MARRIAGE
MARRIAGE
1 PETER 3:1-7
The real test of our spirituality is at home.
From slavery and, by implication, all similar forms of subjection, Peter passes to marriage. He uses the same word, “submissive,” for the wife as for the slave (2:18) and the younger church member (5:5). The NEB is correct in the first two cases in rendering “accept the authority,” and this would have been best in the third as well. God has ordered his creation on the basis of authority and subordination, and Peter is calling on us to respect God’s order. Relative subordination in this world disappears in a common subordination to Christ, before whom we all stand on the same footing. The difficulty felt in Peter’s teaching by many today would in great measure vanish, if we took “honor everyone” (2:17) seriously. Not “obey,” but “honor” is the difficult word for many in the marriage promise.
Some of his readers were women married to unbelievers, Jewish or pagan (3:1). Peter says it is their lives rather than their words that may win their husbands. Both Paul, in 1 Timothy 2:9f., and Peter concentrate on the same point. “Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God” (3:3-4, NLT). In contrast to modern concepts, the church’s wedding robe in Revelation 19:8 is for the glory of the bridegroom. The women Peter describes are dressing for themselves, not their husbands. JBP may be correct in paraphrasing, “do not give way to hysterical fears” (3:6). Some marriages are wrecked by deeprooted fears. If a woman simply trusts her marriage, children and husband to God and does not think she must fight to preserve it, she will find fear vanishing.
When Peter turns to the husbands, he does not rise to the heights of Ephesians 5:25, but he should be understood in the same way. “In an understanding way” (ESV) is better than “considerate” (NIV) (3:7). If a husband does not remember that his wife is his equal spiritually, he will diminish his own spiritual standing and not be able to pray properly (3:7).