An Important Pill to Swallow

Did you hear the report all over the news the other day? Someone has determined we don’t need all the vitamin and mineral supplements we’ve been taking. They aren’t effective. I groaned. It’s yet another report about something I don’t really need that I really do need. Wasn’t it mammograms they decided we didn’t need a few years ago? I take about 8 pills of one sort or another every day because there is some benefit to them. I don’t believe it when someone gets hold of the national microphone and says it’s not important after all.

It’s the same way with Bible truths. There’s always someone out there trying to say the Bible doesn’t really mean what it says, and the verse for today would be near the top of that list. I touched on it the other day. It’s for women, and it says, But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. (1 Pet. 3:4)

Now, if the Bible says a meek and quiet spirit is of great price to God, then that’s a pill I want to take every day. I want to be pleasing to God, don’t you? I’m going to face Him someday, and I do not want my life to testify, “I’m sorry. You asked for a meek and quiet spirit, but that just wasn’t me.” Remember, a meek and quiet spirit means a mild and tranquil disposition, which is of great price in the sight of God. How do you get it? Let’s go for it! Well, it’s a submissive thing. Truly. The next verse after the meek and quiet spirit says, For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands:  Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord… (1 Pet. 3:5-6a)

First of all, let’s look at this in light of the theme of 1 Peter, “Be ye holy for I am holy.” The whole book is a how-to and why-for on holiness. The first part, “be ye holy” is our challenge and command. The second part “for I am holy” is our example, and throughout 1 Peter, we see Jesus as the example of holiness. He’s calling us to be like himself. Jesus was submissive, as we looked at in chapter 2 and will see again in chapter 3. But now, we see another example of submissive in the context of a meek and quiet spirit.

Sarah is noted as the example, being in subjection to her husband Abraham, calling him lord. When did she do that? Actually, it was in the context of God telling her when she was likely in her 90s that she was going to have a baby. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also? (Gen.18:12) That word lord means master or superintendent of household affairs. She must have been used to referring to Abraham that way, because it was a spontaneous response to the news she would have a baby.

In our passage, by that reference to her husband as lord, Peter holds Sarah up as an example of a woman who adorned herself with submissiveness as a holy woman. Holy = submissive to the husband. Is that a tough pill to swallow? Sometimes it is. It is something to work on.

Submission to the Lord means you set aside your desires and plans to go along with God’s desires and plans. Wouldn’t submission to the husband be the same thing? He’s the head of the household. I set aside my desires and plans to accomplish his. Combine that with the meek and quiet spirit (gentle and tranquil) that is of great price to God. Just imagine that for yourself and what kind of a wife your husband would have if you could follow Peter’s words and what kind of a daughter you would be to God.