Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. 1 Peter. 3:1-2 NIV
Passages like this, which appear in several of the Apostles’ letters, are often misused and misunderstood. Oppressive marriage is not God’s design. God does not give a husband the right to abuse and mistreat his wife, and she just has to take it. The Bible does not say that. What it does say, as here, is, “Wife, how can you best witness to an unbelieving husband?” Your best witness is to say, “I love you more than I love myself.” We’re not talking here about a woman becoming a doormat to be walked on. The question is, “Does my husband really believe that I love him more than I love myself?”
I think the sinful tendency in men is to think of people as objects, things to be used in order to achieve the goal. I think the sin of women is to want to manipulate people, to run their lives, to help them get organized, to straighten them out. So what Peter is saying is, “You’ll have to surrender your need to run his life for him.” It is through this discipline of putting your husband’s desires before yours that you will achieve the true, the incorruptible beauty.
As you learn how to submit to your husband—not resign yourself to your husband, not be absorbed in your husband, not be destroyed by your husband’s desires so that you have none—but as you learn how to submit your desires to his desires, finding a way to make your adornment not merely outward, but rather in the hidden person of the heart, then, finding the grace to make his good more important to you than your good, you will find the truest good in your own life.
Called To Be Transformed 