1 Peter 3:1Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Like the laws, rulers too have been given for a certain benefit. It is not as some wrongly reason, that the authority existing on earth is from the devil. In this matter they agree with the devil, who said to the Lord: “All this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will” (Lk 4:6).

Kings are not established by the will of the devil, for they are given for the correction of evils. The devil takes no care to introduce anything of this kind among men. Authorities and rulers are given by God. On the one hand, they are to guard the upright and arrange the benefit of their subjects. On the other, they are to restrain those who sin by fear of punishment and by reproof. Finally, they are to inflict due punishment on those who have committed injustice.

Having shown this, namely, that obedience to authorities is good and disobedience is evil, and having prescribed similar relations for servants and masters, the Apostle now turns his discourse to women. Wives, he says, must be occupied with two things: obeying their husbands and avoiding every ornament and adornment, in imitation of holy women.

For they, he says, knew only one adornment: that they obeyed their husbands. What benefit comes from this? Pagans receive a good conception of the faith and zeal for it. The same is produced by our submission to authorities. Because of us they give thanks to Christ.

For Christians it is great praise when, because of us and our good conduct, even pagans bless the name of God. The words “won without a word” mean either that they are won without any argument or contradiction, or that proof from deeds is stronger than speech and skill. As the holy man also said: “A deed unaccompanied by a word is better than a word unaccompanied by a deed.”

No one should easily be exalted. She who was created as a helper for the man needed the man’s guardianship, since he is the head of the woman. Yet the man, who considered himself her protector, fell because of the woman.

No one should thoughtlessly entrust himself to another before he has been convinced by experience of that person’s strength. Yet no one should lord it over the one whom he considers subject to him.

Why the Apostle passes from the relations of servants to masters to the mutual relation of spouses, without mentioning the relation of masters to servants as the Apostle Paul does (for example, Eph 6:9; Col 3:25), is hard to guess.

And is it necessary? Perhaps it was because in those lands to which the Apostle wrote this epistle (1 Pet 1:1 and note), there were no masters who believed in Christ among the slaveholders.

"Be subject," the same word used above about the obedience of servants to masters (1 Pet 2:18), "to your own husbands." The intensified expression is explained by the position of Christian women at that time.

There were Christian women married to Christians. There were Christian women married to Jews who did not believe in Christ. There were also Christian women married to Gentiles.

Among the latter, a temptation could very naturally arise to place themselves under the special guidance of persons already enlightened by the Christian faith, that is, of other women's husbands.

They might enter into special relations of obedience to other women's husbands, through which misunderstandings and disorders could arise in family life.

The Apostle, with special tenderness, warns such wives against this temptation. He commands them to obey their own husbands, even if those husbands are unbelievers.

He then indicates the immediate purpose of such obedience. It goes without saying that the same applies, and in an even higher degree according to the spirit of Christianity, to wives who have Christian husbands.

"So that those," more precisely, "even those" among them, that is, among the husbands, "who," and so forth: the Apostle clearly presupposes that among husbands there are both Christians and those not yet believing in Christ.

He presupposes that the former are confirmed in their Christian life and Christian manner of activity by the obedience of their wives, and therefore by a quiet and peaceful family life.

He sets as the goal of Christian women's submission to unbelieving husbands the winning of these latter to faith in Christ. That is, they are to convert them to Christianity precisely by this submission and by a God-fearing life.

"Do not obey the word" means the preaching of the Gospel. They do not believe it, and they do not believe in Christ.

Such men, according to the Apostle, may be won, that is, converted to the faith, won for the Church and for the Kingdom of Heaven, without the word in which they do not believe.

This means without a new preaching to them, without special verbal persuasion, but by the life of their wives.

The image of pure Christian conduct on the part of wives, whose basis must be submission to their husbands, can act so strongly upon the nature of the husbands that they may be convinced almost involuntarily.

They may see that the faith of those wives who lead such a beautiful life is the right, pure, and true faith, and they may turn to this faith.

"They were won without a word: these words mean either that they are won without any discussion and contradiction, or that proofs from deeds are stronger than word and skill.

As a holy man also said: a deed not accompanied by a word is better than a word not accompanied by a deed" (Theophylact).

The Apostle’s word about the fear and distress of wives evidently refers to this circumstance. Some wives became Christians while their husbands remained in their former beliefs, and they were afraid to reveal their faith. Therefore the Apostle encourages them, having first shown them the best way to influence pagan husbands through a good life (verse 1).

They had to submit to their authority in all cases that did not offend the Christian conscience. They had to fulfill their husbands’ commands and do nothing in family and household life without their consent. Christian wives were not to be troubled by the fact that their husbands “did not obey the word” of truth.

Obedience to husbands, joined with a pure and God-fearing life, could lighten the labor of converting husbands to the Christian faith. Without words, and without special efforts by the wives to influence them through the preaching of the Gospel, husbands could be drawn to the Christian faith by their wives’ life.

By their life they judged the faith. They became convinced of the dignity and truth of the Christian faith by its beneficial influence on life. Evidently they reasoned: the Christian faith is good and is the true faith, if those who confess it are taught by it to lead a pure and God-fearing life.