Our society has a crisis in marriage. Our society doesn’t understand marriage. And consequently, our society spectacularly fails in marriage.
The Department of Social Security recently published a study paper on marriage in Australia. They found that in terms of the statistics: ‘Having divorced parents, living together before marriage, having children before marriage or in the first year of marriage and marrying young all increase the risk of marriage breakdown.’ Statistically, ‘Higher levels of education increase the risk of marriage breakdown for women, while in contrast, higher levels of education decrease the risk of marriage breakdown for men.’ They found in our country that ‘Women are more likely to initiate separation than men.’ And they found that ‘Higher levels of religiosity and having children in marriage reduce the risk of marriage breakdown.’[1]
Such findings are quite consistent with what we would expect from a biblical view of marriage. And our society is so spectacularly failing in marriage, that they are wanting to redefine marriage. The fact is that the 1975 (Cth) Family Law Act effectively changed the definition of marriage for our society into serious serial monogamy, not life long monogamy. This has led the way for other proposed changes, like gay marriage. And who knows where it will end?
The church is God’s kingdom which has broken into the present. It is not perfected yet, but it truly is and is called to be now what it will be in the future. That is, it is called to be holy, different, set apart. Peter has given the key understanding of the Christian’s collective identity.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:9-10 NIV)
Through faith in Christ, you are special to God. You collectively are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. You are set apart and reserved and distinct, and precious. That is also individually of each one of you. The parable of the shepherd who leaves the 99 to find one lost sheep is testimony to that. None of those Christ has predestined will be lost. And it is true corporately. Together, when we meet in this building, we declare God’s praises. It’s called church. Out there, we declare God’s praises. It’s called evangelism.
Now the whole point of 1 Peter, I think, is summarized by chapter 2 verses 11 to 12. Chapter 2 verses 11 to 12 articulates the theme of the whole letter. Chapter 2 verses 11 to 12:
Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (NIV)
We are different to the world around us. We are aliens and strangers here. And the true us is what we have been born again to be in Christ. But we must war against the flesh, the sinful nature, that still clings to us and resides within us. Constant vigilance is required. And so we are called to live exemplary lives in our world. Yes, accusations will come. But we must live such good lives that people will see our good lives and want to become Christian. Hey, can I have what she is having? I want to be a Christian too, and be like you! And so the world out there will see our good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. They will become Christians and join in praising God for his mercy, world without end.
Now, our marriages are called to be just such an arena for good deeds. Marriage is the training ground for love. If a man can’t love his wife, if a woman can’t love her husband, when they have made the most solemn promises of love humans can make, when they share children who proceed from their bodies, when they are indeed one flesh, what hope do we have if there can't be a semblance of divine love in our marriages? And so our marriages are also there to declare the praises of God who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Jesus himself defines marriage. This is what Jesus says marriage is: Matthew chapter 19 verses 3 to 6.
3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?" 4 "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' 5 and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh' ? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." (NIV)
We see the defining characteristics of marriage in creation. God made male and female, so gay marriage is ruled out. The man leaves his parents. And so a new family unit is established, which trumps and supercedes the family of origin. So in-laws are to do nothing to wreck the marriages freely contracted. The man and the woman are joined together by God. So divorce is ruled out. The two become one, it is not three or four or five becoming one. So bigamy and polygamy and polyandry and polyamoury are ruled out. The two, the man and the woman, become one. And from their oneness there is, in the normal course of events, fruitfulness. From the overflow of their love and joy, from the union of their bodies and from the agreement of their minds, in the normal course of events, comes children, made and formed from their very bodies and taking their image, their likeness, their DNA. Unique and specially made new humans, sharing many of the characteristics of their parents, but a unique and irreducibly complex blending of their parents. The man and the woman are different but the same. Their differences enhance their relationship.
And all this reflects the Triune God, whereby the Father loves the co-equal and co-eternal Son, and the only begotten Son from all eternity loves the Father, and from the overflow of their love proceeds the Holy Spirit, one in being with Father and Son.
Now, this divine model is the ideal, to which we must aspire. And in a fallen world, Peter gives us temporary residents instructions for living good and godly lives while we wait for Christ’s return.
First Peter addresses wives. ‘In the same way’ points wives back to the submission that all Christians are called to render. All Christians are called to render submission to human authorities.[2] In chapter 2 verse 14, Peter calls on all Christians to submit to the King or the governors. Whatever authority or creature of governance is created, we are called to submit to it. And because of the rule of law in our modern western democracies, in our society everybody, even the Queen or the Prime Minister, is called to submit to every human authority placed over him or her. There are no absolute monarchs. All, at least theoretically, can be held to account by the law. There might be corruption that must be uncovered by courageous whistleblowers. The bottom line is that if we are free, we are called to use that freedom to serve others. 1 Peter 2:16:
16 Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants (literally, slaves), of God.[3]
The free one, whether financially or politically, by faith in Christ is a slave. The command for every Christian, whether King or Pauper, is to live as a slave of God. Freely become God’s slaves. For though Jesus was rich, he became poor for our sakes, so that we by his poverty might become rich. Even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
So when Peter comes to domestic slaves and household servants, they too are to follow the pattern of the citizen. They are to ‘submit’ to their masters (ὑποτάσσω: 2:18). And we can apply this to our employment relationships. Employees are to submit to their employers, for the duration of the agreed working day. And likewise, wives are to submit to their own husbands.
Two of the most scary shows I have ever seen are also the most funny. I think they are typical of English comedy, which looks carefully at dysfunctional relationships: ‘Keeping Up Appearances’ and ‘One Foot in the Grave’. In each of these shows we see an older woman and an older man exactly what they should not be: the 'Bucket woman', who everyone keeps away from, whose objective is to give the appearance of success and prosperity; and then there is the grumpy old man in ‘One foot in the grave’ who looks like he just wakes up angry, and everyone pays for it. There was one show I remember and the whole of it consisted of the man and his wife in a traffic jam. I think it was called ‘caged animal’ or something like that.
Now, who do you feel most sorry for in these shows? Who do you pity? The poor spouses. You want them to stand up to the ridiculous tyrants with whom they live.
And why are the shows so funny and so scary at the same time? Because we know someone like them. And maybe, we see something of ourselves in them. Perhaps when we look into the TV when we watch them, we are looking into a mirror.
Next time you watch them, ask yourself, ‘I wonder what difference Jesus would make to this relationship.’ How would the misery of these relationships be ameliorated if Christ shone his light into this marriage and brought change in them.
So that is why we need to look at another mirror, the bible, and see what redeemed marriage looks like.
And Peter addresses specifically husbands and wives. Of course, Peter has some experience. For he was married himself, complete with mother-in-law, and after Jesus ascension, he took his believing wife with him on his pastoral journeys (Mark 2; 1 Corinthians 9:5). It is possible that Peter also had a daughter.[4] As far as the Catholic church is concerned, the one they think of as their first pope was married! So Peter had experience of family life, and had a wife and probably a daughter. So Peter here speaks not from theory, but experience.
First of all, Peter turns to keeping up appearances. He turns to wives to instruct them. Peter addresses all Christian women. But Peter lives in the real world where some women live with husbands who aren’t Christian. Some women have become Christians, but their husbands don’t share their faith. Perhaps, more tragically, some Christian women have married non-Christian husbands. What a mistake, what a disaster, and tragedy, this is! Dear friends, if you know young women or teenage girls who love the Lord Jesus, please counsel them not to go out with and marry a non-Christian boys and men. It is not just a sin (it is that), but it is sadly often a disaster from a Christian point of view, and tragically sometimes ends up in the believer wandering away from the faith.
The command to women, whether their husbands believe or not, is 'submission'. Verses 1 and 2
1Wives, in the same way be submissive to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe [disobey] the word, they may [literally– will] be won over without words by the behaviour [or way of life, or lifestyle] of their wives, 2when they see the purity and reverence [the in-fear purity] of your lives [way of life] (NIV)
Wives, submit to your own husbands, whether Christian or not Christian. Peter refers back to the slave who is wronged and harshly treated though he does what is good and right. And he says, wives do the same thing. Submit to your own husband, not to someone elses.
Now it is important not to water this down. God has created an order in relationships, which involve loving authority and reverent submission.
What makes ‘Keeping Up Appearances’ so horrible is that sometimes you just wish the husband, Richard, would stop being so weak and following commands, and take some leadership so that Hyacinth’s ridiculous behaviour would be brought under control, and that Hyacinth would listen to her husband.
Now, submission doesn’t mean being a doormat. Last week we looked at slaves and masters. When the slave did what God wanted him to do rather than what his master wanted him to do, he suffered a beating. He does what is right and good, and receives a beating, and endures it. That’s not a doormat. That’s a gutsy, courageous effort, only possible because you fear God. Chapter 3 verse 1 again:
1 Wives, in the same way be submissive to your [own] husbands[5]
Again, verses 5 and 6:
5 For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands[6], 6 like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master.
Twice Peter says that the Christian women are to be submissive to their own husbands. Perhaps there is the nuance, 'and don’t be submissive to someone else’s husband'. Place yourself under the man you married. 'Stand by your man, give him two arms to cling to, Give him all the loving that you can.'
And Peter cites and even quotes Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him ‘master’. Now, any reader of the Genesis account knows that this is not the only thing Sarah says to Abraham. She says to Abraham, ‘Give me children, or I die’. She says to him, ‘Go sleep with my maidservant’, and Abraham does, and listens to his wife. And then she says, ‘Get rid of the slave women and her son’, and God confirms that Abraham indeed should do this. So one cannot describe Abraham and Sarah’s relationship as only one way, Sarah always and only doing what she is told. Sarah at times initiates, and also pours her complaints out to Abraham.
However, she is submissive to Abraham. She twice consents (somewhat foolishly) to Abraham’s dangerous plan to pass her off as his sister. And while this was foolish, God still kept her and Abraham safe, and ensured that the Kings who took Sarah into their harems didn’t sleep with Sarah.
And the year before she gives birth to Isaac, Sarah says ‘Will I have such joy when my master is old?’ (Genesis 18:12). And Peter with an eagle eye picks up this respectful title for her husband.
We live in a feminist culture where the dumb male picks his nose and wipes it on your car, and then sticks feminine hygiene pads on him to be a robot. The modern family exalts Homer Simpson and pays out on Ned Flanders. Men of the caliber of Basil Fawlty continuously need not respect, but to be reigned in, by a firm hand. For a wife to call her husband ‘my Lord and Master’ suggests mockery.
I have heard it summarized that at the very core, a women’s deepest need is security and a man’s deepest need is respect.
If this is so, married ladies, can I ask you to work as hard as you can to respect your husbands. Submit to them, go with their good ideas, point out the flaws in their bad ideas, but in everything not sinful, let your husband have the casting vote.
Certainly, let your needs be known, with gentleness and respect. As co-pilot, tell the pilot when their aeroplane is about to crash into the mountain side. Don’t tolerate domestic violence. Don’t acquiesce to your husbands dishonesty. But it does mean having a submission and respectful attitude towards your husband, even if he doesn’t deserve it.
If there’s domestic violence, or child abuse or neglect, you and your children must go somewhere safe. You must leave, for your sake, your childrens', and also for his. You should also report him. For he needs to be brought to repentance. But your obligation to respect and love him remains, even if it involves having to do so from a distance and in separation.
Peter calls this respectful submissive attitude, ‘Wordless Evangelism’. Because of the closeness of the relationship, the husband is bound to know what makes the wife tick. (Unless he is a completely insensitive buffoon). And so it will be the life that will win him to the Lord.
Then Peter exposes where true beauty lies. Verses 3 to 4.
3[of whom] Your beauty should [be not from] outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes [cosmetic]. 4Instead, it should be that of your inner self [the hidden of-the-heart person], the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit [in the incorruption of the meek and quiet spirit], which is of great worth in God’s sight [which is before God very valuable].
Peter doesn’t say, outward beauty is a sin. He doesn’t mean that wearing lipstick or ear-rings is sinful. Many of these things are cultural. What may be over the top in one culture simply might be respectful and clean and looking after yourself in another.
But what he is speaking about as cosmetics is about outside appearances. Keeping up appearances, because that is what the world, the society, the other girls at school, require. But all those things are outward, and don’t last. And what counts is the inner person. Literally, it is the hidden person that God is interested in. God is looking to the heart. Because beauty fades. Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a women who fears the Lord is to be praised, and she is always beautiful, no matter how time and weather ravages her tent. The lumps and bumps and sags and bags are coming, and no cosmetics will hide them. Foundation and botox and spack filler and the panel beating of cosmetic surgery cannot stave off the inevitable decline of your youthful good looks. But a gentle and quiet spirit is always beautiful, and shines with and through the crows feet and the lines and the wrinkles.
Friends, think of those beautiful women you know who are in their 70s and 80s, and they remain beautiful. There are many older women, in their sixties, seventies, and eighties, who are attractive and draw our attention, aren’t there. You want to be with them and spend time with them, yes? What is it that makes them beautiful and attractive? The ravages of the years and the crows feet cannot take away a beautiful smile or a welcoming countenance. Age cannot take away their kind words or generosity of spirit, or their genuine joy in seeing you. They are confident in themselves, and so forget about themselves and serve you. And that’s what makes them so wonderful to be with.
Peter points out that it was respect that made Sarah beautiful. Abraham was not always godly in the way that he lived with Sarah. Twice his lies, and his fear and sin and weakness led to Sarah ending up in a harem. And once he listened to her when she said ‘sleep with Hagar’. That was a sin against her, also. Sometimes we husbands can sin by giving our wives what they ask for, but in the end it will still be a grave mistake with costly consequences, as Abraham found with Hagar and Ishmael.
But through all this sinfulness, Peter commends the fact that Sarah called Abraham ‘Lord’ or ‘Master’ (compare Genesis 18:12). The beautiful thing about Sarah, that continued into her old age, was her submissive, gentle, tranquil and quiet spirit. This sprung from her hope in God. Verses 5-6:
5For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, 6like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master [or literally, Lord].
Ladies, Peter is saying that you can become Sarah’s daughters when you submit to your husbands. Literally, you become Sarah’s daughters. When you put your trust in Christ, you become Abraham’s daughters. By faith you became Abraham’s daughters, when you trusted Jesus Christ. And so you are heirs of all the promises that God made Abraham. But by submitting to your own husbands, not someone elses, you become Sarah’s daughters.
And so you need not fear anything frightening. You need not fear giving up your rights and submitting to your husband. Because fear of God drives out fear of man.
Finally, Peter turns to husbands. So now we turn to ‘One foot in the Grave’. I don’t think the man in ‘One foot in the Grave’ has ever thought about his wife – he never seems to think of anyone but himself. No wonder he is so grumpy. Peter now turns to what husbands must do. Verse 7.
7Husbands, 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. (NIV)
Literally, we might translate the verse.
Husbands, likewise, living with according to knowledge as weaker vessels with your feminine partners, according honour as also fellow heirs of [the] gift of life so that your prayers might not be hindered.
Husbands, are likewise to live with their wives according to knowledge. That is, we need to understand our wives. You do not have to understand women. That is not required. You’ve only got to learn and study one woman. You need to learn and study and investigate only one woman. That’s your wife.
The husband ignorant of his wife’s needs and desires is a disobedient husband. He is the bimbo!
One thing Peter points out is the physical differences. The wife is the weaker vessel. She is feminine. He is not saying the wife is an emotionally or physically inferior, but that God has made her physically smaller, weaker, and emotionally with different needs and sensitivities. God has made her with a womb, and breasts to nourish your children. Her body is different. And she thinks differently. And a wise man needs to study his wife, know his wife, and know how she is different from him.
It is foolishness to think that there are no differences between the sexes. Even feminists have seen that it cannot be sustained. I remember some time ago now Fred Nile once saying on TV, that women have periods and so they are more sensitive at different times of the month. Of course, he got pilloried as a bigot. How dare you say such an insensitive thing. But then shortly afterwards on 702, James Valentine had women ringing in about PMS (Pre-Menstral Stress). And all these women rang in saying how it affects them. One business woman said she won’t make follow up calls for those four days – because she is going to be rude and that will be bad for business. So Fred was right, but gets pilloried for saying it. But if the women ring up and talk about it, its OK.
Men, we need to understand how our wives tick. But gentlemen, the differences must not lead to us feeling ‘superior’ or ‘better’. What do we have that is not given to us? Our wives complete us, make up for the many gaps in our knowledge and understanding and competence, see many things we don’t see, and thus complementing and completing us. It is not a competition, it is complementation. Your wife is sensitive to different things than you might, and perhaps to different degrees. She will be considerate and thoughtful about all sorts of things that you won’t even think about. It doesn’t mean she is wrong and you are right. It means together you will be better than what you are by yourselves. And so we are to, in verse 7, treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, In the new heaven and earth, our wives will be co-heirs and will receive everything we will receive. The Christian hope is not Muslim heaven, where you get your own harem of virgins. Women aren’t sex slaves in the new heaven and earth, but co-heirs. The New heaven and New earth is not Mormon heaven, where you get to populate your own planet. They do not marry or are given in marriage in heaven. They are like the angels. For there is only one marriage in the coming kingdom of God, and that is between Christ and his bride, the church. And men who trust in Jesus are part of the bride. And women who trust in Jesus are part of the bride, equally submitting to Jesus Christ as Lord and Master. And so as equal co-heirs then, Christian men and Christian women are called to respect each other now, and to respect each other particularly for the God-given differences that God has given us.
There is a sting in the tail, however, to this command that Peter gives the men. 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 7:
so that nothing will hinder your prayers.
I used to think that this verse taught that it is difficult to pray when you have an argument with your wife. And this is true enough. And it may be that it means that it is hard to pray together when we don’t respect our wives. Well, impossible. But there is a more scary possibility. It is that God will not listen to us if we do not listen to our wives. Heaven’s ears will be closed to our requests, because we won’t consider the needs of our wives. Fair enough too. That is far more scary, to make God unresponsive to your prayers. You and I had better know and listen to our wives, because God will not listen to us and our prayers.
Friends, our society has a crisis of marriage. Our society poo poos almost everything I’ve said to you today. It is mysoginst, and chauvinist, and patriarachal, and oppressive to women. And meanwhile, husbands and wives cannot live together, and need two houses, two sets of uniforms. Separation and divorce rates continue to climb. The housing shortage continues. Grandparents don’t see their grandchildren. And the children still wish and hope that their mum and dad might be able to get on, but it will never be, because now the mum and dad have each repartnered.
Given that our society has STUFFED marriage, and will continue to stuff it up, let me call you back to the ideal. The husband must give himself in self-forgetful, self-sacrificial, considerate and knowledgable love for his wife, just as Christ loved the church. And the wife must give herself to intelligent, and other person centred submission to her own husband, just as the church does to Christ. Everything else is doomed to failure, because it works against the makers instructions.
Lets pray.
[1] http://www.dss.gov.au/about-the-department/publications-articles/research-publications/social-policy-research-paper-series/number-35-marriage-breakdown-in-australia-social-correlates-gender-and-initiator-status?
[2] 1 Peter 2:13: Ὑποτάγητε πάσῃ ἀνθρωπίνῃ κτίσει διὰ τὸν κύριον.
[3] ὡς ἐλεύθεροι, […] ἀλλ᾽ ὡς θεοῦ δοῦλοι., ἀλλ᾽ ὡς θεοῦ δοῦλοι.
[4] Petronilla: W S McBirnie, The Search for the Twelve Apostles (Revised), 42; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11781b.htm
[5] ~Omoi,wj Îai`Ð gunai/kej( u`potasso,menai toi/j ivdi,oij avndra,sin(
[6] u`potasso,menai toi/j ivdi,oij avndra,sin