Hosanna Restoration Church

Oh, how some love to use this scripture to prove how the husband has the authority over the wife. They of course don’t like to read on to the part where the man loves the wife as Christ loved the church, but I want to look at this simply from the direction of accepting authority.

Previous to this, Peter had written about how our good lives should silence those who speak against us. In other words, we should not give them any grounds for the accusations and they should be lying when they make them. We are to respect the authorities. Sad to say, that this is something that is dying in our society. It seems there is more of tendency toward disrespect and complaining than toward respect. I hear students when I substitute teach complaining that a teacher is dumb or the teacher gives dumb assignments, so they are not going to do them. I wonder who will suffer for that!

He then goes on to tell slaves to respect their masters and work for them like they are working for the Lord. It did not matter whether they deserved the respect or not, it was their responsibility to honor God’s wishes. And finally He points out how Christ suffered for us out of respect for His Father’s authority.

That brings us to the husband and wife scripture. As I read this, I was reminded of how we are called the bride of Christ. So He is our husband and we are to accept His authority. It is like God is covering all the bases. If you can’t relate to honoring the king, because we do not live in a land that has a king, or being a slave and serving someone, then how about the husband and wife relationship.

He tells the wife to submit to the husband whether he is a believer or not so that her godly life will win him over. Isn’t this how we are supposed to live in this world? Isn’t the most important call on our lives to live in such a way that people are drawn to God? In chapter 2 Peter warned us not just to pretend to be good. Just as a wife must not put on fake submission, so we must not just pretend to follow Jesus. We can’t just look good from the outside. We can’t just go to church for appearance, we are to be the church or the bride everywhere we are.

I believe that the Lord was not only talking about our marital responsibilities, He was giving us yet another picture of accepting His authority. If a husband is so glad to have the Lord tell his wife to submit to him, they he should be even more excited about submitting to the Lord in the same way.

It is surely in all of our hearts to live godly in this world. The only way to do that is to accept the authority and the example of Jesus Christ as the way to victory.