Submission and Kindness in Marriage

As a teenager growing up in Colombia, my only exposure to NYC was through letters from my father, but mainly through movies I watched. 

A lot of movies in NYC are filmed at night and danger is imminent, and I had a sister living there, so I was often afraid of what might happen to her. 

So in my mind Manhattan was both exciting and scary, more scary than exciting.

It took moving there and actually living there for me to begin to see that the city was really not scary and a lot more exciting than I had imagined.

I share this because for many of us marriage is both exciting and scary. And marriage is what our text of scripture addresses today.

We’re all preloaded with conceptions and ideas about marriage that make us biased when we read a text like the one today.

We have cultural, psychological, emotional, and theological biases. 

Our culture tells us that equality is in, submission is out.

Maybe in your family your mom was abused, or you come from an abusive marriage yourself.

Perhaps you read this text and think Yes! That’s what I’ve been saying to my wife since our wedding day. God says I call the shots in our marriage, but she doesn’t believe me. She shouldn’t. The Bible says no such thing.

So we all come to scripture with these biases, and what we need to do is actually let the text speak to us.

Just as I had to move to Manhattan and experience the city to see that my fears were unfounded, so we also need to set our ideas about marriage to the side and experience the gift scripture has for us today.

Marriage is a gift from God. Marriage has the blessing of God. But marriage, when we approach it without regard for God’s instructions, can go bad quickly.

And, by the way, if you’re here and you’re saying, I’m not married, so I guess I shouldn’t have come today, let me say that all of God’s word applies to all of us.

Whether you’re single, married, divorced, widowed, this word is for you – because marriage was created to display the bond between Jesus and His church, which includes all of us. The more we all think God’s thoughts after him, the stronger the whole church will be, and the healthier each of us will be. 

In our confused and confusing society, clarity on something as fundamental as marriage is critical. People will need your advice and certainly your prayers when it comes to marriage. 

We’re going to look at the strength of a submissive wife and the strength of a kind husband, but before we do that, we need to look at the goodness of submission.

1 Peter 3:1

Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands.

It’s nearly impossible to our modern ears to read this verse and not hear it as a chauvinistic, woman-hating, patriarchal expression of male dominance. Any man or woman espousing such views is a misogynist and should be ashamed of themselves and cancelled. 

Let me bite the bullet. Let me fall on that grenade. Let me start by saying that submission is different from subjugation. Submission is something you do willingly. Subjugation is something you’re forced to do. 

A mother willingly submits herself to her newborn baby’s need for feeding in the middle of the night, being bounced incessantly, and being watched every moment. Mothers who haven’t been able to shower in days—that’s the level of self-abandon—say, I can do this again and again and again. 

That’s an all-consuming submission to baby. Willingly. Yes, baby is not your boss. (It feels like baby’s your boss.) But submission is not always given to someone over us.

The word translated “submit” is the verb hypotaso. Let me read you some verses that use the same verb, so that we can see the goodness of submission. 

Jesus as a child submitted to his parents. Luke 2:51 Then [Jesus] went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. (same word.)

Everyone to the governing authorities. Romans 13:1 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.

Everyone to the Father. James 4:7 Submit yourselves, then, to God.

The church to Jesus. Ephesians 5:24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

All Christians to leaders in the church. 1 Cor 16:16 submit to such people and to everyone who joins in the work and labors at it. 

Younger people to elders in the church. 1 Peter 5:5 In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. 

One to another in the church. Ephesians 5:21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Everyone is called to submission: to governing authorities, to God the Father, to Jesus, to the Spirit of God, to Christian leaders, and to one another. 

So God commands us to submit, but submission must be willing. 

It must be willing, but it’s not optional, meaning, we can’t just say, No, thank you. I’ll pass. I don’t want to submit. 

Submission is like love. God commands us to love – it’s not optional – but love must be genuine. It’s something we must do willingly.

As one female theologian put it, submission entails three things: 1) laying aside one’s desires and will, 2) putting oneself under another for the greater good, because 3) we have a deep trust in God.

Think of these life situations in which submission is a good and necessary thing:

Four-star generals submit to the President of the United States. These highly accomplished, disciplined, intelligent men and women willingly submit for the common good. 

In the medical field, doctors, nurses, and everyone else submits to clear protocols and chains of command because life is at stake. 

In the making of a movie, actors and crew submit to the director, and the director to the studio, and the studio to the poor tastes of the audience. 

The same applies in music, in sports, in universities, in the workplace. 

Submission means that we willingly yield to something or someone else for the greater good. Without submission life becomes utter chaos. But submission requires selflessness, maturity, and great strength of character. 

Submission is good. Subjugation, on the other hand, is forced and arbitrary.

And when it comes to the Bible’s word to wives about submission, many of them (perhaps some of you) have experienced subjugation, something entirely different and against Scripture.

When an ungodly man says, Woman, submit, that’s subjugation. It does not matter that he calls himself a Christian. It does not matter that he thinks the Bible condones his behavior. It does not matter that his ungodly friends agree with him. It does not matter that his behavior is accepted in his culture.

It does not matter that he doesn’t actually use those words but lives with his wife as if he were king and she was a subject.

And so I have to say to you, women, my sisters, that subjugation is not God’s will for you.

And for those of you who have experienced this, this whole conversation is deeply painful. You’ve been hurt. You’ve been hurt by men who said they were Christians and used Bible verses to support their evil behavior.

Sometimes the hurt is aggravated by the fact that your husband is/was in many respects a decent man, certainly in social settings, and yet you know the loneliness and fear you live with. 

That’s what subjugation breeds: loneliness, sadness, fear, isolation, hopelessness, shame and guilt (you think you’re the one doing something wrong).

Think of how different these outcomes are compared to what the Spirit of God breeds in us and in our marriages: love, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faith, self-control. 

Submission, which biblically it’s something everyone is called to, is something we do willingly, and it produces these same fruits of God’s Spirit. And that is a wonderful thing. 

Let’s look at the strength of a submissive wife.

1 Peter 3:1–6

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. 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 has been addressing how Christians are to live under divine, political, ecclesial, and social authorities. Under social authorities, he’s speaking to the core unit within the state, and that is the household. Roman households had husbands, wives, children and slaves. He addresses all except children. 

I want to focus on three things Peter brings up about the wife that submits to her own husband.

First, she’s saturated in the gospel.

He begins by saying, Wives, in the same way. Which way? In reverent fear of God. That’s what he had said to the slaves earlier (v 18). Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters.

This instruction to Christian wives assumes that they have been deeply changed by the gospel. The call to submission is not rooted in the expectations of Greco-Roman society. It is rooted in God, in everything Peter has been saying to Christians about their new lives in Christ. Their new birth, their living hope, their tested genuine faith, their identity as God’s people with God’s people. 

And, most recently in the letter, their example from Jesus Christ. Jesus suffered for them, for these wives. He bore their sin in his body on the cross. By his wounds they are healed. 

Anyone that has gone through this radical transformation understands that they are exiles in their own country. They no longer live for themselves but for God, to declare his greatness among the culture, and in their own families. 

This is what it means to live in reverent fear of God. Not that you’re afraid of God. You’re in awe of God. You’re in awe that he has moved heaven and earth to claim you, to save you, to make you his own. 

Only when you’re saturated in the gospel, in Jesus’ submission to suffer for you, can you hear Peter’s call to submission and understand its power to shape the world. 

That’s what Jesus did through his own submission to death. And that’s what Christian women do through their submission—they shape the world. 

Second, she’s a world-shaper.

This is incredible. Peter says, 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.

Here are two indisputable historical facts. 1) The blood-thirsty Roman empire fell in the fifth century of this era. 2) Christianity was majority women in the first few centuries of the faith. (In fact, to this day, Christianity is majority women.) 

Another historical fact, and this one is more disputed, is that Jesus Christ has been the greatest force for good the world has ever known. 

So early Christians, without earthly status, loved everyone, not just their own people; they tended to the (pagan) sick, they cared for widows, they protected abandoned baby girls as much as baby boys, they endured scorn, oppression, social ridicule, even death; and they proclaimed the name of Jesus. Within just a few centuries, they had multiplied everywhere in the empire. As much as Rome wanted them snuffed out, Rome did not stand a chance against the power of Jesus.

And that power was manifested largely in the women. How so?

Christian women were fierce. They had a quality of character that won their unbelieving husbands to the faith. (We’ll talk about that character in a moment.)

But I want you to consider the influence Christian women have always had to shape the world. Women influence other women. They influence their husbands. They influence their children. 

And that’s what Peter is saying in these verses: There’s something so beautiful about willing submission, wives, that even your unbelieving husbands will take notice of the purity and reverence of your lives, and many of them will come to faith. 

Submissive wives are world-shapers. 

Third, she displays true beauty.

Peter says unbelieving husbands may be won over when they see what? The purity and reverence of your lives.

That word “purity” is a beautiful word. Jesus is described with the same word (1 John 3:3). The wisdom from heaven is pure (James 3:17). The quality of things that are unspoiled and without defect is purity (Phil 4:8). Paul says, whatever is pure . . . think about such things. 

You know when you buy something really valuable, and you’re really excited about it, and you take it out of the packaging and it’s pristine, and you think, I don’t want to mess this up—because it’s so pure. If it’s shoes, you don’t want to wear them. If it’s an outfit, you don’t want to stain it. You want it to remain pure. 

That’s what godly women and wives are like. The finest, truest beauty that can be found on earth. Pure. 

This is the result of the deep transformation that Jesus has brought to your character.

It’s why Peter says, Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Two-thousand years and things have changed little. Big time female influencers on Insta focus on the same things: Elaborate hairstyles, jewelry, and clothing. Am I wrong? 

Peter is not prohibiting attention to these things. He’s saying, Your beauty should not come from them. . . Those are fine. That’s not what’s going to make you beautiful. Let me tell you what is. 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. 

There’s a beauty that is unfading. It comes from your inner self, the one transformed by the cross of Jesus, which makes you pure and gentle. That word “gentle” is the same one Jesus uses to describe his own heart when he says, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart. Two words used to describe the Savior—gentle and pure—are the same ones that Peter says women can become. 

Do you understand how radical and exalted a place for women this is? Women weren’t even addressed in the writings of the philosophers, neither were slaves. The philosophers didn’t take them seriously even to talk to them and instruct them in their writings. And here Peter is saying to them, God calls you, women/wives, to become as beautiful, pure, and gentle as the King of the Universe himself, Jesus. 

And, by the way, to be gentle doesn’t mean that you let your husband or anyone else walk over you, any more than Jesus let people walk over him. He confronted. He held people accountable. He got in people’s faces. Always for their ultimate good.

A wife that is gentle and pure, as Jesus is gentle and pure, will have the inner strength to confront her husband when he’s in the wrong. To let a husband remain in sin is not submission but cowardice and a lack of love. 

The gentleness will come out when you don’t lash out, manipulate, or give ultimatums, but rather, calling on the strength of Christ in you, you continue to love sacrificially in the face of conflict.

And if you are in a hard situation, please seek help from pastors, from counselors, from trusted friends. Jesus is your defender. 

Peter says, You are Sarah’s daughters if you become these gentle, pure, beautiful-from-within women.

Why would Gentile women in various parts of the empire want to be associated with Sarah? 

Sarah was Abraham’s wife. While Eve is the mother of all the living, Sarah’s the mother of all the people of God for all time. It was to Abraham and Sarah that God gave the promise to make into a nation through which he would claim and bless all the peoples of the earth. 

Earlier in chapter 2 Peter said Christians are a royal priesthood and a holy nation. Royalty is traced not by having the ethnicity of Abraham and Sarah but having the faith of Abraham and Sarah, through whom God gave the world the Messiah Jesus.

But Sarah, you’ll recall, had some tough episodes with Abraham. Have any of you, wives, had any tough episodes with your husband? Remember that on two separate occasions he put her in jeopardy by telling her to lie to the king and say she was his sister, so that his life would be spared. Can you imagine how afraid she must’ve been? What a failure on Abraham’s part!

But do you remember what happens in the episodes? God protects Sarah. He sent a serious illness on Pharaoh and his household the first time, and he appeared in a dream to king Abimelek in the second instance and warned him not to touch Sarah. Then both Pharaoh and Abimelek come to Abraham and say, What have you done? (Remember that series?)

This is a powerful rationale for Christian wifely submission. Through Sarah’s example, Peter is saying, not that wives should lie, but that wives can trust God’s protection. 

Submission for Christians, and especially for wives in this text, is not rooted in the impeccable record of the one you submit to, but in the trustworthiness and power of God to shield you and to bring out good when you suffer unjustly. 

The strength of a submissive wife, then, is that she has been transformed by the gospel, she’s a world-shaper, and she has the beauty of the heart that reflects the beauty of Christ.

Let’s talk about the strength of a kind husband.

1 Peter 3:7

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.

I know you might be thinking, How come there are six verses addressed to the wives and only one addressed to the husbands? That’s ridiculous. 

In Ephesians 5 when Paul addresses husbands and wives, he has a few verses for the wives but many more for the husbands. Peter in his context had more to say to wives, and Paul in his context had more to say to husbands. Both of them balance the instruction for husbands and wives. We need it all.

Peter calls husbands in the same way, that is, in reverent fear of God (2:18). Just as he called slaves and wives to this, he also calls husbands. God is not a respecter of persons. Husband, you have an obligation to your wife, just as she has an obligation to you. Because you have been transformed by the gospel, you are to be considerate as you live with your wives. The Greek literally says, You are to live with them according to knowledge. What knowledge is that? The knowledge of the gospel. The knowledge of everything Peter has been saying about the Christian life. 

In other words, Christian husbands are not to live with their wives according to instinct, or tradition, or culture, or family-of-origin legacy, or habit, or temperament – but according to the gospel, according to the knowledge of a Savior who suffered and gave himself up for his beloved people. 

And, incidentally, even though we’re not in Ephesians 5, let me steal from that passage for a moment. The call on husbands in Ephesians is to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. In other words, while wives are called to submit, husbands are called to sacrifice themselves for their wives, even on to death.

A husband transformed by the gospel is a self-sacrificing, kind husband.

Some people in our culture take offense that Peter calls women the weaker partner, but it is indisputably true that women are physically weaker than men and that men have taken advantage of this weakness to oppress women and subjugate them. 

And so, God through Peter’s words wants husbands to know that rather than exploiting this weakness they are to treat them with respect . . . as heirs with [them] of the gift of life. There is no distinction before God in the value of women and men. We are both headed for the same inheritance in Christ. 

A husband that will not be considerate and kind to his wife will find that God opposes them, and I don’t know of anything scarier. Peter says, Treat them this way, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. Think about this. If your prayers are hindered, God is not listening to you. 

I can’t think of anything worse than God cutting me off, saying to me, I’m not listening to you until you treat my daughter with respect, as a partner and heir in the gospel.

I’ve had a long road learning to become a kind husband. Long. Longer for my wife, I’m sure, as she patiently bore with me. 

Earlier in our marriage, I did not listen well to Anna, and I made decisions like I saw my mom make decisions – unilaterally. My mom led the home. She was divorced. She was taking the family where she was taking the family. That’s what I had seen. That’s what I imitated. 

That was not the only way I interacted with Anna, but there was a big root of that inconsiderate poison that the gospel had not transformed. 

I remember a time when (actually, Anna remembers a time, clearly when) she asked me for more help around the house. And this is what I said. (Are you ready to be horrified?) I said, No. I said, I don’t ask you to come to my work and do my job for me, do I? (I just said that last week! No. Praise God, no!) 

That’s shameful. It still stings to remember it. 

The Lord, kindly and patiently, began to show me the error of my ways and beliefs. I had a pastor who gently helped me understand 1 Peter 3:7. It’s been a long road, still. But there’s been growth, and Anna attests to it. And I’m grateful for her patience.  

I’m learning to be considerate as I live with her, to leave behind my instinct, tradition, culture, family of origin, habits, temperament. I’m learning to value what she values. Here’s a small example. 

She likes me to squeegee the shower right after I take a shower (so that mold doesn’t grow and such). Now I don’t want you to picture it, but it feels quite undignified as I stand there, water dripping, and I go up and down with the squeegee wall by wall of the shower. 

That makes her really happy, and I don’t think I would do it, except that 1 Peter 3:7 speaks to me.

The apostle Peter knows that in a wife’s submission and a husband’s kindness people looking on will find something really compelling that points to Jesus, who himself submitted himself to death by which he showed us unending kindness.

Submission and kindness. Both of these qualities, while different in nature, challenge wives and husbands equally to be selfless and full of trust in God. 

So whatever preconceived ideas about marriage you may have walked in here with, or whatever difficult emotions you may have when you read the words of this passage, I hope we will hear God’s word to us, trust him from the heart, and repent where we’ve been at odds with that word.