¹In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, ²as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior.

What does a woman do when married to a “disobedient” husband? The Scripture is practical, if anything, but it is not always exhaustive in its particulars. So we are not commenting here physical, verbal, or sexual abuse. But we must address what is meant by a “disobedient” husband. This passage could be used by a pseudo-godly man to spiritually abuse his wife. By this I mean he uses the passage to pressure his wife to “obey” him. Nowhere in Scripture are we told a husband can command his wife to obey him—that would be treating her no differently than a slave. Instead, we see from other Scripture that a man is to love his wife the way Christ loved the church and sacrificed for her. He wins her with love, not commands.

So what does “disobey” mean? It means the husband is disobeying the Word of God, the Scripture. He is not living as a spiritually mature believer—whether he is a true believer seems to be irrelevant in this passage. Often today, it seems common that the wife is godly and disciplined, but the husband is not. And the temptation is for the wife to pressure the husband to conform to her practices by preaching, nagging, or otherwise judging him compared to herself. That imbalance is the focus of our passage today. The wife’s intention may be good, but the methods for influencing her husband may not be. And this is what Peter is addressing.

Teaching with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, Peter provides guidelines for how a wife can best influence her husband. It is not by her words but by her behavior. Sociologists and marriage therapists deal with these kinds of things. But Scripture recognizes an underlying dynamic that affects how godly spouses react to each other, and it is different for the wife as opposed to her husband. Peter will address the men a little later. But here he says, a wife shows her submissiveness in the marriage relationship not by what she says but by having “chaste and respectful behavior.”

This implies that what the husband needs most is respect (see also Eph. 5:33, where the same root word for “respect” is used). This does not mean she doesn’t talk to him, but her influence comes mainly from her attitude of respect for him, even when he isn’t walking in obedience to Christ. “Chaste” behavior literally means “holy, pure,” that is, she is devoted to him.

Lord, help me grow in my respect for the marriage relationship, and not fall into the pattern of the world’s way of thinking about this.