We are preaching our way through 1 Peter at Hope Church, where I serve as one of the pastors. This is a very relevant book for modern Americans, as the original recipients of Peter’s letter were dealing with widespread social disfavor and increasing marginalization. The more that our culture becomes like ancient, pagan Rome, the more we will find that we have in common with the first Gentile Christians.

A couple of weeks ago I preached 1 Peter 3:1-7, which contains the apostle’s admonitions for wives and husbands. This text includes the [unpopular] command, “wives…submit to your own husbands.” This is a difficult verse, in no small part because of all the cultural and personal baggage that comes with it. This passage has been misused and abused within the church. Preachers and teachers have taken this text to say that women are second-class citizens of God’s kingdom. We have used it to spiritually manipulate wives into submitting to husbands who are physically, sexually, or emotionally abusive. And that is wrong. That is sin.

A Christianity that dominates and subjugates women is not a faithful version of itself, because it was mostly women who were first drawn to the message of the gospel and the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Women were flocking to Christianity in the early days because they found in the gospel something they couldn’t find anywhere else. They heard a message that proclaimed, “You are valued by your Creator. You have tremendous worth. You have an inheritance.” God doesn’t sell his daughters for a bride price; he gives them the full inheritance of the kingdom.

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