1 Peter 3:1 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

1 PETER CHAPTER 3 1 Peter 3:1-7 The apostle teacheth the duty of wives and husbands, 1 Peter 3:8-13 exhorting all men to unity and love, and to return good for evil, 1 Peter 3:14-18 to suffer boldly for righteousness sake, and to give a reason of their hope with meekness and fear; taking especial care to suffer, as Christ did, for well-doing, and not for evil-doing. 1 Peter 3:19,20 The preaching of Christ by his Spirit to the old world. 1 Peter 3:21,22 After what manner Christian baptism saveth us. To your own husbands; this he adds both to mitigate the difficulty of the duty, subjection, in that they were their own husbands to whom they were to be subject, and likewise to bound and circumscribe their obedience, that it was to be only to their own husbands, not to others; and so while he persuades them to subjection, he cautions them against unchastity. That if any obey not the word; the word of the gospel. He exhorts not only them that had believing husbands, but unbelieving ones, to be in subjection to them. They also may without the word: not that they could be converted to Christ without the knowledge of the word, when faith cometh by hearing, Romans 10:17, but that they who either would not endure their wives instructing them, or who had before rejected the word, yet, by seeing the effects and fruits of it in their wives, might be brought to have good thoughts of it, and thereby be the more prepared for the hearing of it, whereby faith might be wrought in them. Be won; or gained, viz. to Christ and his church: the same metaphor Paul useth, 1 Corinthians 9:19-21 Philippians 3:8.

1 Peter 3:1

1 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;