1 Peter 2:20 -3:1 - How Much Abuse?

[blackheart]

The verses above talk of our following the Master and what he went through, how He is an example to us as believers. Then Peter drops a bombshell, unless someone can soften my understanding of the passage.



LIKEWISE?

How crazy is that! Peter seems to be saying to wives of lost husbands that they should follow Him who was reviled and suffered. How does this apply to a believing wife of an abusive husband. How far does this instruction for Christian wives go? To death?

I am struggling with this passage and would appreciate constructive comment.

Thank you

[blackheart]

Is this question foolish?

I am wondering how so many believers can read this question and not comment on it.

It must be a foolish question

[steve]

I imagine that the only reason no one has replied is that this is a very difficult question to answer. I certainly have always found it so.

I believe that Peter's concept of discipleship presupposed a degree of commitment and surrender to the will of God that is foreign to modern Christian thinking. He assumed that those who were in the church were people who had denied themselves, taken up their cross and begun to follow Jesus. Peter and the other apostles (as well as Christ) demonstrated with their own lives that the course of obedience to God could easily include the willing loss of one's life. To die in obedience to Christ was not uncommon in many historical periods. For a wife to submit to an abusive husband out of obedience to Christ, and to even die in the course of that obedience would no doubt be rightly regarded as a true instance of Christian martyrdom—just as would the submission of a slave to a cruel master, or of a child to an evil parent, or a citizen to a murderous emperor.

Having said all of this, I don't believe that Peter had in mind a life-threatening situation, since it would not have been legal for a man to kill his wife, and such a case would no doubt have been quite rare. Peter probably was picturing a much more common scenario—one where a wife was married to a drunkard or an idolator, from whom she suffered occasional persecution for her faith. It is not clear what Peter would have said in answer to your specific scenario.

While Jesus told His disciples that they should be faithful unto death, He also said, "When they persecute you in one city, flee to the next." Running away from harm is not always the wrong thing to do. Of course, the obligation of a wife to stay with a mean husband might be on a different level from the obligation of a traveling evangelist to stay in a town where he is unwelcome. Therefore, submission to a persecuting husband would probably involve staying with a husband whose abuse was somewhat ongoing, though not life-threatening, whereas the disciple might be entitled to leave the inhospitable city as soon as the tomatoes began flying at him (unless he had the mind of Paul, who remained "a long time" in Iconium specifically because they were opposing him, and who was stoned and dragged out of the city in Lystra, but stood up and walked back into the city—Acts 14:2-3, 19-20!).

You see why I said it is a hard question to answer? Many would say that a woman should leave her husband the first time he strikes her, because a man who would strike his wife is an abuser whose actions will escalate into greater violence. I'm sure this is often true, though it probably is not a universal principle. I think that a woman in danger from her husband (how this would be objectively determined is another matter) has every right to distance herself from the danger—i.e., flee to a safe house, ideally her parents'. However, I believe that a woman who had the faith to stay in the home because she was mindful of this scripture, and she was willing (like the early Christians) to "commit [herself] to Him as unto a faithful Creator" (1 Peter 4:19), should not be thought wrong, even if she ended up dying for her faith. Of course, I am here only considering a woman's concern for her own safety. If there are children endangered as well, I would see her duty differently.

The bottom line is that the scriptures about a wife's submission probably do not envision her submitting to an attack of deadly force from her husband. The words of scripture could be applied differently by different people, and I would rather see a woman flee and hang out in a safe place while the exegesis is being worked out. But I also think that a woman whose commitment to Christ, combined with her convictions about these biblical instructions, led her to choose to stay in harm's way with the mind of winning her husband to Christ, would not be in violation of any rules of hermeneutics, nor of logic. Peter himself (according to prevailing tradition) returned to Rome deliberately to die, when he came to believe that this was the means of his following Christ. I doubt that he felt that other Christians had a greater obligation to seek their own longevity than he had.

[blackheart]

Bang on!

Thank you for seeking to bring balance to a volatile question.