1 Peter 3:1
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Read 1 Peter 3:1 Using Other Translations
What does 1 Peter 3:1 mean?
Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own
husbands,
&c.] As well as subjects to princes, and servants to masters;
though not with the same sort of subjection, but what is suitable
to the relation they stand in to their husbands; (See Gill on
Ephesians 5:22). (See Gill on
Colossians 3:18).
that if any obey not the word;
any husband who is an unbeliever, has no love for the Gospel, and
gives no credit to it, but despises, disbelieves, and rejects it,
the word of truth, of faith, of righteousness, reconciliation,
and salvation. The apostle, though he includes all wives, and
exhorts them in general to subjection to their own husbands, yet
has a particular regard to such as had unbelieving husbands, and
who, on that account, were scrupulous of living with them, and of
being in subjection to them; and therefore, as the Apostle Paul
also did, he advises them to abide with them, and behave well to
them, using much the same argument as he does in ( 1
Corinthians 7:10 1
Corinthians 7:13 1
Corinthians 7:16 ) .
they also may without the word be won by the conversation
of the
wives;
for though the ordinary way and means of conversion is the word,
faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word; yet it may be
sometimes done without it; or however by the agreeable
conversation of professors, and so of religious wives, the hearts
of such as were averse to Christianity, and the Gospel, as
unbelieving husbands, may be so softened, and wrought upon, as to
entertain a better opinion of it, and in process of time be
inclined to hear and attend it; the consequence of which may
prove their conversion, which is a gaming, or winning of souls;
and which, as it is for their good, is for the glory of Christ;
for as every soul that is delivered from the power of darkness,
and is translated into the kingdom of Christ, is a loss to Satan,
it is a gain to Christ, and to his church. The Syriac version,
instead of "without the word", reads, "without labour"; as if the
winning of unbelieving husbands was easily obtained by the
conversation of their wives.
