Below is a paper I wrote for one of my classes. It is a deeper analysis of 1 Peter 2:11-3:12. I thought it would make a great post. Enjoy!

Introduction

It is difficult to say for how long, but for quite some time the church, as a whole, has been asleep. We know it was asleep because the Covid-19 pandemic was its wake-up call that came it like air raid sirens and it fumbled around like a night owl who desperately needed its morning coffee. The church was not prepared to face what it had faced during the time of the pandemic. The American church in particular took the nation’s liberties for granted, trusting that the institution could never falter. They set sail on the Titanic believing she could never sink. When everything fell apart, the church ran in many different directions. Some ran to the CDC, some sat on their hands, others ran to the Word. The pandemic, in many ways, also revealed the cultural rot within our society. What is the church’s role in engaging culture as well as hierarchical structures? 1 Peter 2:11-3:12 shows us what the church should have been doing and also why it was so ill-equipped to handle these situations.

What Got the Church Here

This particular passage lays out three forms of hierarchical structures: the people to the state, slaves to their masters, and wives to husbands. In order to understand how the church got to a place where they could not how to honor the hierarchies set before them, it would be best to start at the smallest hierarchy listed, wives and husbands. The church, as a whole, has been leaning more and more egalitarian, adopting women into elder and pastoral roles. It has ignored the Bible’s teachings on the roles of women, calling them “outdated.”

 If we were to observe the social and cultural texture of this text, which addresses the issue of the social and cultural nature of the text searching out the kind of person that lives in the “world” of a particular text, ¹ we would have to consider the culture in which the biblical authors lived in and why it was the way that it was. In the case of 1 Peter, in the portion where he speaks to women submitting to their own husbands, he harkens back to both the Levitical law, and Abraham and Sarah. The law was given to us to reveal our sin. ² The law is holy, revealing the character of God, ³ therefore it should not be cast aside because we live by grace. The law should be the delight of every Christian. ⁴ Sarah is also referenced by Peter as an example of a wife’s submissiveness to her husband. Being the matriarch of Jewish culture, her submissiveness to Abraham was seen as good and right. This would have shaped the culture that this would have been written in. These were not bad things that shaped the culture around them. In fact, quite the contrary. Can the Christian woman of today honestly say she prefers a culture shaped by women like Susan B. Anthony, Kate Millet, and Margret Sanger opposed to a culture shaped by Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel? The modern church, in some denominations, has been standing highest on the hill of gender equality. If there is no difference in men and women, or if we do not have God-ordained roles within our sexes, then how can the church reject homosexuality or transgenderism? We are all the same, aren’t we? The LGBTQ cult has simply reached the logical conclusion of this cultural ideology.

How can the church appropriate scripture to address this issue in the culture? Call men to love their wives, honor them as the weaker vessel, be providers and protectors, and lead their families in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Call women to submit to their own husbands, honor and respect their husbands as leaders, and conduct themselves with gentle and quiet spirits. Men ought to stand up and lead within the church. The church ought to reject egalitarianism and see men and women as distinct humans with specific gifts and responsibilities. This is does not mean that men and women are not equal, as the verse says, “they are heirs with you.” ⁵ Men and women cannot be compared any more than you could compare a sledgehammer and a teacup. They are no less equal but clearly designed for different purposes. ⁶ Given that the church has more or less given up on that notion among many denominations, it leaves us with no framework who our authority figures are, what they look like, and how we are to interact with them. If the church is going to reject small forms of government, they will not know what to do about the big forms of government.

Appropriating for Today

The next two governmental forms are related in some senses. One seems to address working conditions and the other is dealing more with a state or federal type of governing authority, but both are written in regards to submitting to outside authorities. The church just had its largest squabble in recent history regarding government. The government overstepped its bounds and shut the world down, including churches. Some churches cited this passage along with Romans 13 and accepted this, others cited the same passages and others as their justification for defying their mandates and staying open.

It is helpful to understand ideological texture when interpreting these passages. Ideological texture is an integrated system of beliefs, assumptions, and values, not necessarily true assumptions, and values, not necessarily true or false that reflects the needs or interests of a or false that reflects the needs or interests of a group. ⁷ The problem with ideological texture, is one must have a grasp of social cultural texture, referenced previously, in order to understand the ideology of the author. One must also be careful to interject their own worldview into the text and make it say something that it is not saying. ⁸

When appropriating this passage to the current day, how should have the church handled the pandemic? When we consider what the text says on this topic (be subject to every human institution, not using our freedom to do evil, honor the emperor) should the church have obeyed the government and shut down or reject the mandates and stay open? If we, in America, do not have an emperor, what human institution is highest in authority for the church to obey? The answer is not the president. The answer is actually the constitution. The United States Constitution is the highest authority in the land; it is what every government institution swears to uphold and protect from all enemies foreign and domestic, even the president. So, when the mandates to shut down came to the church, the church should not have obliged. To honor our highest authority, the constitution, which did not allow for the governing authorities to do force shut the church down, to mask, or to vaccinate. This does not give the church permission to chant “Let’s Go Brandon” (as funny as it may be) or its more vulgar counterpart. The church should not have neglected to gather together. ⁹ As it pertains to other countries who are not so blessed to have their rights recognized in a constitution like America’s, God’s Word still demands obedience to him over obedience to kings. ¹⁰

This is easier said than done. It is obvious this would not come without the government taking its proverbial casualties. There would be arrests, fines, even potential violence. To which the church is to accept with joy. In chapter 2:18-24, Peter talks about doing good in the face of trials and suffering. Peter also mentions Jesus suffering his brutal death to remind us whom we serve and to follow his example. Why did Jesus have to suffer and die? Jesus suffered and died to redeem mankind. If Christians do not neglect to do good or to gather, and they suffer for it, it is for the redemption of many souls. ¹¹ Peter talks about the good conduct of a suffering wife winning the soul of her husband. When Christians of a community suffer, the foolish and ignorant people of the community are silenced. Suffering is an essential part of building the faith of the believers and establishing the faith of non-believers.

In the context of churches during the pandemic, churches should have stayed open welcoming as many people into the doors as possible. They should have protested by singing hymns in the public square. Pastors and congregants alike would have been arrested and sent to jail. Big deal. Paul was thrown in prison and stoned, William Tyndale was burned at the stake, Jim Elliot was eaten by cannibals, Sophie Scholl was beheaded by Nazis, among countless other Christians throughout the centuries endured real and terrible suffering. The church shut down in fear, not of a virus, but of the suffering that would be brought upon them by the government and community that would come in the form of arrest, fines, and maybe some graffiti and broken windows. All things considered; the church would have gotten off easy compared to the Christians who had gone before them. The American church should repent of its weakness and fear.

Conclusion

It is important for the church to come to grips with this. Christians ought not to think that the pandemic is behind us therefore we can just forget everything that happened. On the contrary, the pandemic should have awoken the church from its complacency. The church has been quiet on many issues over the last few decades because they did not want to “get political” or “fight the culture war.” The culture is aborting its children (aka sacrificing them to Moloch), throwing Pride parades (the deadliest of sins), mutilating the genitalia of its youth (destroying the image of God), among many other atrocious acts. These issues ought not to be seen as political or cultural, these are church issues. Does not God call his people to tear down the high places of false gods? ¹² It is time the church started to fight. Fight by wives submitting to their husbands who honor their wives and raising a godly generation of arrows, who together worship our Lord with singing (preferably not through a mask,) and suffer the consequences with joy and thanksgiving.

Footnotes

1. Vernon K Robbins, Exploring the Texture of Texts : A Guide to Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation (Valley Forge, Pa: Trinity Press International, 1996) 71.
2. Romans 7:7
3. Romans 7:12
4. Romans 7:22
5. 1 Peter 3:7
6. Douglas Wilson, Reforming Marriage (Canon Press & Book Service, 1995) 36.
7. Vernon K Robbins, Exploring the Texture of Texts : A Guide to Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation (Valley Forge, Pa: Trinity Press International, 1996) 96.
8. Ibid, 97-99
9. Hebrews 10:25
10. Acts 5:29
11. Steven Crowther, Peter on Leadership: A Contemporary Exegetical Analysis (Ontos Zoe Publishing, 2013) 94.
12. Exodus 34:13; Deuteronomy 12:3

Bibliography

Crowther, Steven. Peter on Leadership: A Contemporary Exegetical Analysis. Ontos Zoe Publishing, 2013.

English Standard Version Bible. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Bibles, 2001.

Robbins, Vernon K. Exploring the Texture of Texts : A Guide to Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation. Valley Forge, Pa: Trinity Press International, 1996.

Wilson, Douglas. Reforming Marriage. Canon Press & Book Service, 1995.