Silent Submission

"1Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, 2when they see the purity and reverence of your lives."

--1 Peter 3:1-2

Here we see St. Francis' mantra loud and clear: "Preach the gospel and if necessary use words." We have somehow come to think that preaching the gospel is a formula where if check off all the right phrases in a 5-minute presentation then you have preached the gospel. And if any of these phrases are lacking you may have done something good but you haven't "preached the gospel." Curiously, "preaching the gospel" has come to mean only what you say. Today, people are tired of hypocritical preachers who proclaim with their lips but deny with their lifestyle the good news. A 21st century contextualization of the gospel will be accompanied by verbal proclamation but grounded in behavior that authenticates our message.

"Wives, submit to your husbands"--this is not talking about submission to God-ordained leadership. This is submission as an evangelistic strategy which flows out of an other-worldly understanding of God's sovereignty. Just as we can fully submit to our worldly authorities (See blog a couple days ago) knowing that as Christians we are ultimately above it, so also can wives submit to their husbands knowing that ultimately they are under the rule of a much greater power.