THE CHRISTIAN SPIRIT IN SOCIAL RELATIONS
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
THE main contention of St. Peter is that the Christian life and obligations are not intended to be, and never should be, made a disturbing force in social and family relations. Our Lord warned His disciples that Christianity would become such a disturber, by reason of the opposition which it would excite; but the disturbing force must never be in the Christian. As much as “lieth in him” he must “follow peace with all men.” Relations to masters and rulers have already been dealt with: the apostle now applies the Christian principles to the more limited, but oftentimes more difficult, spheres and relations of the home.
1 Peter 3:1. In subjection.—The apostle is not dealing in a general way with the relations in which wives should stand to husbands. That must always depend on the sentiments and customs of particular ages and nations. St. Peter is giving precise advice to certain persons who were placed in difficult circumstances, and needed apostolic direction. The wives addressed had become Christians, but, in many cases, their husbands had not. The question naturally arose: Was becoming Christian to break, or to spoil, the marriage relation? And the apostle replies, Certainly not. Keep the old relations—of subjection or of equality, whichever they might be—only take care to put the new Christian tone upon them all, and get your power out of the better doing of all marital duties. The same advice is given to husbands. The subjection required is that which, in a natural way, belongs to woman’s dependent, receptive nature. It should never be thought of as a subjection of inferiority. Without the Word.—Direct efforts to teach and influence will often only irritate and provoke resistance. The silent persuasion of a dutiful and gracious behaviour is well-nigh irresistible. “The wife, without setting up for a preacher, ought, by the discreet charm of her piety, to be the great missionary of the faith” (M. Renan).
1 Peter 3:2. Behold.—Keep their eyes on. Chaste.—In general sense pure and beautiful, but with a hint of the fear husbands would then have concerning the attendance of wives at the private Christian meetings. About this scandals were very freely raised. Fear.—Of being misunderstood, or of giving the faintest cause for suspicion. Perhaps there is also a hint of woman’s weakness, trepidation from the apprehension of real or imaginary dangers.
1 Peter 3:3. Adorning.—Characteristic adorning, as a wife possessing the new spiritual life in Christ. The limitation of the advice to Christian women needs to be constantly kept before us, or the sharp points of the counsels will be missed. Outward adorning.—Care for merely personal appearance. Characteristic of the worldly mind is supreme interest in appearance. A proper concern about dress and manners is quite consistent with supreme concern for the inward things of character. The terms “plaiting,” “wearing,” “putting on,” suggest elaborate processes by which time is wasted.
1 Peter 3:4. Hidden man of the heart.—As if there were a spiritual counterpart of the body, and that really called for appropriate dress and decoration. The invisible person. The inner self, which is the true self. Compare St. Paul’s “inward man.” Not corruptible.—Contrast with material things, “which moth and rust doth corrupt.” Meek.—Not self-assertive. Quiet.—Self-controlled. That does not readily give way under provocation.
1 Peter 3:5. The holy women.—This appeal would be specially forcible to Jewesses, who regarded Scripture women as models of womanhood, and wifehood, and motherhood. Trusted.—Lit. “hoped”; with special reference to Sarah, who hoped and waited quietly for the fulfilment of the promise made to her.
1 Peter 3:6. Daughters.—Compare “children of Abraham,” as those who have Abraham’s faith. “Daughters of Sarah;” those who have Sarah’s spirit of submission and hope. Not afraid.—This clearly has reference to particular conditions of the time; probably to the slanders and persecutions to which the Christians were exposed. Special efforts would be made to frighten the wives into giving up their profession. “Menaces of evil may assail the Christian wife, but let her be calm and confident, and let her pursue the pathway of obedience to the will of God, and the holy courage of Sarah will sustain her amid whatever terrors may arise.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 1 Peter 3:1-6
The Message of Christianity to Wives.—To understand what Christianity has done for woman, and especially for woman in marriage relations, it would be necessary to present, with much and careful elaboration, the customs and sentiments, in apostolic times, of different classes of society, in the different nations to which Christianity found entrance. It must, however, suffice to present the distinction between the Eastern and the Western modes of treating woman. In the East woman is almost everywhere an inferior being, a slave and a drudge, kept shut up in private apartments, allowed no freedom, no society, no education. The only exception given in ancient history is that of the Egyptians, whose respect for woman, and recognition of some approach to wifely equality, help to explain the steadiness and the high tone of their civilisation. The Pagans—especially of the Western world—in a way honoured woman, and the Romans secured at once nobility and stability, by cultivating the family virtues. There was indeed a sad side to the Pagan interest in woman, and it has to be kept in view when the apostolic counsels are considered. St. Peter, however, has chiefly in his mind the Jewish Christians who were living among Pagan populations, and might be badly influenced by the tone of Society, and the family customs with which they were surrounded. That woman was honoured and trusted in the Mosaic system is evident from the references and teachings of the Old Testament; and if the relations of a Jew with his wife were such as they should be, Christianity needed to do no more, and it could do no more, than put a new tone upon those relations. Indeed, Christianity needs to be understood as the power that relieves everything good of the pressure of surrounding evil, and puts a new tone and a new force into everything that is right, and wise, and worthy, and beautiful. The point which appears to be before St. Peter’s mind at this time is this: Christianity, as an actual fact, has been found very seriously to disturb existing social relations. Rightly enough; necessarily enough; but still anxiously, and oftentimes as occasioning serious distress. It did actually disturb the marriage relations, more especially in those cases in which the wife became a Christian, and had to find fitting expression for the new Christian spirit in the old Pagan home. St. Peter presents some practical principles.
I. Christianity does not break up home relations.—It is a fixed apostolic principle that wherein a man is called, therein he is to abide with God; that is, whatever may be his class relation, and whatever his occupation or business (provided it is honest), when he is converted, he is to remain in it, and find expression for his new Christian life in connection with it. And this principle can be applied to wives. If they are called, being wives, they are to remain in that marital relation, whatever difficulties may gather round them, and find expression for the new Christian life in the associations of their home life. And it would not be difficult for them to do this, if they properly apprehended Christianity as a new life, sanctifying their daily life, and not a more creed to believe, or ritual to observe, or relation to sustain. The difficulty which was felt when Christianity entered the old Pagan homes is felt to-day when Christianity enters the Hindoo home, and becomes a converting and saving power to the women of the homes. For them to be baptized would be for them to be turned out of their homes, and exposed to a life of misery and even shame. For them to remain and force Christian practices upon their households would mean constant conflict and distress for everybody. And it is necessary to see clearly that Christianity never proposes the breaking up of home relations. It would be a new spirit in the heart of a wife, and do its gracious work through the moral influence of a sanctified life. Under no conceivable circumstances is any woman justified in breaking away from her home relations on the ground of her Christianity. Her new life must find its sphere in the old relations.
II. Christianity perfects the harmony of the home relations.—It does this in two ways.
1. It is the most efficient power to enable a wife to bear the disabilities and difficulties of her home life. It nourishes just those passive, gentle graces which enable her to bear, and suffer, and endure. And
2. It guides her in the moulding and training of the character of the inmates, so that efficiently, but very unconsciously, she gets them all into harmony. And in her harmonising work she has not only the power of her own cultured character and influence, she has also the Divine power, which she draws down for her help, by her soul-openness and dependence, and by her daily prayer. It must be added that her harmonising work, being moral, cannot be sudden, and is not likely to be apparent to any one. It is the ministry of a life, and it often takes a life.
III. Christianity triumphs over the difficulties that arise in the home relations.—We need not think of contentions. Where these are happily unknown, home life has its anxieties. The men are harassed and worried; the members are afflicted. Business cares, bodily diseases, frailties in children’s characters, failure in plans for the children’s well-being, all make varied difficulties. Sincere and earnest Christian feeling in the wife is the great secret of triumph in and over all such things. The ruffled find her at peace; the troubled are sure of her sympathy; the disappointed are cheered by her hopefulness. Her piety helps her to see a bright light in every cloud; her faith enables her to see God ever near, just behind the cloud.
IV. Christianity works in homes through its power in personal character.—“The hidden man of the heart:” “the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit:” “so long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.” It may be true that the supreme power of Christianity in everybody, male and female, is its power in character; but the public activities of men seem to overshadow this truth. We see it quite clearly in woman. Her mission for Christ in the world lies mainly in that influence she can win just by being beautiful in character, through the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
1 Peter 3:1. The Wife’s Sphere in the Home.—The philosophy of marriage, as our Lord unfolds it, is this: a man and a woman made one all around the circle of their being; married in heart and thought and life; joined in desires and purposes and aims; in affections and interests one. Here is the starting point for the interpretation of the wife’s sphere and duty in the model home. Matthew Henry’s exposition must be quoted once more: “In creating woman”—for she was a new and fresh creation, and the last thing God did create, and hence His masterpiece—“God did not take her out of the head of man to be over him, nor from his feet to be under him, but out of his side to be equal with him, from under his arm to be sheltered and protected by him, and from near his heart to walk in sympathy and helpfulness by his side.” God made for Adam but one Eve, not two, nor ten. Mormonism has no authority from God. What God has joined together, let not man put asunder. The union made by ordinance of God cannot be broken by ordinance of man, save by the one exception which Jesus Christ instituted. Hence the part of the wife in the happy home is equal in position and influence to that of the husband, but not the same. Woman is not merely a copy of man—a faded, second impression from the same plate—but another creation, enlarging and enriching life. It brought new and higher elements into the circle of being, adding to life’s joys and possibilities, and making man himself more, through her. The husband and wife are the two halves of one whole, and the whole is designed by God to be greater and better than the sum of the parts. Let her, then, not assume headship, much less lordship, putting on airs as if the Millennium would come when she got her fancied rights. “The wife must see that she reverence her husband.” Neither let her be fretted and chafed by an overbearing man, making her feel that she is an inferior by some jumping-jack of a husband. The Scotch have a proverb, “You may ding the devil into a wife, but you can never ding him out.” The husband and wife are in a true sense one. Whatever is good for him is good for her. Whatever is due from him to her is also equally duo from her to him. They move together. He owes no duty to her that she does not owe to him a counterpart. It is an even thing. What the wife requires of her husband, that let her give to him. She is married “for better or for worse”; let her resolve that it shall be for better. Matches are not made in heaven, and will be for the worse if there be no watchful, patient care to work them out on earth for heaven. It is the duty of the wife to cultivate the practical home-making, God-given gift, keeping her house bright and genial. In a churchyard in England I found this eulogy on a wife’s tablet: “She always made home happy.” Blessed is the home that shelters mutual love: but the ideals must be reduced to reality. Work for the husband is better than worship of him, if the buttons are not sewed on. The word “wife” means a weaver, and “lady” a loaf-giver. She can be no idle dreamer. If, before marriage, the maiden weaves cobwebs of fancy, after marriage she must weave the solid “cloth of gold.” That is an ornament which adorns. She is never so amiable or beautiful as when useful. Spurgeon, a prime minister of England, says: “I have no faith in that woman who talks of grace and glory abroad and uses no soap and water at home.” The wife’s sphere has home for its centre, and its circumference cuts, in its curves, all that is true and beautiful and good. It is not money that makes a happy home. Rich as Vanderbilt, the wife must seek to be an intelligent mistress of the house, with a smile that brightens and a touch that beautifies. Rich or poor, she must know how to guide affairs, and strive for the tact and taste that makes homely duties handsome. “She layeth her hands to the spindle, she clotheth her husband in scarlet.” In the home she may say she rules in queenly fashion: “I am sovereign by the grace of God. My home to me a kingdom is, and to all that enter this realm I will hold out the golden sceptre of blessing.” Marriage, to a woman, is more than a king’s coronation. The wedding ring is as much a symbol of power and influence in the home as the monarch’s signet. “There is great force hidden in a sweet command.” No life can be tame or limited when high aims are followed. The strength of a wife to lift up others in trouble, and hold them to worthy aims, is very great. Let the wife accept that mission cheerfully, if it be assigned to her, and work under pressure and without recognition, long and painfully, if it is called for. The reward is sure. God sees and remembers all. He that seeth in secret shall reward her openly. The pleasant home-making talent of the wife will curb bad temper and evil propensity. Thus, to suppress a moment’s anger may save a week of sorrow. She will strive to preserve all amenities of dress and manner, keeping the home orderly and inviting. Carefulness and courtesy in the home are never lost. Roughness and indifference are never safe, and coarseness breeds contempt. The wise wife will continue to do those things which first won her husband’s love. Treat your husband’s return from business cares with a joyous and smiling welcome, and make the home bright and winsome while he stays. He will stay the longer and be back the sooner. If you pout out, “Oh, you have come at last, have you? You care nothing for me, that is plain! I have no charm, I see, for you any longer,” you are in danger of throwing away the key to his heart. Never do it. He can’t be harassed in business all day and harassed by his wife at night. He will want to go out “to see a man,” or to go to “the post office and just step into the club house.” Peevishness and fault-finding will never do. Study to be a real help-meet to your husband, and never a drag on him—to be one meet to help such a one as he is. Contact with a noble-minded woman is good for any man. There has been a good wife, as a rule, close beside every eminent man. Seldom will a man become any greater than his wife will let him. She must strive to fit herself for his growing fortunes and to rise with him, and be a true helper in all the spheres to which he is called. That is the wife’s sphere, and if she does not keep even with him she will pull him down. A wife that is her husband’s help-meet, growing as he grows, is his best fortune. “Whoso findeth such a wife findeth good. He will not say, ‘I fell in love’; he will say, ‘I rose.’ ” But he will be thoughtfully tender of such a wife, and very careful to put no hindrance in her way. He will lend her every aid in family cares, that they may ascend the hill together. He is the sturdy oak, and she the ivy entwining. He will throw out his strong, protecting arms that she may reach the topmost bough in grace and beauty. Pity for the ivy that will not climb! In order to do this, there must be a life-long assimilation. When husband and wife first come together, they are alike at only a few points, and know really little about each other. They must study each other, and see the faults and virtues of each other, mutually helping and strengthening each other. So will they conform to one another, and grow more and more together, avoiding stirring up the bad in each, and developing the good. We all have our faults. Expect faults, and be not surprised at finding them. It is a great thing to kindly help one to get rid of them and beyond them. Very likely here is where the young wife will have her first cry. She has been such a darling in the home, and such a pet in society; and so long has she had her own way that when her husband gets tired of her egotism and selfishness, and brings her up with a square turn to consider that there are two to be consulted in that firm instead of one, it will overwhelm her. Hasn’t her husband always said that they are one?—“Two hearts with but a single thought!” and has she not been given to think that she is the one! And now, she thinks, he is a monster, and that life is not worth the living. But she is good and true at heart, and will find her head soon, and be a wiser and better wife. She will be married to her husband, after that, at a higher point in her soul. In this way, by self-denial and forbearance, they will, step by step, become truly joined in the nobler ranges, and secure a happy marriage union.—C. L. Goodell, D.D.
1 Peter 3:3-4.—The Higher Life for Woman.—There are two passages, and this is one of them, from which there has been derived by the Puritan and so-called Christian teachers the doctrine that it was wicked for women to wear jewellery and precious stones. They have not been so particular about plaiting the hair that, I know of, although that comes in under condemnation in the same way. Now, the whole point is lost where it is fixed on these things. The point is, that one should not expend the whole of life on making the outside beautiful, but that one should see to it that the inside is adorned also. You are not to cheat the soul of all its gems and virtues for the sake of making yourself attractive exteriorly by adornments of that kind. That is the point, but it has been commuted into a general declaration against ornaments of beauty—whether of the hair, or of the apparel, or of precious stones. Nothing could be farther from the spirit of the text than that. This, we are to bear in mind, is addressed in its original form to Oriental women. They were in the condition mainly that multitudes of men think they ought to be in now. They were stayers at home; they were managers of the household; they received no gifts of education whatever. It was not necessary that a woman should be expensively educated for the sake of making bread or mending stockings, and so they were but little better than slaves of the harem. Even in the very highest point of its splendour there was not in all Athens a single woman who was permitted to be educated, if she wished to have the reputation of virtue. Knowledge with women in Grecian days was a token of impudicity. If a woman meant to live as a courtesan, no pains were spared to educate her in taste, in knowledge, in philosophy, even in statesmanship. Here is the root of the explanation in regard to those dissuasions in the writings of the New Testament, that women should not speak in public. In the corrupt and degraded sentiment of those Oriental ages, for a woman to be able to speak in meeting and to rise to do it, would have fixed upon her the stigma of being common and corrupt. Therefore it was a wise decree of the apostle that, in such an age, and under such public ideas of what was feminine and pure, and what was unfeminine and impure, must be silent. They must conform in the churches to the public sentiment of their time, until Christianity should have changed the times, and rendered possible a larger liberty, felicitous and beneficial. Now, in such a case as that of women, whose desire to please and love of pleasure is strong—not perhaps stronger than in men, but under circumstances in which there were fewer ways of pleasing than men possess—what could they do but make their persons attractive? They were forbidden to make themselves beautiful within, and so they made themselves as beautiful as they could without, with braided hair, with all manner of pearls and precious stones, with all fancifulness and beauty of dress. But St. Peter and St. Paul alike said: “Do not spend yourself on external garnishing; look inward, and cultivate the inward life,” or, as St. Peter here calls it, “the hidden man of the soul.” In short, St. Peter and St. Paul were both in favour of higher education for women. They did not believe that the line of her life should not rise above the bread-trough, or the handling of the instruments by which she was to obtain victory in the industries of life. They believed that a woman should have a higher life, a higher inward development; and should not therefore turn to frivolous pleasures and external beauty.—H. Ward Beecher.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3
1 Peter 3:1. A Wife’s Power to Win.—“As I was conversing,” says a writer in the New York Observer, “with a pious old man, I inquired what were the means of his conversion. For a moment he paused—I perceived I had touched a tender string. Tears gushed from his eyes, while, with deep emotion, he replied: ‘My wife was brought to God some years before myself. I persecuted and abused her because of her religion. She, however, returned nothing but kindness—constantly manifesting an anxiety to promote my comfort and happiness; and it was her amiable conduct when suffering ill-treatment from me that first sent the arrows of conviction to my soul.’ ”
1 Peter 3:3. Pride in Dress.—Goldsmith tells of a mandarin who took much pride in appearing with a number of jewels on every part of his robe. He was once accosted by a sly old fellow, who, following him through several streets, bowed often to the ground, and thanked him for his jewels. “What does the man mean? “cried the mandarin. “I never gave you any of my jewels.” “No,” replied the other; “but you have let me look at them, and that is all the use you can make of them yourself. So the only difference between us is, that you have the trouble of watching them; and that is an employment I don’t much desire.”