I guess we could have discussed 1 Peter 3 yesterday, but it deserves some time of its own. Here’s the passage in question:
“Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives— when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of clothing— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.” (1 Peter 3:1–7)
Let’s look at immediate context. Following an admonition to live good lives “among the Gentiles” (2:12), Peter lays out a series of “submit yourself to” instructions: everyone submit to governmental authorities (2:13-17), slaves to masters (2:18-25), and wives to husbands (3:1-6). This final instruction is tempered by a warning to husbands to be understanding and show honor to their wives. Two reasons are given for that:
- They are co-heirs of salvation
- Mistreating one’s wife will be a hindrance to prayer
In Buried Talents, Jay Guin argues that this passage is specifically directed to women with unbelieving husbands. I don’t think that’s the case. Peter does feel that this behavior could lead to the conversion of non-believers, but note that he thought only some would be in a mixed marriage (vs. 1). Much of the language is similar to Ephesians 5, speaking of a relationship of submission and respect (the same word used in Ephesians 5:33). And the following instructions seem to be given to believing husbands (vs. 7); why wouldn’t we see them included in the discussion about wives living in submission?
Guin also points to the reference to Abraham and Sarah, reminding us that their marriage had a lot of problems. While I think that’s true, it’s no reason to disregard Peter’s point. Think about Abraham being continually held up as a person of faith. What if we merely focused on his weak points: moments of doubt, times of sin, disobedience to the Lord’s call, even falling on his face laughing at God. We could say, “Abraham is no model of faith; look at his failures.” I’d suggest instead that we trust that Peter (and Silas – 5:12) were guided by the Holy Spirit as they wrote these words.
Husbands are again warned not to treat their wives in a domineering way. Family leadership does not include high-handed, despotic behavior. That’s part of the curse in Genesis 3, not part of God’s original design. Women may be “weaker vessels” (Peter’s words, not mine), but they are by no means inferior. They are co-heirs with us and with Christ. No one can mistreat his wife and be right with God.
Hi again Tim – you wrote, “I’d suggest instead that we trust that Peter (and Silas – 5:12) were guided by the Holy Spirit as they wrote these words.”
I think you hit on a critical issue that is not very often mentioned in this discussion (and I have only belatedly thought about addressing it) – the issue of inspiration.
In an earlier “critique” of Guin’s work you point out how he (and many others, to be sure) believes that Paul, Peter, et. al., could not have anticipated that their work would be used as a model for behavior some 2,000 years after they penned those letters. In this view the letters were to be “authoritative” only for the lifetime of the original recipients, and only in the specific location to which they were addressed. This is either the result of, or the direct cause of, some significant reassessment of the concept of inspiration.
Whatever Paul, or Peter, or Luke or whoever might have *thought* about their writings, the Holy Spirit clearly had some pretty long-term goals in mind – as evidenced by the way the early church collected and preserved these writings. They were deemed “authoritative” in locales far separated both in terms of time and distance from their original audiences.
So – if we now decide in 2014 that 1 Corinthians, the letters to Timothy and Titus, and the correspondence of Peter no longer are “authoritative” as they were written to a culture now long dead, what do we do with the concept of inspiration? Are books only inspired if we agree with their content? Are we free to add and subtract “inspired” writings on the basis of whether our culture deems them acceptable?
Maybe this is another can of worms that you don’t want to get into right now – but for me this is certainly another huge question that must be dealt with in regards to this (and many other “hot button”) issue that the church is facing.
Paul
Paul,
I think it gets back to what I’ve mentioned many times: we have to decide whether the Bible is merely shaped by the culture its in or if actually shapes that culture as well.
Grace and peace,
Tim
“Authoritative” doesn’t seem a useful word to apply to the Scriptures to me. Jesus is authoritative. The Scriptures attest to Jesus. The Scriptures themselves are not perfect. We need to interpret the Scriptures through the lens of Jesus, not through the lens of infallibility or inerrancy or inspiration, however we might define those terms.
Wendy,
While Bible worship is certainly not a good thing, neither is reducing the Bible to a mere product of its environment. If we don’t treat the Bible as inspired, then I hardly see how its worth our time.
As for the Bible being perfect, I would disagree. It’s perfect for what God wanted it to be. I’m not going to pretend to know a Jesus outside of the Jesus revealed in the Bible. That being the case, I can’t then pretend to use the Bible’s Jesus against the Bible itself.
When Jesus came, he put full trust in writings made centuries and centuries before. Shouldn’t his followers be willing to do the same?
Grace and peace,
Tim
Let me add that I think Scripture is authoritative. Think about a judge who has authority. When he issues a ruling, that ruling is authoritative.
So Jesus has authority. The teachings that he left with his disciples are authoritative. We have them in written form.
An interesting article that addresses this discussion: http://www.dennyburk.com/egalitarianism-and-the-functional-authority-of-scripture-sarahbessey-candacecbure/
If the Scriptures are not authoritative, then the attestation to Jesus found in the Scriptures is not authoritative. Who gets to define what comprises “the lens of Jesus?”
I don’t think anyone here is using Jesus as a weapon with which to attack the Bible. Rather, the question is one of controlling narratives, controlling passages. Which passages of Scripture do we choose to perceive as foundational? Which passages do we understand to create limitations on how we can interpret other passages?
For example:
— Philip’s four daughters were prophetesses.
— Prophecy, Paul can be understood to argue in 1 Cor 12 & 1 Cor 14, is a gift given for the building up of the church.
— But in 1 Cor 14, the passage can be understood to command all women in every church to remain silent in all Christian gatherings.
Which is the controlling passage? Do we understand 14:34-35 to have limitations, because Philip’s daughters prophesied and prophecy was given for the edification of the gathered people? No — we understand the command in 14:34-35 to be controlling, and our understanding of the way Philip’s daughters lived must be revised to agree with it.
Not so with singing, though! Although Paul (both authoritatively and so clearly as to remove any questions from the mind of any honest bible student, according to Paul Smith) commands all women in every church to be silent whenever and wherever Christians assemble, that command gets revised and limited because we believe Eph 5:19 and Col 3:16 to be controlling passages whose meaning forces us to revise our understanding and limit our application of 1 Cor 14:34-35.
Are we using Paul against Paul when we say that women are authorized to break silence and sing with their mouths and their hearts in the assembly?
Paul, does your wife call you Master? Lord? King?
Does she not respect the authority of the apostle Peter, who plainly expects Christian wives to imitate Sarah in calling their husbands kyrios? Does your household operate as if Peter’s expectation was only authoritative in his generation, after which it could be cast aside?
Or maybe the concept of authority is a bit more complicated than you’re willing to grant those of us whose understanding differs from yours?
Tim,
Does anyone deny one side or the other of that dilemma? The questions that I have are not meant to reflect a mindset wherein the Bible is viewed solely as a product of the surrounding cultures.
But when we find both a multitude of commonalities and more than a few differences between the culture of the people of God described in the Scriptures and the surrounding pagan cultures, I think it far more likely that it is the differences that are the result of the Bible’s influence on the culture of the covenant people, even if some of the commonalities may also be created by Scripture’s influence.
Divorce is the clearest example of accommodation to culture that comes to mind. Jesus clearly tells us that God’s dream for human flourishing did not include the need for divorce. However, since the covenant people had come out of pagan cultures and their hearts had been hardened by the long-term influence of the surrounding pagan cultures wherein divorce seemed an obvious necessity for human happiness, God *allowed it* even though his desire was to wholly eliminate it. And unique limits were placed upon Jewish divorce to protect the most common victims of cruel divorce in pagan society — women who were either thrown away like offal or dumped while a better option seemed available and then returned to afterwards like an appliance.
So, the Bible was both influenced by culture and exerted a strong influence on the culture of the covenant people. What we seem to be wrestling with is how that influence was expected to work, and whether (more specifically, in my mind) Galatians 3:28 functions for women’s roles the way that “In the Beginning it was not so!” from Matthew 19:8 functions for the idea of divorce — as a passage that unlocks the dream and vision of God towards which we are expected to be striving, even though God has made accommodation for our weakness because of the heavy influence of surrounding culture.
The way Paul handles slavery in Philemon seems to fit this idea of accommodation, as well.
Tim,
I’m certainly not advocating “reducing the Bible to a mere product of its environment.”
I have a problem with the evangelical use of the word “inspired”.
“As for the Bible being perfect, I would disagree. It’s perfect for what God wanted it to be.” I was using “perfect” in the sense of it containing no errors.
“I’m not going to pretend to know a Jesus outside of the Jesus revealed in the Bible.” That being the case, I can’t then pretend to use the Bible’s Jesus against the Bible itself.”
I’m not advocating for a Jesus known outside of the witness of Scripture. But Scripture is our introduction to Jesus. It’s not the be all and end all of our experience of him.
“When Jesus came, he put full trust in writings made centuries and centuries before. Shouldn’t his followers be willing to do the same?”
I have full trust in the Scriptures. That doesn’t mean I believe they are infallible though.
Nick, you may be right. I could easily be bringing in arguments from other contexts. I’ve been in discussions where people say, “I can’t accept some of the stories from the Old Testament because they conflict with what I understand about Jesus.” Maybe I reacted to what Wendy said based on those discussions.
Grace and peace,
Tim
Nick,
Yes, I think a lot of people deny the Bible’s role in shaping culture. I don’t include you among them. But I find many who feel that the norms of Greek and Roman society (funny how rarely they include Jewish society) handcuffed the biblical writers as to what they could and could not say.
Grace and peace,
Tim
P.S. — I think the Bessey article from the other day is an excellent example: http://sarahbessey.com/disagree-bure-biblical-marriage/
P.P.S. — And yes, I dared criticize a female author in the same way I would a male author. That makes me an abusive sexist. I’ll go ahead and make the charge first and save others the time.
wrt the Denny Burke refutation of Sarah Bessey’s Jesus Feminist” (which I have yet to read), I couldn’t get past his phrase “straightforward teaching of scripture”. The longer I am a Christian and the more I study the Scriptures, the more I believe that a “straightforward teaching of scripture” is phrase used when the author is not willing to consider that a flat reading of Scripture might just be, well, wrong.
And Mr. Burke could not get past Bessey’s claim that headship does not exist as a Scriptural concept.
Until we learn to get past the actual words that people use in particular places and strive for a generous interpretation of the whole of their communication, both sides will remain, well, on sides rather than unified.
I’ve been in those discussions as well, and they are a tangled web to navigate. And we’ve run into the same mindset in other settings, I think — where people clearly imply (if not come right out and say) that they can’t accept certain sayings of Jesus (the non-violent ones come to mind) because they conflict with what they understand the OT stories to reveal about the nature of God.