Living as part of God’s kingdom community should result in wives representing Jesus well in marriage...

At the church where I serve we have been looking at a letter that has been preserved and recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible called the book of 1 Peter. We are addressing the reality that as followers of Jesus, the hope we have in Jesus should lead to us embracing our identity as part of God's kingdom community. However, to truly embrace our identity as part of God’s kingdom community requires that we live out our identity as part of God’s kingdom community.

But how do we do that? In other words, what does embracing our identity as part of God’s kingdom community look like? How should followers of Jesus live out our identity as followers of Jesus who are part of God’s kingdom community in the midst of a rapidly changing culture?

This week, I would like for us to spend our time together picking up where we left off two weeks ago. And as we jump into the next section of this letter that the Apostle Peter wrote to early followers of Jesus, we will discover a timeless truth about how we are to live as part of God’s kingdom community in the midst of a rapidly changing culture as followers of Jesus. So let’s discover that timeless truth together, beginning in 1 Peter 3:1:

In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, ² as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior.

Now to fully understand what Peter is talking about in these verses, we first need to understand a few things. The first thing that we need to understand is what Peter means when he uses the phrase “in the same way”. With this phrase, Peter is connected what he had said in the previous section of this letter to what he is about to say in this section of this letter.

As we discovered two weeks ago in 1 Peter 2:18, Peter commanded servants to be submissive to their masters with all respect. As we have talked about throughout this series, to submit is to willingly place oneself under others by placing others first based on one’s role in the relationship So Peter commanded slaves to willingly place themselves under their masters by placing their master first.

Peter then unpacked his command by explaining that slaves were to willingly place themselves under their masters by placing their master first in a way that results in obedience to their masters not only to those masters who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable. In other words, Peter commanded slaves, regardless of how their master treated them, to willingly place themselves under their masters by placing their master first in a way that resulted in obedience to their masters.

So with this phrase, Peter begins this section of his letter by commanding wives to be submissive to your husbands, in the same way that slaves were to be submissive to their masters. In other words just as Peter commanded slaves to willingly place themselves under their masters by placing their master first, Peter here is commanding wives to willingly place themselves under their husbands by placing their husbands first.

And for Peter, wives are to willingly place themselves under their husbands by placing their husband first even if the husband was disobedient to the word. With this phrase, Peter is referring to husbands who were disobedient to the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel. So even if their husband was not a follower of Jesus, Peter commanded wives to willingly place themselves under their husband’s leadership by placing their husband first. Now a natural question that arises here is “why would Peter make such a command?” To understand why Peter would make such a command we first need to understand the context and the culture in which Peter was making this command.

As we discovered a few weeks ago, in this section of the book of 1 Peter, Peter is addressing how the readers of his letter were to submit and live in relationship with one another as a part of the institution called family. Now, in the Roman Empire during the first century, many slaves, especially house slaves, did not have separate living quarters. Instead house slaves typically lived in rooms within their masters homes. So, in the Roman culture of the first century, the expectation was that both a slave and wife were to live under the authority of the male authority figure in the home, who would be their master and their husband, respectively.

The only difference between a slave and a wife was that a slave was viewed as property. The only difference between a slave and a wife was that the wife was viewed as being capable of making moral decisions. In addition, in the Roman culture of the first century, the expectation was that a slave would worship his master’s God and that a wife would worship her husband’s God. To not worship their master’s or their husband’s god would be a sign of disrespect to his authority in the culture of the day.

The issue that Peter is addressing here is how followers of Jesus, as a result of their new identity as part of God’s Kingdom community, were to operate within the culture’s most basic social unit, the home. Peter is addressing how a woman who was a follower of Jesus was to conduct herself in the situation where she was married to a man who was not a follower of Jesus. Peter’s concern was that the behavior of a wife who was a follower of Jesus would be an apologetic for the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel to the husband who was not a follower of Jesus.

And just like we talked about a few weeks ago, part of that apologetic for the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel would be living their day to day lives in that social order of the home in a way that affirmed part of that social order that lined up with the message and teachings of Jesus while rejecting those parts of the social order that were not compatible with the message and teachings of Jesus. You see, unlike the caricature that our culture paints of Christianity as being a male chauvinistic religious system, Peter here, in his command to wives, reveals the reality that Christianity is based on the assumption that both wives and slaves have a moral responsibility for their behavior that exceeded the social expectations of the day.

Peter and the writers of the letters that make up the New Testament actually subverted cultural expectations of the day by elevating the wife to a position of unparalleled dignity in the culture of the day. So Peter’s response to women who were followers of Jesus and found themselves married to a husband who was not a follower of Jesus and who did love his wife like Christ loves His church was to submit to their husband and respect him without renouncing their faith even if they may suffer mocking and ridicule for their faith.

Now maybe I have just described the situation you are in. Maybe you find yourself married to a man who is not a follower of Jesus and who does not love you like Christ loves His church. Maybe your response to Peter’s command in light of your situation is to object, to push back. Maybe your immediate response is “Why should I?”

If that question is running through your mind I just want to let you know that it is a fair question to ask. And fortunately for us, Peter provides the answer to that question by explaining that the reason why wives that found themselves in such a situation willingly place themselves under their husband’s leadership by placing him first, without renouncing their faith even if they may suffer mocking and ridicule for their faith, was so that they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. Peter’s point here is that the behavior of a wife who was a follower of Jesus, not just the words of the wife that was a follower of Jesus, would serve as an apologetic for the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel to the husband who was not a follower of Jesus.

You see, in the Greco-Roman culture of the first century, it was considered shameful for a wife to presume to instruct her husband. In addition, regardless of culture, sometimes silence is a more effective means of communication then nagging or berating. And we have all experienced that reality, haven’t we? Peter recognized that as these early followers of Jesus lived as citizens of God’s kingdom community, that they would be watched closely by those around them as they lived distinctively different lives than those in the community around them.

And nowhere would that dynamic be more evident than in relationship between a husband and a wife. Peter recognized that husbands would be closely watching the behavior of their wives. And as husbands watched their wives conduct their lives according to the message and teachings of Jesus, there would be an exposure to the impact that the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel would have as theses wives lived out their lives in a way that revealed and reflected Jesus. As these wives conducted their day to day lives in a way that was distinctly different from the culture around them; as these wives lived their day to day lives in a way that demonstrated a reverent respect for Jesus that resulted in submission and obedience to Jesus, Peter recognized the power that they would have to be used by God to bring their husband’s to the place where they became followers of Jesus as well.

Peter is concerned with the key question “Are followers of Jesus representing Jesus well? What is the reputation of followers of Jesus in the eyes of unbelievers?” And it is here that we discover a timeless truth about how we are to live out our identity as followers of Jesus who are part of God’s kingdom community in the midst of a rapidly changing culture. And that timeless truth is this: Living as part of God’s kingdom community should result in wives representing Jesus well in marriage. And in 1 Peter 3:1-6, we see Peter reveal for us three reasons why living as part of God’s kingdom community should result in wives representing Jesus well in marriage.

First, in 1 Peter 3:1-2, we see that wives represent Jesus well in marriage when they respect their husbands in a way that results in a win for God's kingdom community. Wives respect their husbands in a way that results in a win for God's kingdom community by exercising wisdom in their conversations about the kingdom. Knowing and living in the tension of when to speak through words and when to speak with actions requires wisdom. And when that wisdom is exercised, the result is a win for God’s kingdom community.

In addition, wives respect their husbands in a way that results in a win for God's kingdom community by exercising a lifestyle that reflects the kingdom in their relationship with their husbands.  As part of God’s kingdom community, wives are to exercise a lifestyle that is marked by a purity and a respect for Jesus that results in behavior that represents Jesus well and that is readily observable to their husbands who are not a part of the kingdom community.

Tomorrow, we will see Peter reveal a second reason why living as part of God’s kingdom community should result in wives representing Jesus well in marriage…