Peter Exhorts the Persecuted Believers Volume 28

 Christian Wives in the Home 🏡 Part 2

1 Peter 3:3-4 Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. KJV Note: NKJV=New King James Version

As we stated in the previous study/commentary, our Lord Jesus Christ is the head of every husband that has been born again by Him and if that be true with the man 👨 or husband, then certainly as he follows Christ he will want to love his wife just as Christ loves His Bride 'the Church ⛪' as written for us with these words by the Apostle Paul, "So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the Church." (Ephesians 5:28-29) (NKJV). I wanted to add this just before the Apostle Peter now goes further into the wives outward and inward behavior in the Church and more importantly in her daily life with her husband whom she is to love above all others except her love should be greater for our Lord Jesus Christ above even her husband. Wives respond to the affection and nurturing loving care that their husband demonstrates to them on a regular basis, just as all of we redeemed, regenerated, and resurrected sons and daughters of Christ Jesus our Lord do with Him, therefore, the Apostle Peter gives these words of exhortation to every Christian wife back then and every era and generation, "Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price." (1 Peter 3:3-4) (KJV). The reason the Apostle Peter draws attention to the plaiting of hair and the wearing of gold and the putting on apparel is not because there is any inherent evil or bad in women who would do so, but that in the time of Peter penning this letter ✉ it was common for the unsaved women of Rome to dress 👗 in the most provocative ways as if to flaunt themselves in public to entice men. So, Peter is exhorting the women of God to not follow this pattern of outward dress 👗 so as to esteem their union with Christ and their union with their own husbands with the honor and respect both are due from them. A women who loves and honors her husband wants to appear beautiful to him always and wants to be beautiful for him in public, but her natural beauty is what attracted her husband to her and it is what he sees most of their time together, so he loves the real her and wants to see and be with her in said manner always. Here is what Vincent's Word Studies had to say of the Roman women during that time ⌚ of Peter writing this letter ✉, "The Roman women of the day were addicted to ridiculous extravagance in the adornment of the hair. Juvenal ('Satire,' vi.) satirizes these customs. He says: 'The attendants will vote on the dressing of the hair as if a question of reputation or of life were at stake, so great is the trouble she takes in quest of beauty; with so many tiers does she lead, with so many continuous stories does she build up on high her head. She is tall as Andromache in front, behind she is shorter. You would think her another person.' The hair was dyed, and secured with costly pins and with nets of gold thread. False hair and blond wigs were worn. Female extravagance in dress in the days of the empire reached an alarming pitch." Juvenal was a Roman satirist who denounced the vice and folly of Roman society during the reign of the emperor Domitian (60-140). I would say that their time ⌚ had nothing on the time ⌚ we currently live in today as well as the past 2,000 years since Christ death, buriel, and resurrection, then His ascension back to heaven. What did King Solomon write 📝, "That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, 'See, this is new'? It has already been in ancient times before us. There is no remembrance of former things, Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come By those who will come after." (Ecclesiastes 1:9-11) (NKJV).

The Apostle Peter wanted to see His wife and all the other Christian wives back then and of every era and generation be more mindful of their inner beauty that is received from God's grace in the inner woman 👩, that is, the new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) that she has been made by the working of the Spirit of God in her, for this is real beauty as compared to the plaiting of hair or wearing of gold or the putting on of fancy and expensive dresses. When Peter says here a 'meek' spirit he declares that by the grace of God in the inner woman she will be holy and the non-violent agitations from her husband will be met with grace and not with a mean tempered response. When Peter speaks of a 'quiet' spirit, he is declaring her to be peaceable, that is, making peace in their home and not stirring up strife or contention with her husband and being undisturbed by the conflicts that arise between them (and their will be many), but instead she will endeavor to make peace in their arguments, however, at the same time ⌚, not being his doormat to be walked upon and over, but making her feeling's known to him and making her ideas known to him at the same time ⌚ respecting him as the head of the home 🏡 and his decision on matters that she has expressed her disagreement with. Note: "Again, I must continue to reiterate that our Lord Jesus Christ is not commanding any wife to stay in a home where she and her children 🧒 are being physically abused regularly, for this is not the meaning Peter or any of the other writers of Scipture are conveying to wives period. Get out of that situation until he gets help period." Here is what John Wesley had to say of a meek and quiet spirit, "Complete inward holiness, which implies a meek and quiet spirit. A meek spirit gives no trouble willingly to any: a quiet spirit bears all wrongs without being troubled. In the sight of God - Who looks at the heart." Here is what Matthew Henry had to say of a meek and quiet spirit, "More especially, the finest ornament of Christian women is a meek and quiet spirit, a tractable easy temper of mind, void of passion, pride, and immoderate anger, discovering itself in a quiet obliging behaviour towards their husbands and families. If the husband be harsh, and averse to religion (which was the case of these good wives to whom the Apostle gives this direction), there is no way so likely to win him as a prudent meek behaviour. At least, a quiet spirit will make a good woman easy to herself, which, being visible to others, becomes an amiable ornament to a person in the eyes of the world. The excellency of it. Meekness and calmness of spirit are, in the sight of God, of great price - amiable in the sight of men, and precious in the sight of God. A true Christian's chief care lies in the right ordering and commanding of his/her own spirit."

If you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ and His amazing healing power, pray this from your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ (you speaking directly to Him), Dear Lord Jesus, I confess to You that I am a sinner and I need Your forgiveness. I believe You shed Your Blood and died for my sins. I believe that You rose from the dead proving that You alone are God. I repent of my sins. I want to turn from my sins. I ask You Dear Lord Jesus to come into my heart and take control of my life. I want You to be my Lord, Savior, and my God. Amen...


Sincerely in Christ,


Clifford D. Tate, Sr.


Author of “Silent Assassins of the Soul - Are you Broken by Pornography and Masturbation? You can be Restored by the Lord Jesus Christ and brought into Deliverance, Freedom, and Victory! A Guide for Men and Women in the Enemy’s Crosshairs” e-book available now @ Amazon Kindle, @ Apple I Bookstore for IPod, Barnes and Noble for Nook, Reader Store for Sony Reade, Kobo, Copia, Gardners, Baker and Taylor, and eBookPie…

Peter Exhorts the Persecuted Believers Volume 27

 Christian Wives in the Home 🏡 Part 1

1 Peter 3:1-2 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; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. KJV Note: NKJV=New King James Version

The idea that women (in marriage ⚭) should not be in charge or in control or in command in their homes sounds and is barbaric to the natural woman (1 Corinthians 2:14), however, God is the One who created man 👨 first and then the woman 👩 second to be a helper (Genesis 2:18) and the man was given authority to rule over her by God after the fall (Genesis 3:16). The natural woman 👩 has rebelled and continous to rebel against this structure given to men 🚹 and women 🚺 in marriage ⚭ so much so that a revolutionary movement was spawned from said rebellion called the feminist movement which gave birth to feminism. It was founded with the premise of giving equal rights to women 🚺 in all or every aspect of society, however, it has failed the home miserably because in that area of human life and relationships, God has declared that their is one head in the home and that head is the man 👨 or husband who is submitted to Him (God). The other problem with feminism even outside of marriage ⚭ is simply that God did not create physical man 👨 and physical woman 👩 equal in their physical bodies nor in their psychological or emotional makeup, therefore, the feminist movement has actually been formed by Satan to drive a wedge further and deeper between men 🚹 and women 🚺 causing all sorts of problems physically but more importantly spiritually. Therefore, the Apostle Peter who himself was married as it is written, "Now He (Jesus) arose from the synagogue and entered Simon's house. But Simon's wife's mother was sick with a high fever, and they made request of Him concerning her. So He stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. And immediately she arose and served them." (Luke 4:38-39) (NKJV) wants us to know the will of God for the Christian wife in the home 🏡 and he begins by declaring these words (to the scattered Jewish converts to Christ back then and all of us today and of every era and generation since the Resurrection), "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; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear." (1 Peter 3:1-2) (KJV). The Apostle Peter when he says at the beginning of verse one (1) 'Likewise' which is translated by the Greek word homoiōs meaning similarly or in the same way. The little English phrase 'be in subjection' is translated by the Greek word hupotassō meaning to be subordinate or obedient to him/husband. Peter was referrings wives to act in the same manner that he had just declared in this epistle or letter ✉ to them concerning the conduct of slaves with their masters or owners. However, God the Holy Spirit is not commanding through Peter for women 🚺 to stay in a marriage relationship where physical and emotional abuse is occuring and the husband seeks no Godly counsel nor does he seek in prayer to God to be delivered from this despicable, demeaning, and destructive behavior in the home that not only hurts his wife physically and emotionally, but it scars the children 🧒 who are raised in such an environment immeasurably. The Apostle Peter does remind the wives that their Christ-like behavior may be used by God the Holy Spirit to bring the unbelieving husband to repentance and faith and they will be born again and immediately their physical and emotional abuse will stop 🛑. It is this same Apostle Peter that writes to these scattered Jewish believers in his second epistle or letter ✉ these words describing, declaring, and detailing the great love/long-suffering of our Great God and Savior, "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9) (NKJV). Despite this fact of the fruit of the Spirit being patience/long-suffering, our Lord Jesus Christ never wants to see any of His adopted daughters keep themselves and their children 🧒 in a place where their actual physical lives are in danger, therefore, they can seperate from their abusive husband for a time or season praying for Him to get help, that is, get saved, for I personally do not believe that this type of violent and abusive behavior is carried out on a regular basis by a true adopted son of God, there may be moments of weaknest where they lash out, but this cannot be the pattern of a son of God's treatment of his wife and children. Amen!!!

Here is what the Expositors' Bible Commentary had to say of 1 Peter 3:1-2, "We are not surprised therefore, in the history of the infant Church, to read (Acts 1:14) that women were present among the disciples who waited at Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, nor to learn how the daughters of Philip the evangelist (Acts 21:9) took a share in the labors of their father for the cause of Christ, or that Priscilla, (Acts 18:26) equally with her husband, was active in Christian good offices. Other examples occur in the Acts of the Apostles: Dorcas, Lydia, and the mother of Timothy; and the constant mention of women which we find in the salutations with which St. Paul concludes his letters make it clear how large a part they played in the early propagation of the faith. 'Fellowworkers,' 'servants of the Church,' 'laborers in the Lord,' are among the terms which the Apostle applies to them; and we know from the Pastoral Epistles what help the primitive Church derived from the labors of its deaconesses and widows. To be occupied in such duties was sure to give to women an influence which they had never possessed before; and the women converts, in countries such as these Asiatic provinces, were exposed to the same sort of danger which beset the slave population at their acceptance of the Christian faith. They might begin to think meanly of others, even of their own husbands, if they were still content to abide in heathenism. Such women might incline at times to take counsel for their life’s guidance with Christian men among the various congregations to which they belonged and to set a value on their advice above any which they could obtain from their own husbands. They might come to entertain doubts also whether they ought to maintain the relations of married life with their heathen partners. With the knowledge that such cases might occur, St. Peter gives this lesson, and as in the case of slaves, so here, he gives no countenance to the idea that to become a Christian breaks off previous relations. Wives, though they have accepted the faith, have wifely duties still. Like Christian citizens living in a heathen commonwealth, they are not by religion released from their previously contracted obligations; they are to abide in their estate, and use it, if it may be done, for the furtherance of the cause of Christ. Be in subjection to your own husbands; they have still their claim on your duty. There is much gentleness in the Apostle’s next words. He knows that there may arise cases where believing wives have husbands who are heathen. But he speaks hopefully, as thinking they would not be of frequent occurrence: 'even if any obey not the word'. Wives, especially if they be of such a character as the Apostle would have them be, could not have been won to the faith of Christ without much converse with their husbands on so deep a subject; and the word which was working effectually in the one would often have its influence with the other. It might not always be so. But husbands, though not obeying the word as yet, are not to be despaired of. And here we may turn aside to dwell on the tone of hope in which St. Peter speaks of these husbands who obey not. For the word (απειθουντες) by which they are described, is the same that is used in 1 Peter 2:18 of those who stumble at the word, being disobedient. The lessons here given to Christian wives, not to despair of winning their husbands for Christ, gives warrant for what was said on the former passage: that the disobedience which causes men to stumble need not last for ever, nor imply final obduracy and rejection from God’s grace. But this by the way. The Apostle adds the strongest motive to confirm wives in holding to their married state: 'That the husbands may without the word be gained by the behavior of their wives: beholding your chaste behavior coupled with fear.' 'Without the word' here means that there is to be no discussion. They are so to live as to make their lives a sermon without words, to work conviction without debate; then, when the victory is won, there will remain no trace of combat: all will tell of gain, and nothing of loss. And once again St. Peter uses his special word (εποπτευειν) as he describes how the husbands shall be affected by the behavior of their wives. They shall gaze on it as a mystery, the key to which they do not possess. The wives in heathen homes must have been obliged to hear and see many things, which were grievous and distasteful. The husbands could hardly fail to know that it was so. If, then, they still found wifely regard and respect, wifely submission, with no assertion of a law of their own, no comparison of the lives of Christian men with those of their own husbands, if a silent, consistent walk were all the protest which the Christian wives offered against their heathen environments, such a life could hardly fail of its effect. There must be a powerful motive, a mighty, strengthening power that enabled women to abide uncomplainingly in their estate. For this the husbands would surely search, and in their search would learn secrets to which they were strangers, would learn how their tongue was restrained where remonstrance might seem more natural, how pure life was maintained in spite of temptations to laxity, and the marriage bond exalted with religious observance even when reverence for the husband was meeting with no equal return. Such lives would be more powerful than oratory, have a charm beyond resistance, would win the husbands first to wonder, then to praise, and in the end to imitation."

If you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ and His amazing healing power, pray this from your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ (you speaking directly to Him), Dear Lord Jesus, I confess to You that I am a sinner and I need Your forgiveness. I believe You shed Your Blood and died for my sins. I believe that You rose from the dead proving that You alone are God. I repent of my sins. I want to turn from my sins. I ask You Dear Lord Jesus to come into my heart and take control of my life. I want You to be my Lord, Savior, and my God. Amen...


Sincerely in Christ,


Clifford D. Tate, Sr.


Author of “Silent Assassins of the Soul - Are you Broken by Pornography and Masturbation? You can be Restored by the Lord Jesus Christ and brought into Deliverance, Freedom, and Victory! A Guide for Men and Women in the Enemy’s Crosshairs” e-book available now @ Amazon Kindle, @ Apple I Bookstore for IPod, Barnes and Noble for Nook, Reader Store for Sony Reade, Kobo, Copia, Gardners, Baker and Taylor, and eBookPie…