Introduction

Most people in our culture see love as something wonderful. We hear it in countless love songs and watch movies where someone is trying to win the heart of the person they love. Deep down, we all hope to find good fortune in love. 

But the love we see in movies and songs is usually just infatuation. When we feel that way, making sacrifices seems simple. But as relationships move into marriage and family life, we begin to see what real love asks of us. True love in marriage means putting our partner’s needs before our own, like letting them have their way or getting up at night to care for a sick child.

Love isn’t just demanding in marriage; it can also be a challenge in our friendships. It’s easy to be a good friend when you’re having fun together. The real test comes when your friend is struggling and needs your help, even if it’s inconvenient for you. When it’s us in need, that’s when we find out who our friends really are.

Loving our family and friends can be hard enough, but loving people in our church community can be even trickier. Churches are full of people with different opinions and behaviours that might not match what we expect from other believers. We expect a lot of each other, and we often fall short of what others expect of us.

If loving people in church is tough, loving your enemies is even harder. It’s one thing to care about someone you don’t have much in common with, but it’s much more difficult to care about someone who is trying to hurt you.

But Jesus shows us how to love this way. He reaches out to everyone, whether they are good or not. He doesn’t try to get back at those who hurt him. Instead, he asks God to forgive the Roman soldiers and the religious leaders who killed him. He even asks God to forgive us, since our sins led to his death. Jesus never turns away from this kind of costly love. It’s easy to admire how Jesus loves, but we’re called to do more than just watch from a distance. Following Jesus means loving others in the same radical, selfless way.

Last week, we saw Peter tell people to love like Jesus, even when it’s hard. He told those mistreated by authorities to submit to them, and he told slaves to submit to their masters, even if they were harsh. In our passage this week, Peter continues with this train of thought, showing us more relationships where we need to practice this kind of love.

I. Wives Winning Husbands to Christ

Keeping this context in mind, let’s look at the beginning of 1 Peter 3, where Peter asks wives married to unbelievers to submit to their husbands.

In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. Then, even if some refuse to obey the Good News, your godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over by observing your pure and reverent lives. 

Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God. This is how the holy women of old made themselves beautiful. They put their trust in God and accepted the authority of their husbands. For instance, Sarah obeyed her husband, Abraham, and called him her master. You are her daughters when you do what is right without fear of what your husbands might do (1 Peter 3:1–6, NLT).

This passage, and everything else we’re looking at today, builds on the passage we looked at last week. That’s why it starts with ‘in the same way.’ Just as slaves were called to follow Jesus’ example by loving their masters, even when they didn’t deserve it, now Peter shows how wives should do the same: Submitting to their authority, even though they are in no way inferior in God’s eyes

A. Scripture in Context

This passage gives us a chance to think about how we read the Bible and apply it to our lives. Is the goal simply to ‘do what the Bible says?’ That’s certainly what some think. Or should we look at the heart expressed in the instructions Peter gives, and try to replicate that? Just as the different contexts of slaves and wives meant that loving Jesus looked different in each case, does the very different context of wives today mean that loving like Jesus takes a very different shape?

Many people have used this passage, and others like it from Paul, to argue that women should always be under their husbands’ authority. After all, the Bible says so. But I believe this comes from misunderstanding how the Bible is meant to guide believers.

To figure out how to apply the Bible, we need to examine our assumptions about what the Bible even is. Some see it as a life instruction manual. ‘Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.®’ But if you read the Bible, you’ll notice it’s mostly stories, not step-by-step instructions. Even the parts with commands are often meant for specific people in specific situations. For example, when Paul tells Timothy to drink a little wine for his stomach (1 Tim 5:23), he’s not telling everyone to do that—he’s just giving Timothy advice for his health. Or when Paul tells the Romans and Corinthians to greet each other with a holy kiss (Romans 16:16, 1 Cor. 16:20), he’s not saying we need more smooching in church. Back then, the church was bringing together slaves and masters, Jews and Gentiles, and the holy kiss showed how this diverse group of people was becoming a single, unified family. Our culture is different now, so that practice isn’t common anymore.

The Bible, especially the letters in the New Testament, doesn’t just give us timeless rules. Instead, they show us specific examples of how the apostles applied the commands of Jesus in a wide variety of situations.

Our own lives are very different, and so faithfulness to Jesus’ instruction might take a different shape. As Ecclesiastes says.

For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to build up….(Ecclesiastes 3:1-3, NLT)

The teacher’s point is that there isn’t one right thing to do all the time. Different situations require different responses. Jesus tells us the greatest commandment is to love God and to love people. That’s what the law and the prophets were always about. In other words, everything we do should be about loving God and people, but this love looks different in different situations.

So, as we try to apply Peter’s instructions, let’s remember he was instructing people how to live out the gospel of love in their own context. We need to do the same in our very different world. Being faithful in our context isn’t the same as being faithful in theirs. If we try to make it that, we reduce the Christian life to a set of rules—that’s what Jesus challenged in the Pharisees—when it should be about living out the spirit behind those rules.

With that in mind, we can see that Peter’s directions were given to people in specific situations. He told slaves to submit to their masters, but he wasn’t saying Christians should support slavery. He told women to submit to their husbands, but he wasn’t saying the church should support patriarchy. He was showing how Jesus’ example guides people living in those systems.

B. Submission and Mission

Peter’s instructions to wives seem to be aimed at women married to unbelievers, not to all women in his church. Why does he insist they submit to husbands who don’t follow Jesus’ commands? In that culture, many men treated women as an afterthought. Women were expected to be seen, not heard, and weren’t thought to have agency. In fact, by addressing women directly, Peter was actually going against cultural norms. Giving instructions to women assumed they had the right to choose how to conduct themselves, which many people in that culture didn’t believe.

Women were expected to follow their husbands’ religious practices. So when women, married to pagans, chose to worship Jesus, it looked like insubordination. Peter knows this could lead people to accuse these women of being rebellious, so he tells them to be especially cooperative in other areas of life. Their husbands might be salty about their wives not following their religion, but if their wives become easier to live with, the husbands might be more open to learning about Christianity.

So Peter’s call for women to submit to their husbands isn’t based on the idea that women are less important than men. Instead, it’s a way to show unbelieving husbands that Christianity isn’t trying to take away the authority they think they deserve. Peter is asking women to put their husbands’ interests first in hopes of winning them over. He’s asking them to love like Jesus. Who gave up what was good for him, four our Good, trusting the Father to vindicate him. As Peter said in the previous chapter:

He did not retaliate when he was insulted,
nor threaten revenge when he suffered.
He left his case in the hands of God,
who always judges fairly (1 Peter 2:23, NLT).

The message of the gospel is that we can love God and people so much, that we’re willing to let go of our rights if it helps others come to God. So Peter is saying that if believing women focus on inner beauty, it will help show others that following Jesus is a better way.

C. Inward and Outward Beauty

In verses 3-5, Peter talks about how women of faith make themselves beautiful. Some people use this passage to say women shouldn’t care about their looks at all. But Peter seems to be saying that women shouldn’t rely only on their appearance to be beautiful. They aren’t forbidden from caring about how they look, but they should focus more on what’s inside.

This is a helpful reminder for all of us today. We live in a time when physical appearance seems more important than ever. Every day, we are inundated with images of physical perfection. Women are told their value is in how attractive they are, Men are given an impossible vision of drug-aided fitness and told this is what a man looks like.

Physical beauty is a gift from God, but it’s overvalued in our culture—and not just ours. In the story where Samuel anoints David as king, Samuel thinks God wants him to anoint David’s older brother, Eliab, because he looks like king material. God corrects him, saying, “God does not see as man sees, since man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam 16:7b, NLT). Peter is telling the wives that their beauty isn’t in their bodies or clothes, but in godly character. That’s a lesson we should all remember.

In that culture, women could show their inner beauty by submitting to those in authority over them, according to the expectations of their culture. They put their husbands’ needs before their own, hoping to win them to the Lord. In our context, subservience to their husbands might not be how wives best show their godly hearts. Wives, husbands, and everyone else express the inner beauty that pleases God when we learn to serve others and consider their needs, not just our own, following Jesus’ example of selflessness.

II. Husbands Honouring Their Wives

After giving instructions to wives with unbelieving husbands, Peter turns his attention to husbands:

In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered (1 Peter 3:7, NLT).

Notice this section also begins with ‘in the same way.’ Here, as with slaves and wives, Peter explains how Jesus’ example of love should shape the way husbands treat their wives. He says husbands should ‘honour’ their wives. The Greek word for ‘honour’ means husbands are to highly value their wives by giving them the respect they deserve. What respect do they deserve? Peter tells husbands their wives are equal heirs in the grace of Christ. In other words, God sees them as equals, so should you.

A. Giving Wives The Honour They Are Due

Peter is saying that even though society saw women as less than men, God invites them to share equally in his grace. At the foot of the cross, men and women are equals. At the same time, women were often the weaker party in marriage, not because they were inferior, but because most had less physical strength and also because they were in a weaker position in society.

Throughout the Old Testament, God called on his people to give special help to those who were at a social disadvantage. We see this most clearly in verses demanding justice for foreigners, widows and orphans. God reminds them that they had themselves once been in a similarly desperate situation.

“True justice must be given to foreigners living among you and to orphans, and you must never accept a widow’s garment as security for her debt. Always remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from your slavery. That is why I have given you this command (Deuteronomy 24:17–18, NLT).

So Peter is saying that husbands need to protect and honour their wives because their society doesn’t give them the respect they deserve. If husbands don’t do this, Peter says their prayers may be hindered. Peter is probably thinking of Old Testament texts that say God won’t answer the prayers of people who are unjust. For example, Proverbs says,

Those who shut their ears to the cries of the poor
will be ignored in their own time of need (Proverbs 21:13,  NLT).

This is about justice. Just as Jesus says we can’t ask for God’s mercy while refusing to show mercy to others, so we also can’t demand justice for ourselves while denying it to others.

Side note: In the Old Testament, the word ” justice ” doesn’t mean equal treatment before the law, or proportional punishment for wrongdoing, as it does for us. It meant making sure that everyone had what they needed.

B. Honouring the Dehumanized Today

While women in our culture have made great progress toward equality, They still often face attitudes and behaviours that disadvantage them. But their position has improved a lot since Peter’s time, when they were treated as property.

But there are still other groups in our society who are equal heirs in God’s grace but are dehumanized and devalued. Think of immigrants who are blamed for problems in housing and jobs, racial minorities who are viewed with prejudice and suspicion, people with mental illness who are feared as a threat, or the poor who are presumed to be lazy. But they are invited to the table with us. God offers the same grace to them as to us, so in his eyes, we are all equal, no matter what society says. If we have privilege and they do not, justice means we should put their needs first, rather than adding to their marginalization.

Unfortunately, these issues of justice are often read through a partisan political lens. Anyone saying Christians need to be concerned about social justice is often labelled as liberal or woke. But Christianity doesn’t fit neatly into categories like liberal or conservative. We shouldn’t follow Jesus’ command if they happen to correspond with our political commitments, rather our commitments should be shaped by God’s commands. So if we want God to be responsive to our needs, we must learn to be responsive to the needs of the disadvantaged around us.

III. The Church Living in Love

In the texts we’ve looked at last week and this week, Peter gave instructions to three groups: slaves, wives of unbelievers, and husbands, about how to handle their situations in a Christ-like way. Now he gives all believers general guidelines for how to act in all their relationships.

Finally, all of you should be of one mind. Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude. Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will grant you his blessing. For the Scriptures say, 

“If you want to enjoy life
and see many happy days,
keep your tongue from speaking evil
and your lips from telling lies.
Turn away from evil and do good.
Search for peace, and work to maintain it.
The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right,
and his ears are open to their prayers.
But the Lord turns his face
against those who do evil” (1 Peter 3:8–12, NLT).

A. Loving and Forgiving the Insiders

Today, many of our churches are pretty uniform. While we’re glad to welcome believers from other nations, most churches don’t have much diversity. We often separate into churches that don’t cross ethnic, generational, social, or economic lines. But the churches Peter wrote to weren’t like that. They had Jews and Gentiles, who had a long history of not getting along. They had slaves and slave masters, who probably didn’t trust each other. There were many ways those churches could have split into groups. But Peter asks them to stay united, building bonds through love, humility, and forgiveness.

For us, this means doing our best to notice the needs and desires of people who are different from us. For example, think about parents with young children. Kids crying or acting up can be distracting in a worship service, but for parents of tolders, this is an unavoidable reality. If we’ve never had kids, or it’s been a long time, it’s easy to judge. But love means being willing to be inconvenienced so others can feel welcome.

Or think about how people have different ideas about what to wear to church. Some want to dress up to offer God their best. Others don’t own ‘Sunday bests’ or want church to feel comfortable for everyone, since we’re always in God’s presence. People may disagree, but love means we don’t insist everyone do things our way.

Here’s one more example from recent history. During the pandemic, people had different views on vaccines, masks, and lockdowns. We were all trying to figure things out and keep people safe with incomplete information. Not everyone agreed on what was best. I was proud of our community because, even with disagreements, no one was rude or tried to exclude others. Some churches struggled to stay united, but we managed to hold together.

B. Loving and Forgiving the Outsider

We’ve looked at the call to love our fellow Christians, but Peter’s call to love also extends beyond the boundaries of the church community. The Christians in Peter’s day faced those who treated them unfairly. It would be natural to respond to this with hostility. But Jesus commanded his followers to love everyone, even their enemies, and he showed us what this looked like by surrendering his life to save us.

Peter calls all believers to practice this same kind of indiscriminate love in all their relationships. They were supposed to forgive their capricious political overlords, their slave masters, their unbelieving husbands, their unkind neighbours, and their religious opponents.

There are probably people in our lives we don’t feel deserve our love, but following Jesus means we have to work at seeking their good. Maybe it’s your difficult boss, a tough mother-in-law, lazy employees, self-serving politicians, or a classmate or coworker who tries to put you down. Deep down, we resist loving them because it feels like by loving them, we’re condoning their behaviour.

But the point isn’t that they get away with it. The point is that we trust God, who is wiser and more just than we are, to respond in the right way. As we choose to let go of our hurts, God will reward us with a blessing. It might not be the kind of blessing we often most want—comfort, riches, or recognition— but it will be the kind of blessing that lasts: becoming more like Jesus, being set free from sin’s power, learning to connect with others in love, and having a deep sense of God’s presence.

Conclusion

So what should we take away from Peter’s words? If we think the main point is that women should be put in their place, we’ve missed the plot. The call for women to submit to unbelieving husbands was just a way to love those husbands where they were. The main principle in Peter’s lesson is that we should respond to challenges by following Jesus’ example. What matters most isn’t getting our own way, but surrendering our will to God and letting him teach us to love, even our enemies. This text shows us that love is the main motivation, but it looks different in different situations. Our job isn’t just to ‘do what the Bible says,’ but to see the deeper vision of how our lives can become like Jesus’.

So I challenge you to ask yourself, “Where do I feel mistreated or taken advantage of?” What would it look like to love like Jesus in that situation? Maybe it means showing kindness to someone at work who hasn’t been kind to you. Maybe it means praying for God’s blessing on a politician you strongly disagree with. Maybe it means treating a fellow Christian who disagrees with you as a brother or sister, not as someone to mock or dismiss.

Love sounds great in the abstract, but it’s always a challenge when you try to live it out. If your faith isn’t pushing you to love in uncomfortable ways, you’re not letting the Spirit stretch you in a way that lets you grow. Love is like a muscle. It only gets stronger when you push it to do more than it’s used to doing. That’s why, as we walk with Jesus, as we grow closer to him, he is always challenging us not just to love him more committedly, but also to express that commitment for him by more freely imitating his love for others. It’s the kind of love that seeks out the lost and the excluded, even extending to his enemies. As we embrace this discipline, we embrace our true identity as God’s beloved children. So let’s resolve to love, even when it’s uncomfortable or costly, and we will see God’s power flow through us.