Sarah? I’m to emulate Sarah, wife of Abraham, a major control freak who convinced her husband to take his servant/concubine [Hagar] to bed in order to “get on” with God’s promise already. Culture prevailed (a norm). And so it was with Peter’s women.
I Peter 3:3a, 4, 6a
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, . . . Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. . . like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master.
All right, I’m sorry, but as many of you know, most of the female to male submission passages are hard on my digestion. It’s not that I don’t want to show respect to my husband as a person, I do; I should. I certainly don’t denigrate him to others, and after almost 30 years of marriage, I think we’ve worked out a lot marriage kinks (leaving others for heaven’s explanations).
It’s also lovely to be reminded by Peter that a person’s beauty (male or female, I believe) comes from within. It has to so; otherwise, the aging process would send us all to the looney bin. Love, marriage, friendship: they all have to be rooted and grounded in the “person” who resides inside the body, who is eternally young and vital, who is not of this three dimensional world.
Since the whole idea of marriage or male & female appears to be a non-issue “in” heaven [see both Matthew 22:29-30 & Galatians 3:28], men and women are seen equally by God, doesn’t that truth balance out this very specific teaching of Peter (that same Peter who hedged and refused to eat with gentiles in the face of certain powerful Jews)?
Peter was asked constantly by God to think outside the box (creatively & innovatively). He broke several essential Jewish laws when he entered the home of Cornelius and shared both the gospel of Christ as well as a meal with gentiles. He left his wife and family to follow Jesus for months at a time. He challenged his own belief in miracles, tried walking on water, shared in the multiplication of food, and experienced the transfiguration. Everywhere he turned, Jesus stretched and pulled him away from the norm of the day. And for a long while, he allowed his beloved Master to take him there.
But Peter was also a slave to his culture. He was no different from the other disciples, mostly unidentified, who marveled and wondered at the relationships that Jesus had with women, from the woman at the well to the woman who washed his feet with her tears and hair to Mary of Magdala, one cursed and healed of seven demons.
Both the liberal view and the conservative view of women can be found in scriptures. What do I believe? Which verses will corroborate my presuppositions?
The last time I encountered the bold words of Paul and his passages on submission of wives to their husbands [Ephesians 5:21-32], I accepted their literalness but took a pass on embracing them purely on a male/female basis. Instead, I chose, instead, mutual submission, which I still believe to be more fitting. So, I do the same today.
We could all argue until we are blue in the face about these passages. It’s not worth it. Instead, I’ll opt for that gentle and quiet spirit and may it yield an unfading beauty that transcends human interpretations, mandates, and rules about being a Christian woman and wife. Selah.
Meditations from Zion 
Well, you confront me with the question that blew up in my face many years ago, viz.: Either you take scripture for what it says, or you interpret it to fit the times. If the former you must betray your conscience; if the latter, why follow scripture at all? Different people will create answers to this conundrum that somehow suit their proclivities, whether for good or ill… but I long ago concluded that there was no answer on which all people could agree. So I seek — as I do on this blog — people for whom scripture is the basis for serious meditation, since I know I will learn something from them whatever stance they take, even though we may be very far apart in what we believe.
I’ve been doing a lot of discussion of Creation and Evolution and believe it or not, there’s a link to this discussion. Many in Christianity, myself included!, find things that we read in the Bible that we don’t want to do.
What, me become a servant like Jesus? What, me feed the beggar on the street? What, me love someone that doesn’t love me back? … pick what one you want.
However, James 1 is instructive here. He says that we shouldn’t just look into the mirror of God’s Word and then go away forgetting who we are, but we should do what the Bible commands.
We need to be careful that when we come to hard passages that we don’t harden our hearts so that we do not change, but we let the Holy Spirit change us.
Thanks for the reminder of that in my life.
Thanks for taking the time to write & read. I understand your comment (MInTheGap), but I want clarify (and forgive my cattiness on this topic): it’s not just about “hard” passages, it’s about passages that are given importance over others because of a person’s existing mindset or tradition.
If that were not so, we would all be living communally. . . as an example.
Trust me, I love the Bible and all that it means for me as a believer. I study and learn and pray for revelation knowledge and understanding daily. If anything, my heart has expanded beyond anything I could imagine over the last four years of this slow, meditative journey.
I’m certain you’re right when it comes to certain passages– people tend to fixate on certain things and exalt them to the exclusion of all others. This is a really bad trend, but there’s also this opposite trend that says that if so and so takes it this way, I don’t want to be a part of that, so I’ll take it the opposite.
As believers, we’re to follow the Spirit regardless of whether it’s easy or hard. We’re to look to the Bible first and foremost.
I find that too often I’m comfortable in where I am rather than being challenged in the faith, and I believe that in order for God to use us we must respond to Him when prompted!
And Jack, thanks for reading and writing so faithfully. I appreciate your thoughts as well and path. My “stance,” if I have one, seems to morph as the Holy Spirit speaks and reveals what the written words have for me today. This is something I really enjoy in the meditative study of scripture–each day is like manna.