5For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands; 6just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.
Interesting that Peter uses Sarah as his example of true beauty and adornment. She was physically a beautiful and desirable woman:
It came about when he came near to Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, “See now, I know that you are a beautiful woman; and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’; and they will kill me, but they will let you live.” (Gen. 12:11–12)
However, Peter describes her as holy and hoping in God. In relationship to her husband, she was submissive to Abraham and “obeyed . . . calling him Lord.” Peter urges his readers to do the right thing and not be deterred by fear. Why did he not instruct women to imitate Sarah specifically by obeying their husbands and calling them “lord”?
This passage hearkens back to 1 Peter 2:13, the injunction to submit to all human institutions. Human institutions change over time. Submitting to government in a totalitarian country looks different from doing so in a democratic country. The divinely mandated principles of marriage are enduring and unchanging. Consider such directives as Genesis 2:24 (a woman is to leave her home and unite with her husband), Ephesians 5:22 (her submission to her man is an extension of submitting to one another for all Christians), Colossians 3:18 (be subject to him), and Titus 2:4–5 (love and be subject to her husband).
We are on shaky ground if we confuse the human institution of marriage with the spiritual teaching on marriage. As a human institution, marriage has changed over time. In Sarah’s day, men had complete authority over their wives. But for Christian women, submission in marriage is not repressive or different in essence from submitting to one another as Christians. Her submission prevents the power struggles that can occur when two people live together, but it does not mean unquestioned “obedience,” which would put a woman on the level of a slave. Sarah lived an exemplary life within what we would see today as a limiting form of marriage. In our day, such obedience is not required by the human institution of marriage, at least not in the Western world. Therefore, Peter applies not the specifics of Sarah’s submission to Abraham but her attitude. His application is that women should respond to their husbands, not out of fear of them but from a desire to do the right thing.
Lord, help me do the right thing in my marriage because it is the right thing.
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