She Reads Truth: 1 PeterSample

Godly Submission Has Gospel Power

What a precious passage of scripture this is. Peter gives direct and clear instruction for us as wives and as women of the Word. We read yesterday about submission or service in the Christian life, and today we concentrate our study “likewise” on the gospel power of Godly submission in marriage.

Now, I understand that in our vast and diverse community, there are just as many unique situations and varying circumstances as there are women joining us today. I also know that God’s truth is sure, and it comes not as an abrasive, but as a balm. Wherever you are – whether married or unmarried, evenly or unevenly yoked spiritually, blissful or miserable – the Holy Spirit wants to sit in this passage with you today. And I pray that it will be a comfort and a compass to your soul.

In context, Peter is speaking to a believing wife with an unbelieving husband. I imagine many of you are in this place today – attending church and even small groups alone, on your own when it comes to spiritual instruction for your children, and perhaps after one too many words, the gospel has become an untouchable subject in your home.

Perhaps many of you have husbands who are believers. He attends church with you, prays with you and your children in your home, and seeks the Lord with you in big and small matters. But even he may have a hardness that has developed in him because of sin that is unconfessed and unrepented of.

In either case, I can certainly understand the urge to point, nudge and even offer kind biblical instruction (and there is certainly a time and place for that). But you, Christian wife, have a power in quiet and gentle submission that God can and may use to bring about salvation or even sanctification in your husband’s life.  

“When we submit to another out of reverence to Christ, we replicate (faint though it may be) the very submission of Christ on the cross—the very heart of the gospel.” -Nate Shurden

Quiet and gentle submission is hard. Particularly when you might know a better way. Especially when you want Heaven for your husband. All the more when the one you love doesn’t know the One who loves him.

Take it to the Father today and everyday sisters. Pray for your husband’s heart, wherever he is in relationship to Christ. Ask God to change your heart as well as you seek to honor the marriage covenant with your God and your spouse with the “imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” (v.4)

[And loves, if you are indeed in an extenuating circumstance in which you or your children are in serious danger, I do urge you to seek immediate help through a church or shelter. Quiet, Godly submission does not mean doing nothing to protect yourself or your little people from harm.]

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