tools God uses to draw him to Christ.

That doesn’t mean that a wife should never talk to an unsaved husband about Jesus; rather, that those conversations come as an extension of the life she is already living.

Peter calls women to “pure, reverent lives.”

Again, I wish the CSB translators had translated this a little more directly.

More literally, this line reads “as they observe your pure conduct in fear.”

Now, guys, before you start getting excited that your wife is supposed to live with a healthy fear of you, keep something in mind: “fear” in 1 Peter is always directed at God.

A godly wife doesn’t live in fear of her husband; rather, she lives with a healthy fear of God.

Just like we submit to the government out of a fear of God, so too a wife’s submission is driven by the respect she has for the Lord.

That’s how a wife can submit to her husband, even when he doesn’t follow Christ.

Charles Spurgeon, a great preacher from the late 1800s, told a story of a woman who did just that. She had gotten saved, but her husband had not. For years, he made fun of her for following Jesus, and for years, she prayed daily for him to come to Christ.

The man went out drinking with his friends one night. He bragged to his friends about how his wife would do whatever he told her to do. To prove it, he told the guys that if they went to his house, she would get up and fix them a meal, even though it was in the middle of the night and she had been in bed for hours. They made a bet and went to the man’s house to see if he was right.

In a matter of a few minutes, she was up and fixing a meal for them, “acting the part of the hostess with cheerfulness.” One of the men started feeling bad and essentially said, “Ma’am, we should be apologizing to you for barging in like this. You are a religious person, so I am sure you don’t approve of the way we are acting. How can you receive us so cheerfully?”

She replied, “I and my husband were both formerly unconverted, but, by the grace of God, I am now a believer in the Lord Jesus. I have daily prayed for my husband, and I have done all I can to bring him to a better mind, but as I see no change in him, I fear he will be lost for ever; and I have made up my mind to make him as happy as I can while he is here.”

His friends left, and the husband asked her if she thought he really would be lost forever. She told him she was afraid he would, and that she wished that he would repent and ask God’s forgiveness. That night, this man surrendered his life to Christ.

[1]

God worked through this wife’s fear of God and her sacrificial love to draw her husband to Christ.

How does a wife do that? Well, verse 3 makes it clear how one doesn’t—it isn’t through focusing on your outward appearance.

Some have interpreted this to mean that it is always wrong to braid your hair or wear jewelry, but that isn’t the point Peter is making.

In fact, if you press this verse to be strictly literal, you should take the word “fine” away in front of clothes, because it isn’t in the Greek. That would mean Peter was telling women not to wear clothes, and I feel like that is the opposite of what he is trying to say here!

The prohibitions in verse 3 need to be coupled with the positive statements in verse 4. As a wife who is honoring her Savior and King by submitting to the role God has given her husband to fulfill, your focus needs to be more on who you are becoming than what you are wearing.

We have all known someone who has used pretty clothes to distract and hide an ugly heart.

There may have been other issues at play in the culture of that day regarding the specific prohibitions he gives, but we can’t be totally sure about those.

What we can be sure about is that a wife is called to cultivate qualities that reflect their relationship with Christ.

Unlike fashion trends that change and clothes that wear out, these qualities are imperishable and will never go out of style.

The first quality he lists is gentleness, which is something God requires of all believers but would be especially difficult when living with a husband who isn’t a believer.

Gentleness is the idea of “meekness,” which it the concept of strength under control.

In case you feel like it is demeaning to describe a woman as gentle, here’s another passage where this term is used:

Matthew 11:28–29 CSB

“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Jesus described himself as “lowly,” which is the same word translated “gentle” here.

Wives, then, are called to focus on developing this same meekness and humility in their relationships with their husbands.

The second quality, “quiet,” is the idea of handling disturbances and disruptions with grace and calm.

It has the idea of being “tranquil, undisturbed from without.”[2]

A quiet spirit is one that rests in Christ and doesn’t often get ruffled by things going on around her.

This gentle and quiet spirit is found in godly women of the past, such as Abraham’s wife Sarah, who is given as an example in verses 5-6.

By the way, this isn’t commanding you to call your husband “lord;” it is again referring to Sarah’s submissive attitude that recognized Abraham’s role as the one responsible for leading the home.

Did you see again, though, that this attitude isn’t because you are inferior to your husband? Instead, this is what characterizes “women who put their hope in God.” It is connected back to a woman’s desire to honor Christ.

Peter makes it clear that living as exiles includes wives submitting to their husbands.

This is true whether they are believers, like Abraham, or unbelievers.

We are going to get to the husband’s responsibilities in a minute, but wives, how are you doing in this?

Are you honoring Christ by submitting to your husband’s leadership?

Are you focusing more on developing your internal character—gentleness and quiet—or on your outward appearance?

What do you need to do differently this week because of what God has said here?

Having addressed citizens, slaves, and now wives, Peter does something very unusual in the ancient world: he gives the husband instructions.

Read verse 7 with me...

We can summarize Peter’s words to husbands with this phrase:

2) Husbands, honor your wives.

Yes, husband, God has called you to lead your home.

However, as this verse shows, you aren’t called to lead your wife like a dictator. Instead, you are called to show her honor and treasure her.

In Peter’s day, this was incredibly radical. Husbands had absolute authority in the home. They called the shots, they owned the property, they made all the decisions, and no one else had a say.

So for God to call the husbands to respond to their wives in an understanding way and honor them as coheirs was unheard of.

Biblical commentator Warren Wiersbe highlights four different aspects of a husband’s responsiblity.

First, you are called to live with your wife. As strange as it may seem, there is an implication here: you need to make sure you are spending time with your wife! Don’t allow work, hobbies, or even your kids keep you so busy that you don’t take time to spend time with your wife.

Not only that, but we are called to live with our wives “in an understanding way,” or as some translations put it, “according to knowledge.”

That knowledge could mean a couple of different things.

Like “fear” for the wives, “knowledge” could be talking about the fact that you know God has called you to love, care for, and lead your wife.

So, you dwell with her and honor her because you know she enjoys the same standing with God you do. Plus, you know that God has called you to care for her.

This could also be about knowing your wife well, which fits the context. Learn everything you can about your wife! You may not understand everything, but don’t buy into all the cultural lies about how men and women can’t understand each other.

Spend time dwelling with your wife, going through life together, learning who she is today and not just who she was when you were dating.

Here we find another controversial statement: “as with a weaker partner”.

Although there are lots of ideas out there about what this means, we have already talked about the fact that women are not inferior to men.

They are not weaker because they are more emotionally expressive, and they are not weaker spiritually because they are prone to sin or anything like that.

However, there are two ways in which women, in general, are weaker than men. The first is that most women are not as strong as most men physically. For example, the world record deadlift for women is about 623lbs, which is a lot. For men, though, the world record is 1104lbs.

That may be extreme examples, but the principle is there—most women are physically not as strong as most men.

As a husband, that means I need to recognize that God has created my wife with different limits than I have, different priorities, and different abilities.

Not only are most women physically weaker than most men, but throughout history, women have also had less societal influence than men. We see that changing some in our culture, but men need to make sure that the way they use their authority in the home and in the culture looks out for those who don’t have the same voice they do, especially for our wives.

Putting all this together, instead of looking down on my wife, I need to honor her, respecting her limits and promoting her flourishing whenever I can.

Why? Because she is just as valuable to God as any man ever has been! She is a coheir with Christ, just like I am.

I can’t take advantage of her or neglect her, even if I lived in a society like Rome where that was accepted and even expected.

Not only that, but neglecting her needs disrupts my own walk with Christ! Look at that last part of verse 7.

God takes this seriously! If I am not honoring my wife, living with her in an understanding way, supporting her and protecting her, then I am not in a healthy place with God.

Guys, if you love your wives this way, then you create an atmosphere that makes it much easier to honor God by submitting to the responsibility God has given you.

It is much easier to follow someone who knows you and who you know cares about you than it is to follow a husband who is a stranger and a jerk.

So, how do we live honorably among those who don’t know Jesus?

We seek to reflect him in our marriages.

Wives honor God by submitting to their husbands, prayerfully anticipating God to use their lives as a tool to bring even their lost husband to Christ.

Husbands honor God by spending time with their wives, getting to know both God’s requirements for them as husbands and getting to know their own wives. They seek to protect and provide for their wives in whatever ways God enables, recognizing they have different limits and boundaries than many men do. In so doing, they honor their wives and acknowledge their standing before God and create clear channels to seek Christ in prayer.

Again, why do we do all of this? Because we want to honor the God who loved us enough to die in our place.

Jesus, while still being God, willingly submitted himself to the Father’s will by going to the cross and dying for us.

Jesus rose from the dead, and the Father exalted him to a place of honor where he rules over all of creation.

Now, Jesus calls us to himself, giving us the privilege of an incredible relationship with God we could never earn on our own.

In light of all he has done for us, we now have the calling to show him to the world through the way we live together as wives and husbands.

Endnotes:

[1] Charles Spurgeon, “A Word for the Persecuted,” https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/a-word-for-the-persecuted/#flipbook/

[2] Zodhiates, Spiros. The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament. Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2000.