“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 behaviour of their wives.”
1 Peter 3:1 (NIV)
It seems strange that anyone can witness without words.
Yet that is exactly what God says thru Peter to family women who have unsaved husbands.
Submission seems to be a bad word to most Canadian women in 2018.
The infamous answer to Paul’s instruction in Ephesians 5 “Wives submit to your husbands as unto the Lord” that goes like this- "I might submit to my husband if he acted more like the Lord"- has no traction in a situation where the husband is a non-Christian.
The situation Peter is describing is a tough situation for a Christian lady to be in and yet his direction to work on the inner self - the unfading beauty of gentle quiet spirit - reminds us of Christ’s teaching about the inner righteousness that is greater than the righteousness of the Pharisees. It is more natural for us to work on outward appearance, and yet there is more blessing for us to work on our inner self. It seems to me from a husband’s perspective that great faith is required for a lady to live this out. For there would be tremendous fear involved in the type of submission being described in this passage.
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