What Conversations Can We Have To Lead Us To Harmony And Spiritual Growth In The Home?

 

Good Morning Friends,

 

Stephan De Beer, is the Director for the Centre for Contextual Ministry at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. I spent three days with him and other people from around the world at Laity Lodge in Texas a decade ago. Stephan led a Bible study there about the Samaritan woman at the well. And I mention it now because of its relevance for our study of 1 Peter 3 for families of faith. Briefly the woman at the well story demonstrates the importance of woman in sharing the Gospel of Christ. But there is a lot more to it. Interestingly I think the study helped to form Stephan’s thinking in how to do theology collaboratively with local communities in South Africa. He has adopted orphaned children of color as part of his family and has a vision of Child Theology Africa to advance a child-friendly continent by doing theology with, for, about and through African children. So, as we explore the voice, role and position of women in church and society as guided in our study of 1 Peter 3, it might be helpful for us to think about the importance of families as integral to authentic intergenerational church practices. Think about the roles of women and men and children. And that brings us to today’s practical question about our homelife as a building block of our salvation. So, we ask, What Conversations Can We Have To Lead Us To Harmony And Spiritual Growth In The Home?

 

Scripture: Wives, in the same way, accept the authority of your husbands, so that, even if some of them do not obey the word, they may be won over without a word by their wives’ conduct, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Do not adorn yourselves outwardly by braiding your hair, and by wearing gold ornaments or fine clothing; rather, let your adornment be the inner self with the lasting beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in God’s sight. It was in this way long ago that the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by accepting the authority of their husbands. Thus, Sarah obeyed Abraham and called him lord. You have become her daughters as long as you do what is good and never let fears alarm you. Husbands, in the same way, show consideration for your wives in your life together, paying honor to the woman as the weaker sex, since they too are also heirs of the gracious gift of life—so that nothing may hinder your prayers. Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called—that you might inherit a blessing. For ‘Those who desire life and desire to see good days, let them keep their tongues from evil and their lips from speaking deceit; let them turn away from evil and do good; let them seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.’ Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight people, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

 

1 Peter 3: 1-22 (NRSV)

 

Cultivate Inner Beauty

3 ^1-4 The same goes for you wives: Be good wives to your husbands, responsive to their needs. There are husbands who, indifferent as they are to any words about God, will be captivated by your life of holy beauty. What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes—but your inner disposition.

^4-6 Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in. The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way, and were good, loyal wives to their husbands. Sarah, for instance, taking care of Abraham, would address him as “my dear husband.” You’ll be true daughters of Sarah if you do the same, unanxious and unintimidated.

⁷ The same goes for you husbands: Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them. As women they lack some of your advantages. But in the new life of God’s grace, you’re equals. Treat your wives, then, as equals so your prayers don’t run aground.

Suffering for Doing Good

^8-12 Summing up: Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble. That goes for all of you, no exceptions. No retaliation. No sharp-tongued sarcasm. Instead, bless—that’s your job, to bless. You’ll be a blessing and also get a blessing.

Whoever wants to embrace life
    and see the day fill up with good,
Here’s what you do:
    Say nothing evil or hurtful;
Snub evil and cultivate good;
    run after peace for all you’re worth.
God looks on all this with approval,
    listening and responding well to what he’s asked;
But he turns his back
    on those who do evil things.

^13-18 If with heart and soul you’re doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you’re still better off. Don’t give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God.

^19-22 He went and proclaimed God’s salvation to earlier generations who ended up in the prison of judgment because they wouldn’t listen. You know, even though God waited patiently all the days that Noah built his ship, only a few were saved then, eight to be exact—saved from the water by the water. The waters of baptism do that for you, not by washing away dirt from your skin but by presenting you through Jesus’ resurrection before God with a clear conscience. Jesus has the last word on everything and everyone, from angels to armies. He’s standing right alongside God, and what he says goes.

 

1 Peter 3: 1-22 (Message)

 

 

The Temple of the Living God

Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship is there between light and darkness?

 

2 Corinthians 6:14a (NRSV)

 

And if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. It is to peace that God has called you. Wife, for all you know, you might save your husband. Husband, for all you know, you might save your wife.

 

1 Corinthians 7:13-16 (NRSV)

 

Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready; to her it has been granted to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure’—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ And he said to me, ‘These are true words of God.’

 

Revelation 19:7-9 (NRSV)

 

This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.

 

Ephesians 5:32-33 (NRSV)

 

Message: Continuing with his call for submission to the Lord from chapter 2 Peter challenges believers to submit to God’s given design for the heart and home and I think also the community at large. The text though deals primarily with the relationships within the home and offers us more than a little wisdom if we approach it with the right perspective. On the surface it may appear that Peter has taken a different tack in Chapter 3, but the overall theme he conveys in the latter part of chapter two continues. It is all about our submission to Christ, revealed through the lives we live. Although these thoughts deal with relationships between husbands and wives, the call for submission to the Lord remains. We are to live in obedience and submission to Christ with him as a cornerstone of our relationships and mirror this in our home life. Here submission in relationships honor the members of the household but also more importantly provide honor unto the Lord.
The thing is that when the heart is set apart to discovering and living out God’s will, then others, who have never heard or have merely ‘heard of’ God’s truth but have never converted, will hear it from and thru us and the ministries to which we are called and in which we are involved. Peter calls his audience and especially the inner soul of holy women to mirror, reflect, and to emulate Christ Jesus in their relationships. The theme of the text is that the wife is to pursue inner beauty of a gentle spirit, living in submission to her husband, thereby bringing a spiritual influence on the home. The husband is to treat his wife with honor and compassion, affirming her value and worth within the home. As we examine the expectations of husbands and wives, both Christians and pagans, we need to consider how to have greater harmony in the home and culture today. Here we discover that husbands and wives are to live according to the scripture. Republicans and Democrats are to live according to scripture. Jews and Gentiles are to live according to scripture. Christians and Pagans are to live according to scripture. Children and adults are to live according to scripture. How we talk about this matter is important. Conversations here are important. Those with a feminist’s view may take issue with Peter’s instruction, but I see no cause to abandon the topic. Peter in no way degrades the wife within these verses. In fact, Peter reveals her worth and wisdom within the home, and the great potential she has to be an effective witness for Christ, eventually winning her unbelieving husband to respond to the Lord in salvation. This requires spiritual maturity on the part of the believing wife. She is called to live in subjection to her husband, seeking an environment of true harmony within the home. As the unbelieving husband watches the faithfulness of his wife, through her spiritual sanctification and fear of God, he realizes she possesses genuine faith, creating a desire for him to know Christ as well. Proper modesty, meekness and motivation round out the tasks of the woman Peter lists. Husbands are counseled by Peter that the treatment of their wives is directly related to their own spiritual condition and growth. The focus is to be on the husband and wife being heirs together of the grace of life. So husbands have responsibilities in this too, and if Christian a need to witness their commitment and call to submission to Christ. Husbands who are Christian and led by the Holy Spirit need to demonstrate a comprehension of the faith through commitment to marriage and the home as well as community of faith. Beyond the spiritual aspect, a godly husband will recognize the worth and value of his wife, giving honor to her. A godly husband will view his wife as precious, treating her as one of great value for her contributions to the marriage. That both Peter and Paul write as much as they do about women indicates their important role in the development of the church and also as is today for Christian women in some cultures the possibility of their persecution and suffering not just through child birth but in the birth of the Kingdom itself.

 

And So, the strategic importance of women in the development of the early church should not be understated. That both Peter and Paul raise the issue of women’s rights for the culture in which it was addressed was more radical than many give credit. The New Testament Gospels acknowledge that women were among Jesus’ earliest followers in the first and second century and played an important part in the spread of Christianity. In the early Christian churches, there were many women. And this might bring us to conclude that the great numbers of female believers are the result of the favorable Christian view of women, demonstrated in the condemnation of divorce, incest, marital infidelity, and polygamy. So, the message for us today is that spiritual growth in a marriage requires some conflict as does social change in the church and culture. If harmony is seen as equating with no conflict, then no real substantive conversation exists. Children of course change the dynamic of the conversation. The Bible teaches us that Jesus was a master conversationalist with whomever he engaged. And that when it comes to our faith we need to be as well. The conversation that Peter invites us into is a good example of the challenge. For here we learn that by living in submission to the will of God within the marriage relationship, we honor the Lord and strengthen the marriage and the children of the family. Therefore, while we are to be who we are and believe what we believe as Christians we are also to respect the rights of people to decide for themselves. In unequally yoked marriages, it is important to realize that it is not the believer’s job to change the unbelieving spouse and make them grow and convert. That is the job of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, we need to take responsibility for our own Christian walk, hoping the Holy Spirit might just use us for Kingdom purposes. So, come to today’s scripture with the right perspective. Have relationships that show forth behaviors that are consistent with a holy relationship with Jesus. And while there is no male or female in Christ, realize that there is a Kingdom function of who we are sexually that the Christian faith does not eliminated. The reality is that most relationships are unequally yoked spiritually and culturally and mentally and as a result are not always healthy. What is interesting is that despite the text of the day being written in a patriarchal society, this section was directed primarily to women who outnumbered men in being attracted to the person and gospel of Jesus Christ and honestly were often more faithful to the cause than men. Context here is important. Think of Jesus’ interactions with his mother, Mary and Martha and the woman at the well. The lot of women in those days was difficult and there is little doubt that women were regarded as inferior and indeed the property of men, easily divorced. But the thing is that women have always had influence in the home even if in society they had little status. In Jesus’ day husbands whether Christian or pagan were the head of the household. Today there are some families where equal means equal. But I think this is a bit of a trap for what we are actually seeking is to be who we are in Christ not something contrived into existence by our culture.

 

Pray we are compassionate, composed, and conciliatory but not to the point of avoiding necessary conflict. Pray we realize that marriage is a gift with a sacred obligation to be of one mind and heart and this takes hard work to achieve. Pray that God would give us the boldness and skill of Jesus to have the kind of conversations he did with people. Pray we have honest conversations with people because we truly care about them. Pray we become skilled in taking simple conversations about everyday things and turning them into deep and meaningful conversations about spiritual things. Pray we are not hostage to our prejudices or fear of being prejudice. Pray in our marriages and places of worship we become like minded. Pray we become compassionate. Pray we become tenderhearted. Pray we become humble minded. Pray we are moved by a sense of mission combined with a sense of satisfaction in our relationships. Pray we are pleasantly persistent and patient about people’s conversion to Christianity. Pray we value the worth of our spouses. Pray we value the worth of our children. Pray the way we live with others prompts a curiosity about Jesus in others. Pray the way we live with others prompts them to not be afraid to love. Pray the way we live cultivates the inner beauty of others. Pray we realize that our example is Christ. Pray we risk suffering in doing what is right. Pray Jesus’ love bubble over in our lives, families and cultures resurrecting our hearts and souls in the power of the Holy Spirit. Pray we have the conversations God wants us to have with others before we are called home.

 

Blessings,

 

John Lawson