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Peter to Wives: Put Off. Put On. Watch This.
Instead of telling first-century wives to submit because they are inferior, as many believed at the time, Peter urges them to be submissive for a very different reason—so that their husbands might find true life (1 Peter 3:1). Peter encourages these wives to be subversive (keep worshiping Christ—which hubby may not like) in a cloak of respect (submit to your husband) so as to achieve a good end. Here is his rationale: In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as…
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Review: In the Footsteps of St. Paul with David Suchet
David Suchet, a British TV actor best known for his role as Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot, received a 1991 British Academy Television Award (BAFTA) nomination. As an actor he travels a lot, and one day he picked up a Bible in a hotel-room drawer. He read the letter of St. Paul to the Romans, and in the interview below he talks about that experience, which led to a life-long interest in and respect for the apostle: One result of his reading the Book of Romans is that Suchet set out on a personal journey around the Mediterranean to uncover the story of the man he has longed to…
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Is Peter Insulting Women? Part 2
Go here for part I. In the apostle Peter’s first epistle he writes some words that can trip up the twenty-first-century reader. Both his instruction to wives and to husbands can make us say, “Whoa! What?” After telling wives to have gentle, quiet spirits, Peter adds an example: “Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear (1 Pet. 3:1–6). He goes on to tell the husbands to live with their wives “according to knowledge” because—and here’s the kicker—she is the “weaker vessel” (v. 7). Are today’s wives to call their husbands “master”? Are women…
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Samaritan Woman: Stay Away from Me?
I received a question this week from a former student, Vernita, about the Samaritan woman, whose story John records in the fourth chapter of his Gospel. Vernita: I'm looking for any credible historical data to support the statements I've read in some commentaries which suggest the Samaritan woman was an outcast in her society and came to the well later in the day than most women in order to avoid the scorn of that crowd. Are you aware of any writings that specifically and definitively state that, or would that be speculation based on what we know about that society? Me: English translations tell us, "It was about noon" (Jn.…
