1 Peter 3:1 states: “wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands…”  What is this “same way” in Peter’s mind and how does that look in a post-Christian culture?

In earlier blogs from Ephesians 5, I discussed marital submission as the husband loving his wife the same way that Christ loved the church, following Christ’s submission to His heavenly Father.  As the husband submits to Christ’s leadership and mission over his life and home, his wife is called to respect him and to help him organize and fulfill God’s purposes for their home and children.  This is Paul’s understanding of marital fulfillment, a picture of biblical submission from the husband’s standpoint, calling him to be a man of God to his wife and children.

Not surprisingly, Peter follows this same pattern in his first epistle; however, it has a slightly different perspective, written to show how marital submission looks from the wife’s standpoint.  In chapter 3, he gives specific instructions to wives (3:1-6) and then to husbands (3:7) as to how this submission looks like in daily life.  Yet one phrase often overlooked is the words, “in the same way” (3:1, 7).  It calls the reader to go back in the text and to see how Peter wants spouses to pattern their internal role-relationships in the home around the model of Christ for His people, stated in 2:21: “to this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.”  In harmony with Paul, Peter presents marital submission as a heart and soul-attitude alignment under the mission of God, following the obedient submission of Christ to His Father.

Peter teaches that Christians are called first to follow Christ’s example of servant submission before the world.  Following Christ’s “way” necessitates aligning with His servant example (2:21).  Honoring Christ in this way is paramount in order to receive God’s commendation (2:19-20).  It is not an option; rather, an imperative summons to live as Christ lived in the world.  Genuine disciples heed the call to follow Christ because He stands behind this summons:

“The call goes forth, and is at once followed by the response of obedience…It displays not the slightest interest in the psychological reason for a man’s religious decisions. And why? For the simple reason that the cause behind the immediate following of call by response is Jesus Christ Himself.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 1948 and 2001, p. 61).

The Christian pilgrimage is a call to follow Christ on a path that He has ordained for us in life.  Sometimes that path brings happiness and sunshine.  Other times the journey delivers turbulence and heartache.  Christ experienced both situations, and the intent behind them was to forge dependence upon His Father in every way.   In depicting this path of discipleship, the writer to the Hebrews noted that Christ “learned obedience from what he suffered” (5:8), providing us a perfect example of living under God’s mission in the human experience.  We learn from Christ’s example that in every situation encountered on the journey, God calls us to follow Him exclusively:

“Jesus must therefore make it clear beyond all doubt that the “must” of suffering applies to his disciples no less than to himself…Discipleship mean adherence to the person of Jesus, and therefore submission to the law of Christ which is the law of the cross.” (Ibid., 96).

Christ’s obedience is the focal point of biblical submission.  Jesus would never call His disciples to a journey of obedience that He did not experience first.  Biblical submission means pursuing Christ on the path that ends in the Father’s glorification, as Peter states at the end of 2:12: “that they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”

With God’s glory as the end result of submission and obedience portrayed as its means, Peter offers four practical ways that believers can live in authentic biblical submission.

• Living good lives among unbelievers (2:12).  This involves evangelistic “deeds,” (ἔργον), the same word used by Jesus in Matthew 5:16 to describe how believers can shine the “light” of the gospel with the works that they do.
• Submitting to every authority for the Lord’s sake (2:13-15).  Remember that this submission to every authority is part of the “will of God” before lawgivers who are deemed “foolish” in the wisdom of God. In Peter’s time, this “authority” was a brutal, Roman regime that oppressed, over-taxed, intimidated, persecuted, and killed Christians if they didn’t submit to the emperor.
• Living as servants of God (2:16).  Notice that servant-hood is paralleled in thought to living in biblical “freedom,” a Christian paradox that that the world deems as an oxymoron.
• Showing proper respect to everyone (2:17), practically seen in loving those in the church, fearing God and honoring the king.  All three have a common denominator:  they are all sources of authority.

Please remember that in 1 Peter, this call to obedience through submission—originally given to first century Christians—came during a time of severe persecution under the Roman Emperor Nero (AD 54-68).  In this setting, submission—following the obedience of Christ—was not an ivory tower exercise in “Mamby Pamby Land”; instead, it was a deliberate evangelistic strategy to show non-believing people the character and attributes of Jesus.  Despite living in an era of dominant, oppressive authorities, Christians were still called to follow Christ in obedient submission for the Father’s glory. 

Why is this so important to understand?  Peter links general submission described above with the way a wife is to submit to God’s mission under her husband’s servant leadership: “Wives, in the same way…”  Too often, we put the cart before the horse.  General submission leads, even empowers, marital submission. 

Next blog: How a wife can “win over” her husband with this kind of submission just discussed….