Chapter 3

1 In the same way, wives, be subject to your own husbands.⁠ Then, even if some are disobedient to the word, they will be won over without a word by the way you live, 2 when they see your pure and reverent conduct. 3 Let your beauty not be external—the braiding of hair and wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes—⁠ 4 but the inner person of the heart, the lasting beauty of a gentle and tranquil spirit, which is precious in God’s sight. 5 For in the same way the holy women who hoped in God long ago adorned themselves by being subject to their husbands, 6 like Sarah who obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. You become her children when you do what is good and have no fear in doing so. 7 Husbands, in the same way, treat your wives with consideration as the weaker partners and show them honor as fellow heirs of the grace of life. In this way nothing will hinder your prayers. 8 Finally, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, affectionate, compassionate, and humble. 9 Do not return evil for evil or insult for insult, but instead bless others because you were called to inherit a blessing.⁠ 10 For the one who wants to love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from uttering deceit. 11 And he must turn away from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it.⁠ 12 For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer. But the Lord’s face is against those who do evil. 13 For who is going to harm you if you are devoted to what is good? 14 But in fact, if you happen to suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. But do not be terrified of them or be shaken.⁠ 15 But set Christ apart as Lord in your hearts and always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope you possess.⁠ 16 Yet do it with courtesy and respect, keeping a good conscience, so that those who slander your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame when they accuse you. 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if God wills it, than for doing evil. 18 Because Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust,⁠ to bring you to God, by being put to death in the flesh but by being made alive in the spirit.⁠ 19 In it he went and preached to the spirits in prison,⁠ 20 after they were disobedient long ago when God patiently waited in the days of Noah as an ark was being constructed. In the ark a few, that is eight souls, were delivered through water.⁠ 21 And this prefigured baptism, which now saves you—not the washing off of physical dirt but the pledge of a good conscience to God—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who went into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels and authorities and powers subject to him.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 8:30 and 1 Peter 3:1

Classical · New Testament

Summary

1 Peter echoes the Greek household codes from Aristotle, incorporating the practice to encourage Christians to live so that outsiders cannot accuse the new Jesus movement of disorder.

Passages

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 8:30

Classical

These things are ascribed to ancestors as well. Further, by nature a father tends to rule over his sons, ancestors over descendants, a king over his subjects. These friendships imply superiority of one party over the other, which is why ancestors are honoured. The justice therefore that exists between persons so related is not the same on both sides but is in every case proportioned to merit; for that is true of the friendship as well. The friendship of man and wife, again, is the same that is found in an aristocracy; for it is in accordance with virtue the better gets more of what is good, and each gets what befits him; and so, too, with the justice in these relations. The friendship of brothers is like that of comrades; for they are equal and of like age, and such persons are for the most part like in their feelings and their character. Like this, too, is the friendship appropriate to timocratic government; for in such a constitution the ideal is for the citizens to be equal and fair; therefore rule is taken in turn, and on equal terms; and the friendship appropriate here will correspond. But in the deviation-forms, as justice hardly exists, so too does friendship. It exists least in the worst form; in tyranny there is little or no friendship. For where there is nothing common to ruler and ruled, there is not friendship either, since there is not justice; e.g. between craftsman and tool, soul and body, master and slave; the latter in each case is benefited by that which uses it, but there is no friendship nor justice towards lifeless things. But neither is there friendship towards a horse or an ox, nor to a slave qua slave. For there is nothing common to the two parties; the slave is a living tool and the tool a lifeless slave. Qua slave then, one cannot be friends with him. But qua man one can; for there seems to be some justice between any man and any other who can share in a system of law or be a party to an agreement; therefore there can also be friendship with him in so far as he is a man. Therefore while in tyrannies friendship and justice hardly exist, in democracies they exist more fully; for where the citizens are equal they have much in common.

350–325 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

1 Peter 3:1

New Testament

1 In the same way, wives, be subject to your own husbands. Then, even if some are disobedient to the word, they will be won over without a word by the way you live, 2 when they see your pure and reverent conduct. 3 Let your beauty not be external—the braiding of hair and wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes— 4 but the inner person of the heart, the lasting beauty of a gentle and tranquil spirit, which is precious in God’s sight. 5 For in the same way the holy women who hoped in God long ago adorned themselves by being subject to their husbands, 6 like Sarah who obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. You become her children when you do what is good and have no fear in doing so. 7 Husbands, in the same way, treat your wives with consideration as the weaker partners and show them honor as fellow heirs of the grace of life. In this way nothing will hinder your prayers.

80–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Peter

References

... The book Let Wives be Submissive makes a twofold case for a similar apologetic function of the household code in 1 Peter: the Romans' previous experience with foreign cults led them to expect sedition and insubordination, and second, several New Testament codes are explicitly apologetic. ... The texts of several New Testament codes exhibit this apologetic function. Immediately following the household code in 1 Peter, the author exhorts the readers: 'always be prepared to make a defense (apologia) to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you' (1 Peter 3:15b). These Christians know that others in Greco-Roman society are 'speaking against you as wrongdoers' (1 Peter 2:12b). By being subject to the emperor and his governors, they hope 'to silence the ignorance of foolish persons,' to stop the slanders of their behavior. ... The dominant Greco-Roman society exerted powerful pressure on the devotees of the foreign, Egyptian Isis, on the worshippers of the Palestinian Yahweh, and on the disciples of the crucified Christ to conform to the Roman 'constitution.' ...

David L. Balch, “Household Codes,” in Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament: Selected Forms and Genres, ed. David E. Aune, SBLSBS 21 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1988), 28–29.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

1 Peter5 chapters

Compare Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 8:30 and 1 Peter 3:1

Summary

Passages

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 8:30

1 Peter 3:1

References

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