Wives and husbands
3
📚Likewise you wives be in subjection 📖 to your own husbands, so that, if any do not obey the Word, they also, without the Word 📖, may be won 📖 by the behaviour of the wives, 2 📚seeing your chaste behaviour joined with reverential 📖 fear. 3 📚Do not let your adornment be that outward adornment of braiding the hair, and of wearing gold, or of merely putting on outer garments, 4 📚but let it be the hidden person of the heart, in what is not perishable, that is the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is of great value in the sight of God. 3:3-4 Compare Isa 3:16-23; 1 Tim 2:9-10. Women will not win their husbands to Christ by fixing their hair, but by fixing their hearts; not by gold, but by godliness; not by outer garments, but by inner grace. There is such a thing as inner spiritual beauty which is far superior to any outward beauty. And it is a beauty which will never fade away. Compare Prov 31:10-31. The churches and the world would be better places if more women went after the inner sort of beauty.⚜
5 📚For in this way in times of old the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands, 6 📚even as Sarah 📖 obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. You are her daughters 📖, as long as you do well, and are not afraid with any terror.
3:5-6 Holiness, hope in God, and a submissive spirit are the marks of the beauty God wants to see in believing women.⚜
7 📚Likewise, you husbands, live with them with understanding 📖, giving honour to the wife, as to the weaker 📖 vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered 📖.
The kind of life that inherits blessing
8 📚Finally, all of you should be of one mind, having compassion on one another. Love as brothers, be merciful, be courteous. 9 📚Do not pay back evil for evil, or insult for insult, but, on the contrary, blessing. You know that you have been called to this, so that you might inherit a blessing 📖. 10 📚For,
He who would love life,
and see good days,
let him keep his tongue from evil,
and his lips from speaking any deceit.
11 📚Let him avoid evil, and do good;
let him seek peace, and follow after it.
12 📚For the eyes of the Lord are
over the righteous,
and his ears are open
to their prayers,
but the face of the Lord is against
those who do evil.
3:10-12 Ps 34:12-16. If we do not live as God tells us to live in vs 8,9, He may cause us to see bad days instead of good days, and may turn away His ears from our prayers instead of answering them.⚜
13 📚And who is he who will harm you, if you are followers of what is good?
3:13 Rom 13:3. Unbelievers also can recognize and appreciate kind and compassionate behavior, blessing instead of cursing, doing good instead of evil.⚜
14 📚But even if you suffer for righteousness’ sake, blessed are you. And do not fear 📖 their dread, or be troubled,
3:14 But suffering for doing what is right is always a possibility in a world like this – 1 Pet 2:19-20; 4:12-13. If it happens to us we should remember the truth the Lord Jesus spoke in Matt 5:10-12.⚜
15 📚but sanctify the Lord 📖 God in your hearts, and always be ready 📖 to give an answer, with meekness and fear, to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, 16 📚having a good conscience 📖, so that, although they slander you, as if you were evildoers, those who falsely accuse your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed 📖. 17 📚For it is better, if the will of God be so, that you suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.
The reason for the death of Christ
18 📚For Christ also suffered 📖 once 📖 for sins, the righteous one 📖 for the unrighteous 📖, that he might bring us to God, being put to death 📖 in the body, but made alive 📖 by the Spirit 📖.
What happened after Christ’s death
19 📚By whom also he went and preached 📖 to the spirits 📖 in prison 📖,
3:19 Where did Christ go when He died? In a statement of faith called “The Apostles Creed” these words appear: “He descended into hell”. Christ certainly did not descend into hell to endure punishment. All His sufferings were ended on the cross (John 19:30). But it seems He went to the unseen realm of the dead called, in Hebrew, “Sheol” (Eph 4:9; Ps 16:10).⚜
20 📚who in time past were disobedient 📖, when once the patience of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight 📖 souls were saved through the water 📖. 21 📚The exact representation of this water now saves us, baptism 📖, (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh 📖, but the pledge of a good conscience toward God) through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 📚who has gone into heaven, and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to him.
3:19-22 This passage is obscure and difficult. It seems that sometime between His death and ascension into heaven Christ went somewhere and proclaimed something to some spirits in prison. Peter does not tell us what he means by “spirits” or “prison” or by Christ’s going there. Some think Peter means that Christ’s Spirit was in Noah preaching to the people of that day, but this seems to ignore the wording of v 19.⚜