Full Transcript

Welcome. For our first-time listeners, Share the Word is a Great Commission project going through the New Testament chapter by chapter. Today, the subject falls to submission and suffering, harmony in marriage, leadership, and ultimately following the example of Jesus. First Peter chapter 3, living harmoniously. Listen to this for a minute. Now listen to this.

Which would you prefer to have playing as the background music of your life? We do our best to keep Share the Word focused on the New Testament’s big ideas. We’re not here to debate over minutiae or try to advocate for novel ideas that no one’s ever seen before. Our goal is to clarify and apply its biggest ideas. Today is a very good example of that. This is such a big idea, I’ve held off addressing it until we came to a chapter where it’s too obvious not to address.

Or in this case, chapters, because Peter begins to address it in the middle of chapter 2 and continues to apply it till the middle of chapter 3. At the conclusion in chapter 3, verse 8, in the very literal New American Standard Bible, it reads, To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, loving, compassionate, and humble. Who doesn’t appreciate being surrounded by that and by people like that? You heard two kinds of sounds a moment ago. I won’t say music because I’m not sure the first one was really music. One was just dissonant, clashing sounds, but the other was beautifully harmonious.

Peter, writing to these early scattered Christians, urges them to strive for harmony in their lives and around their lives. From chapter 2, verse 13 to chapter 3, verse 12, he’s impressing one big idea that cultivates that: a harmonious atmosphere around us. Just as you don’t want clashing, discordant, dissonant, blaring music over your car speakers for the duration of an eight-hour road trip, don’t contribute to the clashing, discordant, dissonant noise around your life every day. No sane person wants that. We want harmony. We want peace.

We can’t always produce that by ourselves, but we should do our part to contribute to that happening, and that’s what this section of Scripture is about. There’s a key word in 1 Peter chapter 3. It’s repeated in chapter 2 and in chapter 4 as well, and it’s hupotasso, hupotasso, a Greek word commonly used in his time in military jargon, at the time meaning to arrange troops under a commander. In our case, God is the commander, and hupotasso is translated in English Bibles, submit yourself or be subject to, normally meaning to willingly place yourself under someone. Okay, so what’s that have to do with living harmoniously? A lot, actually. 2:13, 2:18, and 3:1 each introduce short passages where the apostle Peter is instructing early Christians concerning three of the biggest spheres their lives operated within.

As citizens of the empire, as servants or employees at their workplace, and as wives and husbands at home. So, in all three of these spheres, a Christian’s relationship to the government, their behavior at their workplace, and how they relate at home, hupotasso should play an integral role. Let’s think them through as Peter addresses them one at a time. First, verses 13 through 15. Listen. Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority or to governors sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.

For this is the will of God, that by doing right you silence the ignorance of foolish people. Knowing what we know about the government of the Roman Empire just then, that may surprise you. Put yourself in the place of an attitude of submission to governmental authorities, Peter writes. For the Lord’s sake, the general rule for Christians throughout the New Testament is we’re to respect authorities in our country and in our state and our locality. We’re to obey laws where we live. The New Testament is never about urging people toward rebellion.

Peter is instructing this because he knew the best chance these people had of living peaceful, harmonious lives in the places they now found themselves was to be good citizens and keep out of trouble. And Peter said to them, Submit to governmental authorities for the Lord’s sake. That means God is the one who has ordained the concept of human governments. Why? Because order is very preferable to disorder. Laws are necessary boundaries for sinful people.

As we discuss in our podcast on Acts chapter 5, the only situation where Christians do not have to follow this rule is if their government makes a law that contradicts one of God’s commandments. For example, in Acts chapter 5, when the local government in Jerusalem forbade the apostles from preaching the gospel in the city, Peter and John were arrested because they didn’t listen. And when they were called in before the council, they said, We gave you strict orders to stop teaching in this name, and yet you’re filling Jerusalem with your teaching. And Peter and the apostles answered, We must obey God rather than men. Sorry, but we have a higher overriding order. In that case, the Great Commission, Jesus had told them to preach the gospel.

But this was an exceptional circumstance, not the norm. Remember, Christianity, normally, is not about rebellion. Jesus is our example in everything. As Peter writes, we should follow in his steps. At the high point of Jesus’ popular Galilean ministry, the people at the northern district of Israel decided they wanted to make him their king, commence a populist rebellion with Jesus at the head of it. But he completely shut that down.

Later, after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the week before his crucifixion, there were again many people anxious for Jesus to take on the Roman government as a political Messiah. But do you remember when some of his opponents tried trapping him that week into speaking against the Roman government with that question about paying taxes? Again, he shut them down. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, he said. He was not about rebellion against the government, and Peter is passing on what he had learned from Jesus and his example. In verse 17 he writes, Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

We may not like the king, or the president, or the prime minister and the policies of their administrations, but the rule for Christians is submit yourself for the Lord’s sake to every human institution. The New Testament writers, living in pretty dicey times, urged their readers to pray for those in authority and honor them. And as long as it didn’t violate a higher commandment from God, submit to them and their laws. Not only does that honor God, who ordained civil authority to keep a rein on sinful people, it’s also our best chance of living peaceful, harmonious lives, no matter in what society we find ourselves. So, New Testament telling us, be good citizens, respect other people in your society, obey the laws of the land for the Lord’s sake. In verses 18 to 20 of chapter 2, there is a similar but maybe even more surprising instruction from Peter.

Surprising if this is your first time through the New Testament anyway. There he writes, Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are harsh. For this finds favor with God, if for the sake of conscience a person endures grief when suffering unjustly. For what credit is there if, when you sin and are treated harshly, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer, patient endurance, that finds favor with God. Wow.

The word Peter uses there, translated servants, doulos, is the common word in the New Testament for household slaves. Fortunately, slavery is a rare thing in the 21st century, but it wasn’t at all in the Roman Empire. In fact, estimates are that nearly a third of the people in the empire when Peter wrote this were enslaved persons. One out of every three people. It could have been the result of a military conquest as the empire was expanding, or one could be born into slavery because their mother was already a slave, or they could be in some kind of indentured servitude to pay off debts. But regardless of how they got there, an awful lot of people were servants and slaves.

Sometimes they could earn their freedom, and in the New Testament these people were called freedmen. And of course, there were also hardworking people who were not slaves, but who worked long hours and made just enough to survive. With all of them, Peter is placing this principle before them, the principle of submission to those over you in your work world, and it applies in all of these cases. The reason I said this instruction may surprise you that is servants being instructed to be subject to their masters is because we live in a very different time when slavery is considered to be one of the worst things imaginable. One reason is we associate slavery today with racism. It had nothing to do with race then, really.

Servitude and slavery was just a part of the warp and woof of the Roman world. A doctor could be a slave. You know, it didn’t matter. Someone who was in a place of slavery was in a place of slavery. It wasn’t based on the color of their skin or their ethnicity or their education or anything like that. As I said earlier about the relationship of Christians to government, again, the New Testament writers and Jesus nowhere encourage rebellion.

Lots of slaves were attracted to Christianity at the time, precisely because in their Christian relationships among believers, in the church setting, they were treated as equals there. How refreshing would that be? And spiritually before God, they were equals. But even among Christians outside of that setting, in the workaday world, normally slaves were slaves, even if their master was a believer. It’s true that, in time, Christianity had a lot to do with the movement to outlaw slavery in England, America, and other places. But the Christian abolitionist movement was based on changing people’s hearts and minds so that laws were changed, not on rebellion and revolution.

We’ll see later, when we take a look at the Apostle Paul’s letter to Philemon, that this was his approach too. Paul appealed in that letter to Philemon, a Christian slave owner, to accept a runaway servant as his Christian brother now because he had been converted, and to release him, if he would, so that he could be of service to Paul in his ministry. The apostle didn’t try to order Philemon to do that. He appealed to him to do that. My point is, again, nowhere in the New Testament can you find encouragement to slaves or low wage earners or anyone else to rebel against the system. In fact, this passage and others teach just the opposite.

Christian slaves, servants, employees are instructed to work hard for those over them as if they were working for the Lord. Not just for the kind and fair ones. Peter says that’s easy to do. No, even for those who are unfair and unjust, for showing an attitude of submission in those kinds of cases for the Lord’s sake finds favor with God, he says. This might seem counterintuitive to us, but Peter’s suggestion is God is keeping track of things and will reward us in heaven one day when we obey these kinds of instructions. Once again, Jesus is called on as the example.

It’s at the very next verse, 21, where he says, For you have been called for this purpose, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example so that you would follow in his steps. The word Peter used there means Jesus set a pattern for us. How so? Well, Philippians 2 says, Although he was in very nature God, he did not consider his equality with God something to grasp onto, meaning to insist on or to assert for himself. But he emptied himself and came into our world as a bondservant. Maybe you never have thought about Jesus that way before, but the idea in that passage is that he humbled himself by setting aside his functional equality with God the Father, which existed since time began, to become the servant of God for a while while he was on the earth, even submitting himself to the extreme injustice of the cross because that was God the Father’s will for him.

Thank God he did that. He put himself in a place of submission as a servant, the very same word in our chapter, doulos, and as God’s servant, Jesus was obedient then even to the point of death on the cross. Peter says, If we are Christians, Christ is our example. He set the pattern. Follow in his steps. This is certainly a challenging instruction, is it not?

But God is calling us as followers of Christ to, in our workplaces, do our jobs as unto the Lord, even if our boss is not kind or fair or just. As long as we are in those positions, follow Jesus’ example. Do your best to fulfill the expectations of whoever you’re working for. Be your company’s best employee. God will honor and reward that attitude, and it’s your best bet to have a harmonious workplace because, again, leadership and submission are essential to order and productivity. That’s why God ordained it.

Okay, if that was not controversial enough for us moderns, here’s the third application Peter makes, and it begins at the beginning of chapter 3. In the same way, you wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won over without a word by the behavior of their wives. Then he adds, Cultivate the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable qualities of a gentle and quiet spirit. These are precious in God’s sight. For in that way the holy women of former times who hoped in God also used to adorn themselves, being subject to their own husbands, just as Sarah obeyed Abraham and called him lord. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

You’re not going to tell us that women should be submissive to men, are you, Paul? No, of course not. But Peter is. Ah. But seriously, understand that this application of hupotasso, it’s not a broad general one for society. In this section, it’s being applied to the sphere of the home and to the marital relationship.

It’s not about superiority and inferiority of men over women, generally, because in Galatians 3, we’re told that in the Christian worldview, men and women are equally honorable and equally valuable to God. We’re each created in His image. And in 1 Corinthians 11, we’re told that women are not independent of men nor men of women. We’re interdependent. We’re complementary. But contrary to modern thinking, too much modern thinking, so-called feminist scholars have advocated for this, saying that women and men are just the same, they’re interchangeable.

No, the Bible disagrees with that. We are different. There are many ways men and women are different and designed by God for different roles, particularly in the marital relationship and in the home. Our masculinity and femininity should be honored. This is one glaring area today where the world is presently in rebellion, open rebellion against God’s order, even against nature itself. By that I mean the current movement to blur the line between the sexes or the idea that you can choose which gender you want to be, even if it’s different than your biological sex.

Don’t be buying into any of that stuff. That’s seriously satanic. Don’t even get me started on that. But as Peter applies the submission principle in the context of marriage and the home, he writes that married women should be in submission to their own husbands. Why? Gets back to order.

It’s so things will work smoothly at home. Someone needs to be the leader in every relationship of two or more people, whether in a country, in the military, at a church, in the workplace, on a team, at school, or at home. But what if my husband is a jerk, you might be thinking. Well, my first response would be, why did you marry the jerk? If you’re a Christian woman and considering marriage, this is advice I give my own daughters. Be very sure the guy is someone you respect, who you trust, who is wise, and who you think would be a good leader for your home and example to your children if they come along.

Because if you put yourself into that relationship, submission to your husband’s leadership is God’s expectation. Again, I want to underscore this. I don’t want anybody to misunderstand this. This is not a general rule for every setting in society. Peter is clear he is referring here to submission to your own husband. There’s nothing in the Bible that precludes a woman from leadership in most other situations, from, say, being a principal of a school or being the president of a company or the president of a country, for that matter.

Last primary election, I cast my ballot for a woman to be the candidate of my party for the presidency. Women in general are just as smart, just as strong, probably more measured in judgment and more emotionally intelligent, so they can be very effective leaders. But at home, God has appointed husbands to the leadership role in that little sphere. Be sure you understand this. Submission is not the same as compliance, much less forced compliance. It’s really the opposite of that.

When the Bible writers tell us, submit yourself, that is voluntary. It’s an attitude of the heart. It’s born of humility and honor toward God. We all know someone can be outwardly compliant and still be quite inwardly rebellious, and that’s not what God is talking about here. It’s interesting that Peter holds up Abraham and Sarah as examples of this relationship principle. I don’t have time to go into it, but Abraham, as great a man of faith as he usually was, occasionally made a real boneheaded move, like the instance in Genesis chapter 12 where he told his wife to pretend she was his sister to protect them in a dangerous situation.

Wow, that blew up in their faces. Nevertheless, Peter’s point is Sarah honored him as the leader in their relationship. A gentle and quiet spirit, not a boisterous, rebellious one, is what God values in wives and women. Just as I pointed out that Jesus was the example in the other spheres, he’s also the example in this one. How could that be, Paul? Jesus was A, not a woman, and B, not even married.

True. But Jesus, as God the Son, was in fact in a relationship that required submission. By the way, this is how we can be certain that the principle of submission has nothing to do with inferiority versus superiority. In Christian theology, a proper understanding of the Trinity means that God the Son is every bit as divine and equal to the Father and to the Holy Spirit in every qualitative way. Yet in that little family, so to speak, the Son is voluntarily submissive to the Father. Think about that.

This is your heavy-duty thought for the day. If even in that perfect environment of heaven, between perfect beings, where there is complete equality in the Trinity of God, there still needs to be authority and submission in order for them to get things accomplished they want to accomplish. So, how much more do we fallen human beings need this? When we get to the epistle of the Ephesians, where the most direct passage concerning marriage is found, we’ll think more about this thoroughly. But let me follow up by saying, Peter also gives balancing instructions to men. Chapter 3, verse 7, he says, You husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life.

That’s a tall order for men, isn’t it? Literally, live with your wife according to knowledge. Try and understand them. I saw a meme the other day that said in bold, Good news! How to understand women just came out in paperback, and showed a guy standing over a book with as many pages as the IRS code. But God is saying, Do your best, guys.

Try to understand your wife. Listen to her. God has made her different from you for a reason, as a balancing factor. Do your best to see things from her perspective and take her feelings into account. And he’s saying, Never force your way by physically overpowering or bullying her, lording it over her. That’s the opposite of what Christian husbands should do.

That’s the opposite of what we vow when we say, I will love, honor, and cherish you until death separates us. So remember, your wife is your spiritual equal and treater is one. Boy, there is a lot to chew on in this section where Peter applies the biblical concept of submission. But remember, God is not asking any more of us than what Jesus Himself was willing to humbly do. And He has set the pattern. If we call Him Lord, then we should follow in His steps.

This is Paul for Share the Word. So many great nuggets of wisdom in this chapter. The most important for me is the picture that Paul paints: Jesus, the prime example of complete submission. He is God, and He submitted to His Father for us. We bring up the term submission, and it’s met with defensive resistance. Why?

Here’s my thoughts. In this world, Satan doesn’t believe in submitting to a higher authority. He’s all about rebellion, and his motivation is all about pride. He refuses to acknowledge or obey any power above his own. Instead of submission, Satan looks to manipulate, deceive, and ultimately control everyone around him. Sound familiar?

Godly submission goes against the very fabric of this fallen world. But in reality, submission requires strength of character. Submission is a voluntary act, not coerced. And submission to God and one another is about respect, not control. Let us know your thoughts on this and some of the other aspects of this podcast. Email us at info at sharetheword.org.