Almost every day, the
woman wept. This hadn't been the direction she wanted her life to
take. This wasn't how she wanted her family to look. She'd married
young – she was just a teenager then. She'd been raised as a
Christian. But her husband Patricius had not. He was a town
councilor and a pagan – not an especially devout pagan, but a pagan
all the same. He was skeptical of her faith, resisted her pleas to
baptize their children – she almost won that one when her son
seemed deathly ill and he gave way, but his recovery put an end to
that. And now, while that son was off at school in pagan-dominated
Madauros, sliding away from the faith and into the clutches of his
pubescent lusts, she was left at home in forest-bedecked Thagaste
with her husband Patricius – dealing with his lusts. His constant
affairs with one mistress or slave girl after another. It took all
the grace God gave her to keep silence over it, both to him and to
town gossips.
And his temper! He was a
very enthusiastic man. Impulsive. It was his impulsiveness that led
him to shower more than they had on their son's education – most
men in his tax bracket wouldn't, she knew. But that same
impulsiveness gave way to furious outbursts – he was intensely
hot-tempered. She knew she was the only one among her friends who
avoided domestic violence, but he still was verbally abusive and
foul, and he beat the slave-girls. A hot-headed, adulterous pagan
husband, perhaps a tad overly fond of wine... a son set adrift and
with his faith in peril... and so Monica, the long-suffering wife and
mother, saw nothing to do but weep in her room in Thagaste, lift up
holy hands to her Father, and pray, and be patient, and strive to
preach her God to them through her behavior. What else was a lady to
do?
It would be nice, Monica
surely thought, to all have harmonious families – to plant the
flowers of Eden around every hearth. It would be a beautiful thing
for the family to be all united in worshipping God and God alone,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. It would be wonderful for all faults
to be stripped away – for nothing to infringe on the marriage bed,
for no storms of temper to roil the household peace, for no demons of
criticism and fault-finding to find a place to nest, for the channels
of communication to remain clear and sweet with love and forgiveness.
But it's not always so. Sometimes we're not so equally yoked.
Sometimes our family life seems a counsel of despair. Throughout
human history, how many really happy homes have there been? And how
many have seemed to be eaten up by moths until the fabric is on the
verge of unraveling? It was God's plan for every home's hearth to be
surrounded by the sweet flowers of Eden. But east of Eden, our
families so often play host to thorn and thistle.
A few centuries before
Monica was born, one of her favorite authors – the Apostle Peter –
knew that all too well when he wrote his letter to the churches in
Anatolia, a land far away from Monica's home forty miles inland from
the north African coast. Too many of the believers in first-century
Anatolia were in situations not so very unlike hers. And so for
Peter, it wasn't enough to give them counsel on how to relate to
governing powers, or to society at large, or to their workplaces –
we covered all those last Sunday. Peter would also need to address
one last locus of human living: the family. He spends only seven
verses on it, but his advice has been controversial – his words can
be hard to hear, hard to understand. There are a few things we
should keep in mind as we read.
First, at the time when
Peter wrote, women in Anatolia – Asia Minor – were relatively
free, as far as the Roman world goes. Many of these women had
educations, they could hold political office, they had more authority
to run a household, they had rights. If you had to be a woman in the
Roman Empire, well, that was one place to do it. So when Peter
advises Christian wives how to behave, this is the baseline.
Second, the local
Christian communities Peter was writing to – they included a
significant number of female converts who, like Monica, were married
to husbands like Patricius who had not converted but were
pagans. And so a disproportionate number of Christian women in
Peter's audience were in mixed-faith marriage situations – married
to unbelievers. This was a social setting where the husband legally
had life-and-death authority over all members of his household –
that was the ideal of the Roman paterfamilias.
And prevailing philosophy convinced men and women alike that women
were inferior creatures – Aristotle said they were like deformed
men – whose interests could be disregarded and who could be, to a
certain extent, controlled. Things weren't quite as bad in Asia
Minor as in some places, but still, domestic violence was common and
abusive language, adultery, and other offenses against marriage were
even more so.
Third,
in the Roman world, women were expected to follow their husband's
lead in religious matters. The idea of a woman adopting a foreign
religion right under her husband's nose was a troublesome one to the
Roman mind. One author, Plutarch, said that a woman should befriend
her husband's friends, and his best friends were obviously his gods;
and therefore it was necessary for every household to be united under
a husband's gods and for him to take whatever measures were needed to
protect that unity from any cult or superstition – which is exactly
how the Romans tended to classify Christianity. So you can imagine
what a problem that presented for Christian women who converted after
marriage! Their faith itself was seen as a rebellion by their
husbands, who would be mocked by their friends and neighbors for
inability to control his household's religion.
And
so when Peter writes, he has an eye firmly fixed on their situation –
one where the gospel is viewed as a home-wrecker and an
embarrassment. So Peter encourages the women to live up to Roman
gender roles in every other way, so as to counteract the suspicion of
rebelliousness their pagan husbands, or pagan onlookers at Christian
marriages, might have. The things Peter writes on marriage here, he
would have written differently if addressing Adam and Eve on Day Six.
But Peter has to keep an eye on preserving peace, calming tensions,
and evangelizing the pagan marriage partners in a non-offensive way.
So
Peter says, “Likewise, wives, be subject”
– that is, defer to – “your own husbands, so that
even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by
the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure
conduct” (1 Peter 3:1-2).
That's exactly it. That's the goal. Even if they're in a mixed
marriage with an unbeliever who doesn't obey the gospel word, the
wife's respectful and pure conduct – faithful, true, without
critical harping or defiance, according to Roman standards – may
have the best chance to illustrate to their skeptical husbands the
value of the gospel, the beauty of Christ. They're to illustrate
that, while the gospel may trump their husbands' legal right to
control the wife's religion, nevertheless the gospel makes them
better wives than ever – so they strategically 'out-Roman' the
Romans at it. And the hope is that this kind of peaceful,
respectful, pure conduct will quell the storms of marriage, defuse
the ticking time bombs of conflict, and perhaps even pave the way to
attract their husbands to the gospel – which, as a matter of
historical fact, is exactly how Christianity spread in its earliest
centuries, often with women converting and then leading their
households to Christ.
Again,
you might remember from last week: in Peter's mind, the believers at
the greatest social disadvantage are actually the ones best
positioned to imitate Christ and be rewarded for it. These women,
who might be mightily discouraged by their situation, should
actually, Peter says, be encouraged – they have a radical
opportunity to be united with their Savior, and his whole life on
earth was lived to dignify their indignities. These women Peter
addresses have a unique opportunity to bear witness to Christ in a
non-confrontational way, and to live out what Christ's calling looks
like in their difficult station in life. The wives submit to their
husbands – again, that was the Roman model for marriage
relationships – but not
in fulfilling the expectation to worship their husbands' gods or
participate in pagan rituals. These women are not to be bullied into
that; they are not to be intimidated by however their husbands may
react to their faith. Peter urges them to obey, not so much their
husbands, but the word of God – and, as spiritual servant-leaders,
to perform the priestly duty of inspiring their husbands to do the
same.
Peter
goes on to add, “Do
not let your adorning be external – the braiding of hair and the
putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear – but let your
adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable
beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very
precious”
(1 Peter 3:3-4). A gentle and quiet spirit certainly is very
precious in God's sight – and that goes for both men and women.
It's the total opposite of being quarrelsome – a gentle and quiet
spirit doesn't stir up trouble. But a gentle and quiet spirit also
doesn't nurse resentment within, letting it build up and disturb the
spirit until it finally is unleashed on the spouse. A gentle and
quiet spirit turns things over to God's own gentle and quiet Spirit
to deal with, and then is able to calmly address marriage and family
issues at the right time, without a sense of pressure. A marriage
involving truly gentle and quiet spirits is a marriage less likely to
be pierced by conflicts about money, about behavioral quirks, about
one another's faults and flaws.
As
for what Peter says about adornment: It was trendy then for
well-to-do women to imitate the latest fashions in the street, and
elaborate braided hairstyles and exquisite clothes and mounds of gold
baubles and jewelry were part and parcel of that. Even some pagan
moralists were troubled by it – it seemed like women were in
rebellion against their husbands, consuming untold household
resources just to look the part of being rich and fashionable. And,
truth be told, it's a common temptation today, sometimes for men and
women alike: How we dress communicates something, and we might dress
in a way that communicates wealth, social status, elegance, glamor,
or freedom from social ties. Any fashion magazine is rife with those
messages, to say nothing of our cinema and our network TV. Minus the
technology, it was no different in Peter's day.
The
point is, investing in those messages is a waste of God's resources.
Gold, jewels, stylish clothes, fancy hair – that's not what makes
someone beautiful. Real beauty radiates internally, and can last far
after the clothes have been eaten by moths and the hair has fallen
apart and the gold and jewels have been lost or stolen. Peter's
talking about an “imperishable
beauty,”
the kind that radiates out from “the
hidden person of the heart” where
a “gentle and
quiet spirit”
makes its home. Instead of a wasteful message of conspicuous
consumption, Peter's advice is to communicate something more human –
a message of inner strength and inner beauty, which shuns the outward
trappings of wealth and status and reclaims the dignity of
simplicity. That's good advice for both men and women – but in
Peter's day, it also was advice that would reduce marriage friction
by taking away one major source of conflict. A Christian wife
following this advice would be likely to make an impression for
faithfulness and good sense – one that might elicit admiration for
the faith that led her to it.
Peter
goes on to give an example: “This
is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by
submitting to their husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him
'lord.' And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear any
terror”
(1 Peter 3:5-6). Looking back through scripture, Peter finds a
precedent for the behavior he's asking of these women: it's like
Sarah, the mother of the faithful. But there's actually some irony
in what Peter's saying. On several of the occasions when Sarah
submitted to what Abraham asked, it was precisely when Abraham was
being most disobedient and skeptical toward God's word of promise: It
was when Sarah was told to say she was Abraham's sister, for his
protection against those who lusted after her beauty (cf. Genesis
12:11-13; 20:2). There is one occasion when Sarah refers to Abraham
as 'lord,' which was a common word for husbands at that time – but
when she says it, she's being sarcastic! It's when she overhears God
say she'll bear a son, and she laughs while eavesdropping and scoffs
at how “my
lord is old”
(Genesis 18:12). The only obedience Abraham asks of her there is
baking some bread for the heavenly guests (Genesis 18:6). Not only
does Genesis depict her obeying him, it flat-out says that “Abram
obeyed the voice of Sarai”
(Genesis 16:2).
Unquestioning,
one-directional obedience is not Peter's vision for the ideal
marriage. It can't be, because Peter knows how to read, and that's
not what the relationship between Abraham and Sarah was like. Sarah
submitted to Abraham, treated him with all the deference due to a
husband in her culture; she was loyal and faithful to him whatever
happened, even when he wasn't being terribly bright; she did as he
asked, but also gave him advice and received his obedience in return.
She
never let Abraham's authority intimidate her, nor did she let herself
be cowed by the perilous situations they got into. But instead, her
faith grew alongside his, so that from her former state of scoffing,
she learned how to entrust herself totally to God. The both of them
did – and so Sarah is described as a holy woman who “hoped
in God”
– her lifestyle, her conduct in marriage, were a display of her
living hope in a living God. And to the Christian women who
similarly respected and deferred to their husbands without being
intimidated or fearful, but who instead persisted in good conduct and
good faith, Peter holds out the majestic title of being Sarah's
children, Sarah's heirs – the daughters of the divine promise. Now
that's an adornment far richer than any display of jewelry, diamonds,
or glamorous gowns.
After
Peter's said all this – and it's noteworthy that he addresses these
women directly, which was uncommon, since moralists of the time
tended to talk about
women a lot more than to
women in their works – only after he's said all this does Peter
turn his attention firmly to the men, the husbands, who have
converted and thus likely belong to united Christian households.
(That's not necessarily a sure thing – Paul mentions some
households in Corinth where husbands believe but their wives don't [1
Corinthians 7:13]. But in Peter's setting, if the husband was a
believer, odds are strong the wife and kids followed.)
And
Peter tells them: “Likewise,
husbands, live with your wives with knowledge, honoring her as the
weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so
that your prayers may not be hindered”
(1 Peter 3:7). That language – 'weaker vessel' – has been a big
sticking point for a lot of people in recent years. But Peter just
means that, on average, the women he's been talking to were less
physically strong than their husbands. And that's why they were so
vulnerable to domestic abuse – which is exactly what Peter is
ruling out here.
See,
to many pagan husbands, the fact that the woman was “the weaker
vessel” was a license to bully them – since the woman was weaker,
she mattered less and deserved less respect than his male peers.
Peter's turning it on its head: If a man's wife is “the weaker
vessel,” as they used to say, then she deserves greater
respect and greater
honor. There's no license to bully here; Peter is explicitly
revoking
that license in his commands to the men. Once, they treated their
wives callously and disrespectfully in ignorance, regarding them as
little better than servants. But now that they've encountered Jesus
in their lives, now that the light of God has fallen on them, they
have an obligation to live with their wives with
knowledge
– knowledge of God, and knowledge of their wives as God's
image-bearers and, as Peter says, “heirs
with you of the grace of life.”
That
may be one of the most exalted things anybody had said about women up
to that point in time. Peter is pointedly reminding Christian
husbands that their wives are their spiritual equals, fellow
recipients of unearned grace that yields life and living hope. These
husbands are obligated by God to treat their wives respectfully as
equal partners. Peter tells the husbands to 'honor'
their wives – just as they have to honor the king and governor and
municipal authorities. Anything less will hinder their prayers,
detain them short of heaven, tie them to earth (or lower) with a
short leash. Those who ignore their wives and disregard them will
find, in short, that their prayers are similarly ignored and
disregarded by God. And that's serious business! There's no excuse
here for domineering behavior, or an “I'm the boss” mentality, or
any of the similar ways Peter's language has been sadly perverted
over the years. The simple fact is that these husbands are to
illustrate to their wives how Christ cherishes his church, like Paul
says (cf. Ephesians 5:21-33).
All
good for Peter's time. But what does it mean for ours? Peter's
advice is so thoroughly tailored to the lives of families in his
world; does he have anything to say to ours? I would say yes, he
does. He shows that there is a clear and definite way to display
living hope for our family lives. There is a way to plant a few
flowers of Eden around your family hearth. But it requires mutual
respect and consideration: Wives and husbands putting one another's
needs, and the family's needs, before their own; wives and husbands
deferring to each other where they can, being reasonable toward each
other, speaking kindly to one another, exhibiting gentleness and a
quiet spirit toward each other. Try it – you might find it nips a
lot of arguments in the bud.
Peter
encourages us to focus less on accessories – less on material
goods, on things to buy, things to own, less on our building projects
or on our income – and more on one another. Less time at work,
more time with the family. Less expenditure on flashy things, and
more focus on character formation. We're to build one another up,
encourage each other, praise the good in each other. But our focus
is on correcting ourselves, not each other, in a marriage. Peter
never says to the men, “Husbands, make your wife submit.” Nor
does he tell the women, “Wives, criticize your husband until he
honors you.” Peter's words are not weapons to be employed against
each other; they're a way to heal, not to destroy.
Peter
urges us to win one another over with love, not with arguing, and
with an ultimate focus on winning one another, not to our 'side,' but
to Christ. If you're wondering how things turned out with Monica, it
went well. The surviving description of her life says “she busied
herself to gain him to [God], preaching [God] unto [Patricius] by her
behavior” – and she did. She offered “the witness of the
fruits of a holy life.” As a result, a year before his death, her
husband Patricius was baptized into the faith and changed from his
former adulterous and violent ways. Having submitted to her husband,
Monica's patience “brought forth fruit unto God” and won him for
the kingdom.
As
for her wayward son, who did abandon his Christian upbringing for
years, her prayers prevailed there, too. Monica was certainly
diligent – not just praying at home, not just going to church every
Sunday, but going twice every day, and praying for her wayward son
with many tears. She eventually pursued him across the sea to Italy
to minister to him. As a result, he became, not only a Christian,
but a bishop; and not only a bishop, but one of the greatest
Christian thinkers in history, St. Augustine of Hippo. And he always
gave ample credit to the prayerful witness of his mother, St. Monica,
whose obedience to Peter's words changed not just his life, but the
whole world, long after she fell ill and died at the age of
fifty-six.
That's
the power of living hope for family life. In the end, Patricius
became, like Monica, an heir of the grace of life. And for his final
year, they were a model Christian couple – surely not perfect, but
a breath of fresh air for all their neighbors, no doubt, who were
accustomed to something so much less in their own lives. What Peter
advises for us today, in the end, is this: If your spouse isn't an
active believer, isn't committed to the God of the church, then don't
draw back. Be the marriage partner in whose conduct your spouse can
see the life-changing beauty of Jesus Christ. Submit as Jesus
submitted in this world; display a gentle and quiet spirit like his;
give honor to all, including your spouse – especially
your spouse.
And
if your spouse is an active believer, then together, be a couple who
strive to recapture the harmony of Eden, by God's grace. Build a
marriage, build a family, where others can see the beauty of Jesus in
your relationship. Aim for a marriage and a family that can unite in
common prayer, with no impediments to your love for one another or
for God – nothing holding you or your prayers back. This isn't my
marriage wisdom, of which I, a bachelor, have none. No, more to the
point, this is God's
marriage wisdom – so, unlike opinions mine or yours, it matters.
Apply it in faith and in living hope.
And
if you aren't in a marriage, then devote yourself to Christ and to
the encouragement and support of the marriages around you – they
might need it. But whatever situation you're in, live as an heir of
the grace of life. Invest your singleness, your widowhood, or your
marriage into the Greater Marriage: the impending nuptials of Christ
and his Church. For “Christ
loved the church and gave himself up for her”
on the cross (Ephesians 5:25), and the Church in turn honors and
loves the risen Christ in godly submission (Ephesians 5:24). He died
for her and rose again for her, and the Church is waiting for the day
when her Bridegroom returns for her. She waits – we wait – with
living hope, and any marriage here is meant to be a living parable of
Christ and his Church. “Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb [will soon]
come, and his Bride [is making] herself ready”
(Revelation 19:6-7). Thanks be to God. Amen.
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