Wives respect your husbands
1 Peter 3:1-4 · Roger Henderson · May 17, 2015
1 & 2 Peter (2015), No. 19
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492654184370

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Today we're going to start in Chapter 3. The last several weeks we've been looking at Christ's sacrifice, or it can be looked at as His submission. This whole section, starting back in Chapter 2 and verse 11, is kind of on submission. Submission in the stake, submission in the household, submission by our Savior, and then finally submission in the family. I want you to get your minds in gear about submission. Do you remember what the key verse was in Submission to the State? We looked at several verses there. Was there a verse in Submission to the State that you remember from weeks past?

Go ahead, Tom. Submit to those in authority over you as unto God. Okay, good. Respecting their rank, not necessarily what they do, Good. Submit yourself for the Lord's sake to every human institution. So that's submission to the state. And then the next one was submission in the household. And a verse there was basically, servants submit yourselves to your masters with all respect. And then the last several weeks we've been looking at basically view it as submission of our Savior.

And I think the verse there that is kind of neat is verse 23. 2.23 it says, speaking of Christ, and while being reviled, he did not revile and return, while suffering he uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously. So what I kind of, and actually that verse had two aspects that Christ was reviled and that he suffered.

And I was kind of thinking that, you know, that submission doesn't come without a price. It is God's order, it's God's order in the state, and that we submit to every human institution, in the household, and our Savior certainly submitted Himself voluntarily, and He was reviled for that, and He suffered for that. So I was kind of thinking that as we're going to get submission now in the family, in the family unit, husband and wife, we're going to see their submission there. And I was thinking about the fact that we're going to see submission in a situation where the wife is a believer, and the husband's not a believer. So I was thinking, that doesn't come without a cost.

It can be painful. That just kind of struck me, the fact that our Savior suffered for his submission to the Father through the Father's will. He agreed to that will and eternity passed, right? And he was reviled for that. He was put down and he suffered on the cross. So I was thinking, that's kind of interesting that submission, even though it is absolutely God's plan, can be costly, and our Savior demonstrated that.

So now in the verses for today, so basically in the first six verses of chapter six, you have the responsibility of the wife. First of all, it's a declaration and limits of submission in the A part of 3.1. Then we have the purpose of submission, and then two through four, the details of submission. And then lastly, I think Bob's going to be covering the next couple of weeks, he'll be looking at the pattern of submission and then we go on to the husband's role. Some have said, it doesn't seem fair here, we've got six verses talking about the wife and only one for the husband here. But other places in the scripture that flips around, so not to worry ladies.

That's because women are multitaskers. And us guys, we can only handle one thing. Right, right. Well, you've seen Bert's picture, right? A woman and man, you know, it just cracks me up. And a man is one switch, you know, on and off. And for the ladies, there's all these dials and knobs, you know. Anyway, okay. So, okay. So could someone read the first four verses of chapter three? You can read it off the overhead or you can read it from your Bible or whatever you like.

In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe their chaste and respectful behavior. Your adornment must not be merely external, braiding the hair and wearing gold jewelry or putting on dresses, but let it be the hidden person of the heart. with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit which is precious in the sight of God. Thanks Tom.

So actually there's quite a bit to cover here and actually there's some the verses toward the end hopefully we can correct maybe some some maybe you've heard some teaching out there about different what lays are to wear and how the impact that's what in our lays to be you know there's some interesting questions toward the end there hopefully we'll set that straight.

Alright, so let's start off here. So the first part of the verse is, in the same way you wives be submissive to your own husbands. So in the same way, what do you think about, it's like he's referring to something, what's he referring to here do you think?

It's pretty straightforward, I think. If you look at the context of what I covered, we went back to 2.11. In that context, we went through the state, the household, and our Savior. And then he goes to the fourth topic, the family unit, and he says it in the same way. So what's he referring to here?

Well, because the husband has the authority given to him after Adam sinned. Okay, that's good. So I think he's saying submission is my plan. This is God's plan. This is not saying that men are smarter than women. Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, right? It's none of that. This is God's order and his design.

So if you have a problem with this you need to talk to the Lord about this. But anyway, the other thing we're going to see is that God It's been said that wherever there's an institution that God created, He always wants to have a head. If you think about the Godhead, there's God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

They're equal, right? But they all have roles, right? The Son was sent, and when the Son left, the Spirit was sent. So there's an order. They're equal. They're equally deity. So in the family unit, it doesn't mean that because the husband's a head, that he's superior to the wife. Not at all. The wife may be much smarter than him, but there is an order that God has and God wants to work through that headship and we need to understand that.

I guess I was thinking just to keep order in everything. Order in the country, order in the family, otherwise you'll have chaos if you don't have some kind of order. So the challenge here is not to get derailed saying, well, okay, what if my head, head in the state, right? What if the state's out to lunch? We could argue our state is out to lunch, I don't know. Anyway.

Or what if the family, what if the husband is not, in this case, the husband's not a believer. So the Lord's going to give the wife directions when her husband isn't a believer. You say, that's the worst case it can be, right? I mean, they're not one in the Lord.

So that's, but there's an order to be maintained. So we're going to see the details of that. Okay, so actually I asked the question, it refers back to the previous admonitions for submission. UIs be submissive and is present continuous at you continually to be submissive. So what does submissive mean? We covered that back when we did the submission to the state.

Do you remember what that word means? Does that mean the wife crawls around on her hands and knees and says, you know, does that mean grovels around? Is that what it means? I'm being a little bit facetious here. Does anyone remember what that means? Listen under. Good. Okay. It's this word, cuputaso, to listen under or to range under. It's a military term, just like you have a colonel and you have ranks in the military. You line up under your head or your commander.

And it's been said that Submission is a positive response to divinely delegated authority. A positive response to divinely delegated authority. So God has established the line of authority. And that's His plan and His purpose. So we'll be in harmony with God's plan and purpose when we line up under or we agree to that.

And it doesn't mean you can't say, well I don't think that was a wise decision. Doesn't mean you can't have any rebuttal to that, but someone has to be the leader. At some point in time, somebody has to say, OK, that's what we're going to do. And sometimes it's not the best decision.

God has a head for every institution that he has created. OK, so there's some parallel verses here that kind of say a very similar thing. Wise, be subject to your own husband as to the Lord. So we see many times that your submission is, you're submitting to God's plan. Not to that person, necessarily. But as the church is subject to Christ, so here's another institution that God has established, the church, right? It's to be subject to Christ. So also, wives ought to be subject to their husbands and everything. And thirdly, wives be subject to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord.

And there's a few other ones like that as well. So thoughts or questions before we move on? So we're going to see the qualifying point. This is the A part of the verse. We're going to see there's qualifications to this, the submission. spiritual leader too.

God's model is that the husband be a leader and he should be the spiritual leader. This is a difficult situation where the husband is not a believer and the direction to the wife is not going to be an easy one. It's going to be I'm going to submit to his headship because that's God's intent. How will the wife persuade the husband of her position in the Lord?

It's very interesting what it's going to be. You guys already know the answer anyway, but it's really kind of cool. Well, I went through that. I mean, my late wife got saved and I looked at her life over a year. That's great, Bob. That's perfect. That's exactly what the verse is going to tell us about. Which is what I didn't think I do, actually. Amen. So we got, Bob, we have a testimonial right here. That's cool. Well, actually, anyway.

The qualification here, are women supposed to be submissive to men? Is that what's being said here? No. The qualification is to your own husband. So he's not saying women are to be submissive to all men. He's saying in my institution called marriage, this is the arrangement I want. And it's to your own husband. And then Macaulay kind of has a little statement I like. He says, to your own husband shows the subject is not male-female relationships, but husband-wife relationship.

This is based upon the premise that every institution must have a head. The headship of the husband is based on God's choice, not male superiority. So that's really important. And then here's a couple of verses that are important. And this kind of talks about some headship relationships, but I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.

So how would you say, how would you say that the Lord Jesus, let me just go down here for a second. How did the Lord Jesus demonstrate his submission to the Father? Can you remember things he might have said or done that would demonstrate his submission to the Father? Great, that's a wonderful one. So at that moment when he knew he was going to the cross, he submitted to the Father's will.

Also, look at this for a second. Turn to John chapter 5. There's a series of verses like this. John chapter 5. that say a very similar kind of thing. And the Lord Jesus said this many, many times. Verse 19, can you read it, Bob, 519? Then answered Jesus, and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doeth. And what thensoever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. So what the Lord Jesus said, He says, I only do what I see the Father doing.

I'm in complete agreement. It's not that there's not competition among the Godhead. It's an equality. But he voluntarily submitted himself to the will of the Father. And the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. He submitted to the Father's authority.

So think about this. This relationship in a marriage is two equals and the wife voluntarily submits herself to God's will in that relationship. That's the picture. And you think, well, this husband may not be worthy of that. It's as much a challenge, as much an impossibility for the wife to submit to the husband outside the Lord as it is for the husband to love the wife as Christ loved the church.

I didn't see that until I was studying this. I thought, wow. I've always struggled with that verse. I'm to love my wife as Christ loved the church. That's impossible. Without the Lord, without Christ, I can't do that. The wife is to submit to the husband in the same way.

It's kind of balanced out in my mind. That was kind of cool, I thought. What happened here? It's like it's overheating. It got tired and overheated. You guys have the handouts, right? We can try to turn it back on again, I guess. Is that new, that thing? I don't remember it. It's coming back on again. On chart number...

We talked about the fact of all these headship relationships. Basically that God is the head of Christ. Christ is the head of man, man is the head of woman. It seems like God refines that picture by making sure you understand that's a relationship that in 5.23 he talks about husband and wife relationships.

Let's go on. Here's the purpose of that. There's a purpose for the submission in this case. So even if, and even actually adds intensity to that word if, and if is this condition where it's assumed to be true. There's various if statements in scripture, and this is the one that's assumed to be true for the sake of argument.

It's called a first class condition. So it's assumed to be true that the husband is disobedient to the word. He's not listening to the word. He's not coming to faith in the word. disobedient to the word. I was going to give an example here about this even if. Let's look at John 8. Can someone read John 8 verse 14? It kind of shows this even if phraseology, the emphasis of that.

Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear witness that my record is true, for I know whence I came and whither I go. Is that right? That's right. You're right. It is. But you cannot tell whence I come and whither I go. Okay. It turns out in between translating it gets a little bit. In the New American Standard it has, even if I bear witness. So it's this intensified phraseology. So this is saying, even if.

Even in the case that your husband is disobedient, or in essence he's not a believer, even if you have that case, I want you to still be submissive. What's been talked about and assumed in that time that Peele was writing, there were some women apparently, and maybe he was answering questions, I don't know, I haven't studied that precisely, that were saying, Don't I have an exception clause here? My wife isn't my wife. My husband isn't a believer. Do I really have to be submissive to him? And so Peter seems to be answering that question in this context. He says, even if he's a disobedient to the word.

And we have a similar idea in Colossians there. Let's look at that for a second. Colossians chapter 1. Because it's either the Word of Truth or the Word of God, that phraseology. Colossians 1, chapter 1, verse 5. Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of this you would have heard before in the Word of Truth, the Gospel. Right. Okay, so here's the case where we have the Word of Truth, so we have the Word of God.

So they are disobedient to the word, and particularly to the fact that it is a word of truth or the gospel. So they are being disobedient to that aspect of the word. Which I think is important to clarify there. So now we are going to go on. The word disobedient is kind of interesting. It is the idea to refuse to be persuaded or to believe, to be disobedient. It's not just, think about like in Romans there, that people willfully, people know about the Lord, but they willfully suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

First part of Romans there. So this is a very simple picture, that their disobedience to the word is their refusing. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to know about that. And we see that. We see that in people that we interact with. Some people are hostile. Don't tell me about that. I've heard about that. I don't care about that. That's good for you, but not for me.

All kinds of arguments. So that's a situation that the wife here finds herself in. Her husband is disobedient or refusing to be persuaded. And I list several verses there. There's one we covered in the past. It talks about, For they stumbled because they were disobedient to the word.

And then coming up down the road we're going to see in 1 Peter 4.17 what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God or believe or be persuaded by the gospel of God.

So actually, and we've already kind of talked about this, what kind of marriage situation? It's a situation where the wife is a believer and the husband is not a believer. And what's supposed here, what it seems like the context is talking about is that they They both started out as unbelievers. The wife became a believer, the husband was not a believer. I don't know whether I can exactly draw that from this context, but in looking at this, that's kind of a general assumption, but it's not clear to me that's exactly the situation from what we read here.

We're going to see the word, the word and a word. The word is, this is a definition from Vines, It's an expression of thought. So the A part of that is that it embodies a concept or idea. And then the B part is what we're talking about up here, the word of God. Either Christ spoke it or God the Father spoke it, or people spoke on their behalf. And then the C situation here is that it's discourse or speech.

And we're going to see that come up a little bit later. And then the last one is it's the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the personal word. of the title of the Son of God. So any thoughts so far or additional comments? If not, we'll just keep going. So this is the cool part.

So basically, in the same way you wives be submissive to your own husbands, so it's not to just anyone is to their own husband, so that, with a purpose that, even if any of them are disobedient, or are refusing to hear the word, the word of God, they may be one without a word. So in this case it's going to be a spoken word. It can be the wife saying, you ought to listen to that preacher, or you ought to listen to that message. So no words are going to be spoken, it's by the behavior of their wives. In this case, it's going to be your life, or better, it's the life of Christ in you that's going to be known.

I thought that was neat. We have a few folks here who were there yesterday at Jane Peterson's memorial service, and it was great. It was obvious that her life was just so special. I didn't know Jane real well. I've met her a few times. She was a neat person. I thought that was just what's so neat about looking at a person's life.

Was it what she wore? What was her outfits? She had all kinds of outfits. That was fine. But it was the person. It was her person, right? That was the main thing. And we're going to see that later on. It's a person. It's a hidden person. And it's basically Christ in you. That was really neat.

So the word one is to gain. acquire, to win, to gain over. In this case it's in the future, so in the future your desire is that this person may come to know Christ, to win him over to Christ. We see there are several verses that are probably familiar.

Philippians 3.8 I was wondering why the Lord would say without a word.

I mean, because women tend to nag a little more. I mean, why couldn't it be? Why couldn't she say something, too? I mean, why? I do exactly what you're saying. OK, Tom. It's more like it's going to hit the husband like a ton of bricks. the way he mistreated her. And it won't be because she nagged. It will be because he sees something in her that he totally lacks and he wants. Right. Well, I think Bob kind of expressed it already. His situation, it was your wife's life, right? That's what you saw. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to speak for you, but... No, I mean, this is a woman I dated through high school and college and married before I went to medical school. And as kids started coming, we needed some answers, we didn't have. Sharon got interested in going to church. We were raised in a mainline Protestant church, but there was no personal salvation message there.

At least I missed it, she did too. So anyway, she got saved in Bible Study Fellowship. And so, over the next year, you know, I could really question where she was coming from. Basically, the story is exactly the way you unveiled it. I mean, it wasn't, you need to get saved. It was a life that was changing before my eyes. Somebody I'd known for quite a while. That's neat. Looking back, the change in her life really is what brought me to the Lord, because I started getting into the various passages of the Bible. I always thought you could use the Bible to defend any position you wanted, and you could pull a verse to support that.

That's where the Greek or Gentile comes from, because they think this is all foolishness, right? Right, exactly. Anyway, so that's... That's wonderful, Bob. What's cool is, this is God's method. We'll see later on. This is a very forceful statement he's going to make. In fact, let me just go to it to make my point. And Roger, by the way, after I got saved, she related me to this verse. Is that right? Oh, that's good. That's really good. What I like here is that The actual interlinear, just taking the Greek words and transliterating them, comes out this way.

They will be gained through the wise conduct without a word. That doesn't say the person will be saved. It says, this is God's method. This isn't guaranteed the husband will be saved, but it says, this is a method. And that just blew me away. When I saw that I said, they will be gained. through the wise conduct without a word. And I thought, wow, Adam. I have a question back here. Yeah, you know, I think that seems to be according to God's authority structure.

Even in bosses and masters and servants, the servant doesn't talk to the master about Christ, you know, in order to draw him. And he sees it, the evidence, through his servant. It's the same thing with the husband and the wives. The wives can talk all they want, but the husband is the authority figure in the house and he's going to reject all she has to say unless she backs it up in her lifestyle.

That's good. Actually one more point to that. I believe our main Bob can help me here too. Hal's testimony about his Hal Malloy. We keep talking about Hal Malloy. We were privileged to have this. He was an elder here for many years and just a really godly man. He talked about his salvation and I believe it was the boss at his work. It was his life. Once again, it was his life that won our brother Hal to the Lord.

So we should never discount and think, well, I just got to give him a little bit. I tell him another Bible verse and that will tip the scales. No, I don't think so. One more Bible verse is probably not going to do it. But your life is, and the Lord has said that. But Tom, do you have something else you wanted to say? Let it ride. That's why Hal said you may be the only Bible people ever see, right? Exactly. And it is ultimately God who saves, not me or anybody else.

Well, I remember the story that Ronnie had a dear friend in Longmont that she was that we were praying for and Ronnie was writing her a letter, struggling to write a letter. She wrote the letter and we wrote it and we wrote it and we said, Ronnie, stop. God, like you said, The Lord is going to bring them to Christ. No matter how many times you refashion those words, that's not going to do it. It's going to be the Lord bringing them to Him. It's His work, not our work. It's tired. We'll keep trying.

So on the bottom of page 9, it's actually on slide 9 where it says, it talks about the behavior. The behavior of your wife is a mode of conduct of your life. I gave several verses there. Remember back in chapter 2 of 1 Peter we had In fact, let's look at it for a second.

1 Peter 2.12, talking about the conduct or behavior of your life. And Peter's kind of talked about this before, and talked about how important our behavior and conduct is. And if you look in 1 Peter 2, down in verse 12, it says, keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that And the things in which they slander you as evil doers, they may, on the account of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation. So it's a very similar thing. So it's your conduct that's going to be tipping the scales.

Words are important. It's not that you shouldn't present the gospel, but your life is going to make the difference. That takes a lot of stress off of me. I'm not responsible for just telling you the word, but I'm not responsible for your salvation of God. Exactly, and that's an excellent point.

You think, well, if I just have the words a little bit different, make them a little bit different. I hate to say it but a lot of bodies of believers go wrong because they think Well, we'll just tweak God's message just a little bit. We'll make it more comfortable. I've got to talk them into it. I've got to make it more comfortable for people. And that's not what they need. They need to know the Savior. And if you water it down, you change it, you modify it, that's not going to help the purpose. That's not going to bring people to Christ. If you make it more comfortable, you're trying to do it. And it's God's work, basically. Or if I appeal to their emotions, then I'll get them on board. That's a really weak believer. Right. Exactly. OK. All right. So let's let's go on here.

So actually, at the bottom of slide number nine or chart number nine, it says whose life will whose life will they say whose life will they see in the wife? That's pretty obvious. answer that question. Your desire is that they see Christ in you. That's the desire that we have. Okay, so now it goes on. You know, it's interesting to consider that in much more detail. What's that look like? Right.

Well, I mean, we have to be very careful here. I mean, because the wife still has a sin nature, she's going to hold short at times. So what we're going to see here, should the wife just get all dolled up? She says, well, I'll appeal to my husband on my outer appearance. I'll just really look fabulous.

Is that the approach? And he's going to say, no, that's not the approach. Don't get your fabulous hairdo, or your great clothes, or jewelry, or whatever. Don't go that route. Don't be slovenly, but dress properly. But it's the inner person that he wants him to see. And J. Arnold McGee would say, don't avoid that either.

Oh yeah. Jeremy? Well, Bob asked what it looks like. Well, we saw it in previous verses. It says, in the same manner, well that's what Christ Christ to the world, and I think in the context of 1 Peter, it's our response to persecution. It's that meek, Christ-like response.

And I don't know in this passage if it's, I mean, it says he's disobedient to the Word. It's not necessarily saying he's mistreating her. No. We're not saying that, you know, regardless of what your husband does, you need to submit to him. That's, I don't think you can pull that out of this passage.

But ultimately, it's It's responding in a meet Christ-like manner to the world. It's embodying the sacrifice that Christ did. It's what we looked at last week, by his stripes we are healed. It's only by faith in Christ that that truth is going to be embodied in our life.

And for the woman here with the unbelieving husband, it's just embodying, I think, that sacrifice. So, I mean, the whole context here of 1 Peter is how we respond to unjust persecution, or unjust accusation, or just whatever the world wants to throw at us. And in the context of an unbelieving husband, it's the wife continuing to respond in a meek manner, even though the husband is unbelieving.

Right. That's good. Yeah, actually, if we go to chart number 10, So the next part of the verse, as they observe, the husband is going to observe something. I think it answers Bob's question to some degree. He's going to observe some aspects about the wife. It's going to be her chaste and respectful behavior. So that's part of, that's what he is to observe that's going to help him to know Christ. And so the two aspects, first of all the word observe is this word to look upon, to behold, to contemplate. I have some verses for that. So those two aspects are basically that this idea of chaste is from the word for pure, not defiled.

I had some verses down there in James 3.17 talking about the wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peaceable and so on.

1 John 3.3, and everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself. So it's this purity of lifestyle, if you will. And the second part of that is this respectful lifestyle. And this reverential fear, it's a core word for fear, reverential fear. And there are several times that's used in 1 Peter.

We saw it back in 1 Peter 1.17 talking about conduct yourself in fear during the time of your stay on the earth. And then we saw it in 2.17, honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God. And then we're going to see it down the road a little bit, yet with gentleness and reverence. So there's two aspects that the husband's going to observe in the wife's conduct, her purity of life and her reverential fear.

Actually, there's a parallel verse. Let's look at Titus chapter 2 for a second. I want to read Titus chapter 2 and verse 5. Actually, let's go back and read Titus chapter 2 verses 3-3. likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things, that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed." Right.

So this is talking about sort of the what her life is to a paternity. Verse 5 talks about being sensible, pure, that's the word we have here for purity of chaste, workers at home, subject to their own husbands, there's a submission part of that, that the word of God may not be dishonored. So you can see how If the wife doesn't act that way, then the husband's going to be confused. He's going to say, you're telling me one thing, but your wife is telling something else.

And not to say that we all aren't guilty of that. I mean, no person that has a sin nature is capable of consistently, always doing that. That's the desire. That's God's desire. But we will fall short of that at some point. And we won't be consistent. And that's when maybe the spouse speaks up and says, what I'm seeing is not what you're telling me. And that's probably a good thing to hear sometimes.

This plays out in good theology. In other words, I think if we recognize that our citizenship is in heaven, by faith that gives us confidence in our walk that ultimately these trials and tribulations Christ. So that's an atmosphere of citizenship played out on a day-to-day basis. That's good theology. Many times the burden is put on us to fight our team and struggle and bang in there. It's not the attitude. It's not the spirit of God worrying in us. It's the flesh responding and that's a whole different animal. True.

Okay, so let's go on to the next part of the verse. Let's go over to slide 11. I'm not sure what page that's on, but it's on. So it's verse 3. So now we're going to switch gears. We're going to talk about the adornment of the wife. This is interesting. Verse 3, your adornment must not be merely external. The braiding of the hair, wearing of gold jewelry, putting on dresses. So let me just stop there for a second.

Raise your hands if you've heard this verse used in maybe what you would say an incorrect way. Have you heard people use this verse for saying that women should never wear gold jewelry? I actually, Bonnie has an aunt, that she would not wear gold jewelry. She wears silver. She wears silver jewelry, not gold jewelry.

These verses have been taken, or maybe you say, I'm going to look as plain as I possibly can. No makeup. I'm just going to do the plainest I can possibly be. Well, I don't think the verse is saying that. The verse is not discounting that you don't take care of your, you should look proper. You should look like a woman. Dress like a woman. This verse is not saying that you exclude all these things.

In fact, actually, Macaulay has a neat statement here at the end that we'll talk about in a second. says your adornment must not be merely external. So he's saying don't focus on merely the external. The external is important. Remember, we're the temple of the Holy Spirit, so we shouldn't look in our desire to be holy, we should not walk around in sackcloth and ashes. That's not going to bring people to Christ. So Weiss has this, let your adornment not be the adornment which is from without and merely external. So this adornment is the idea of decoration, it's a harmonious arrangement and order. And then Macaulay at the very end of chart 11 there, has obviously Peter is not forbidding the care of hair, or wearing no jewelry. If this were true he would also forbid them from wearing no clothing. Certainly is not the point. So he mentions three areas that he's going to home in on. And chart 12 kind of speaks to that.

So I kind of cut and pasted from Weiss a little bit and then from about the dress part. So I'll just read part of these here. So the braiding of hair. Actually for one thing in listening to what apparently And I guess this was maybe high society in the Roman culture. The hairdos, in fact I think Vern has had pictures of them. They'd have bird nests up in their hair.

I mean it was just out of sight. These long braided hair things. In fact one said, The ladies were afraid to go to sleep because their hair would get messed up. You couldn't go to sleep. My hairdo is going to get messed up. Wouldn't the beehive hairdos of the 60's be kind of like that?

That would be a failing comparison. These are really pretty incredible things. They had servants helping them do all these deals. Peter is saying you don't want to go there. That's not going to be helpful to winning your husband to Christ. And then the wearing of jewelry. It's the idea of putting around a picture of the wives covering their persons with a conspicuously display of jewelry.

I was just thinking, you know, you see some pictures and maybe even today we're kind of getting to that point where people have so much jewelry. Every part of their body they have jewelry. Ankle braces, neck braces. Every possible part of their body they've got jewelry on. That's not going to be helpful either, I don't think.

And then putting on the dresses. There are two ideas I found out here. One was the idea that you put on just ostentatious clothes. And then the other aspect is that you have so many garments, just one after another after another. You have closets, plural, All these clothing. So what's your focus? Your focus is on your hair, your jewelry, and your dresses. And Peter's saying, no, that's not the focus. The focus is the inner person.

And then at the very bottom of chart 12, it talks about the proper way to approach it here. Timothy says, likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing and basically, That proper is the idea of temperate or of sound mind. So it should be clothing in light of what is acceptable in your society. Modest, discreetly, not with braided hair, gold or pearls or costly garments.

We had the opportunity to be over in England. for five years. This is back in the 70s. Late 60s and early 70s. Sorry, 70s and 80s. I'm losing it here. 70s and 80s. But anyway, what we found there was, and you think, boy, 70s and 80s. And maybe it was true, I guess it's true in this country too.

Women usually wore dresses. And for a woman to wear pants was kind of unusual. So that was, actually even when we were there, there was still some of that around. That wearing dresses was considered the normal thing that women would do. Wearing pants was kind of, if you're into the thing called All Creatures Great and Small, that series by the veterinarian. His wife was one of the ones that kind of broke tradition. She wore pants or something like that. That was kind of a big deal. I don't know, just kind of a sidelight.

You should be wearing clothes that are appropriate for what is acceptable. You know, you don't go outside the box and try to make it a big deal. That's what I think is really important. And that's a good point. Yeah, women wear dresses. I wear a lot more dresses than many people, and probably it's my southern background. Well, as a man, I kind of like women wearing dresses.

I'll put my input into that. Sorry. So now in verse 4, let it be, the adornment, let it be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable quality of gentle and quiet spirit which is precious in the sight of God. So on 13 it says, but let it be this adornment and we says it, but let the adornment be the hidden person of the heart. It's the inner beauty. These qualities we're going to see here are qualities that come from the Lord, come from God, and that's what's flowing out from the wife basically.

The hidden is like the inner man. The verses I quoted there in Romans talk about the inner man, the inner person, the hidden person. And they're imperishable. They're not subject to corruption. And that can only come from the Lord, really. Let's go to the last chart. It's really cool here. Talking about this gentle spirit.

Let's turn to Matthew chapter 11. When I was going through this, kind of really struck me here. This is one of the few places, and this wasn't my, some of the aides helped me figure this out, but basically, Matthew 11 is one of the few places that Christ kind of talks about himself in terms of his qualities. So in Matthew 11, in verse 29, it says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

And now the Lord is going to describe himself. For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. So the Lord Jesus is talking about his character. And so what's interesting is that same word gentle that's used in 1 Peter 4 here, this gentle and quiet spirit, is the same word that the Lord Jesus uses to describe himself.

And it just kind of blew my mind. I said, wow. What the Lord is telling us, He wants that same quality and that quality can't be manufactured. It has to be His life. It was just so exciting to see Peter recognizing that and saying, I want the women to have this gentle and quiet spirit and that only is possible If you know the Lord, He's living through you. The Lord describes Himself with that gentle and humble heart, and the woman is to have that same quality. That's why I say it's an impossible life outside of the Lord. It has to be lived through you, just like it's impossible for the husband to love the wife properly. So both need to depend upon the Lord for that to flow through them. So these qualities are the Lord's qualities being lived out through the wife.

And that quiet spirit could be translated as peaceful spirit. Doesn't mean the woman can't talk. quiet, peaceful, tranquil, still, undisturbed. And when a person is at peace, you can tell that they're not agitated. And they can be talking up a storm, but they still can be at peace, so it's okay.

Which is precious or a great word in the sight of God. Any last thoughts or comments? It sounds like somebody going, shhhhhh. Only you would have thought of that. So I think that's really neat. I feel like I have a much better feel for these verses. I've heard people talk about these verses over the years. It's important to look at God's word and study it out and make sure we don't come to rash conclusions about how we should dress and how we should be. Look at God's word carefully. I think it shows that it's the inner person that's what is important. And it's even more important that it's not I but Christ. We thank you Father. We thank you so much Lord for this day. We thank you for the blessings we have. We ask it in your name. Amen.