Rev. Doug Floyd

Easter 5 2026
Rev. Doug Floyd
1 Peter 3

Our reading in 1 Peter 3 opens with an exhortation about the false beauty of braiding your hair or wearing gold jewelry. In light of this reading, we might be preaching to primary school or middle school girls. “Don’t braid your hair!”

The Bible is filled with exhortations that may leave us scratching our heads. Don’t wear mixed fabrics! Don’t round the corners of your hair or marr the corners of your beard! I must confess that I’ve been guilty of that. While I’m at it, I must confess that I did braid my mullet back in the 1980s.

I’ve been teaching my critical thinking class about ethics, and this week we watched a video about moral behavior in Scripture. The speaker called the Bible a divine rulebook and puzzled over these strange commands. His first mistake was reading the Bible as a divine rulebook. On the other hand, he has a point about the strangeness of some commands.

How are we to read Peter’s exhortation today? First, we might back up and think about the commands in the Old Testament. If you read the narrative and commands as a whole, you begin to encounter a book of revelation, a book of wisdom, a book of worship all rooted in the fear of the Lord. While we may not always understand the context for every passage, we can trust that the texts are ultimately training a people to trust in the Lord, become a holy people, treat one another rightly, and make wise decisions.

But here’s the catch: not all decisions are between a good and a bad option. In some dilemmas, all options look bad. We opened the letter of 1 Peter by talking about the church as a house of wisdom. As we read Peter, we see that the church is the Temple made of living stones. I would suggest this living Temple is a house of wisdom. It is the gathered community of faith worshipping the Lord.

Once Christ comes, He is the Temple, and we are baptized into Him. Thus, the people in the community of faith, which we call the church, have become the body of Christ. That is the Temple of the Lord: the house of Wisdom. The people of God gather in worship, humbling ourselves before God and one another. As we face difficult circumstances and make hard decisions. We cry out to God and we consult one another for wisdom.

The people that Peter addresses are facing varying challenges, but we know that they do not feel at home anymore in their given cultures. The culture is pagan and follows practices that are forbidden to disciples of Christ. How were they supposed to live? Some people today feel like our country has become an alien culture and they pine for yesteryear. How do you live in the place where you stand?

In 1 Peter 2, slaves were encouraged to respect their masters. In fact, all the people were exhorted to be subject to the rulers and even honor the emperors. Just as a reminder, many of these emperors were perverse men guilty of all sorts of crimes. They would make our political landscape look like child’s play. How could the people be subject to these men and even honor them?

Before I answer these questions, let me jump down to the end of chapter 3 when Peter mentions that Jesus went down to the spirits in prison and preached to them and then went up to the right hand of the Father. How are we to make sense of this strange passage? Some have suggested this points to the harrowing of hell when Jesus rescues people trapped in the dragon’s lair: that is Sheol or Hades, the place of the dead. Peter is drawing from all sorts of imagery, and it may be difficult to parse all this out.

He is talking about Jesus’ death. Though His body was dead, His Spirit was alive. Many in the church have often suggested that this and other passages refers to Jesus bringing the saints of the past up from Sheol and with him up into heaven. It has also been pictured as a time when Jesus tells the dark powers and principalities that their rule of evil is over. There are more difficulties in the passage, but we will pause there for now.

Peter mentions the ark of Noah and baptism. These images carry nuances of death and resurrection. When the world was destroyed by flood, Noah and his family descended into the dead of the flood but then are raised to new life and new creation. We follow Christ in the way of the cross. Jesus suffered and was rejected by men and died on a cross. In his death, He defeats the power of death and prepares the way for us and those faithful saints in the Old Testament to follow into heaven at the right seat of the Father, far above all powers and principalities. This is not simply a future event, this is the reality of our baptism.  We rehearse our suffering, death and burial in the watery grace even as we rehearse our resurrection in Christ and our entrance into new life and new creation. We may not normally grasp the reality of our glorious estate, but New Testament writers reiterate this truth again and again.

With this in mind, the communities Peter addresses and even our community learn that we are safe in the love of God no matter what our culture looks like. He is working through us to bring His redeeming grace to this world. We are not subject to the rule of evil in this world. While we honor rulers and we obey the laws, we are citizens of heaven dwelling on earth. As sojourners, we live quiet and honorable lives with those around us and the authorities over us. Our new estate changes our behavior.

1 Peter 3 begins, “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives,” (1 Peter 3:1, ESV).

Peter is continuing an argument from 1 Peter 2, “Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.” (1 Peter 2:18–21, ESV)

Servants submit to Masters following the model of Christ. Even as Christ suffered and died, he made a way to restore us and all humanity to God. As respectful and obedient servants, the people of God bear witness to Christ. If they suffer for doing right, they are following Christ and bearing witness to His saving grace. Their life and action may prepare the way for their Master and others to come to faith.

Peter says, “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives,” (1 Peter 3:1, ESV). Paul makes a similar argument in 1 Corinthians 7. “To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.” (1 Corinthians 7:12–15, ESV).

1 Peter 3:1 is exhorting wives of unbelievers that they may win their husbands to faith through their conduct. This is not an invitation to be abused but simply to live with the unbeliever in hopes that the believer might be an instrument of salvation. This applies beyond the home. We live in the world this way. We may have unbelieving supervisors or unbelieving leaders in government, but we honor them and try to live good and quiet lives that we might somehow be an instrument of their salvation.

Now let’s go back to the braided hair and gold jewelry. It appears that braided hair and gold jewelry are images of beauty in that culture. The culture has defined female beauty in a certain way. It also defines male success and power in a certain way. But we do not submit to those cultural powers. How many girls and women have felt ugly because they did not look like what the culture tells them is beautiful?

Dove used to have a commercial where artists interview women about their looks and draw their picture. Many of the women broke down in tears when they saw their pictures because they could not see their own beauty. They failed to meet cultural standards. Culture as a whole shames women who don’t fit into a standard that fits a very small percentage of women. In Scripture, the standard of beauty is Jesus Christ, his life poured out in love. Men and women are both called to this inner beauty of the heart. If one woman braids her hair and another woman does not, it is not a big deal. But all of them seek “our adorning to be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” (1 Peter 3:4, ESV)

Therefore, the wisdom of Christ is to make women dress in this way or that, and it’s not to tell men to cut their hair above their ears, but rather it is to “have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.” (1 Peter 3:8–9, ESV). Or as Peter says in chapter 2, “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.” (1 Peter 2:16–17, ESV).

Men and women should not seek their self-value in the size of their paycheck but in the goodness of God in Christ. Some people will make more money, and some will make less. True value comes in living as an image of God’s love in our community and our world.

Paul makes a similar appeal in Romans 12, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:1–2, ESV).

This is not a command to avoid movies, music, gambling, and alcohol. Once again, it is an encouragement not to let cultural values constrain you. Paul continues his thought in Romans 12 by saying,  “by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” (Romans 12:2–5, ESV)

Your life and your gifts are given by God to serve one another. The rest of Romans 12 details the way we serve one another.

This spirit of humbling ourselves and pouring out our lives begins in the family and the church, but it spreads outward into our jobs, our networks, our community, and even our world. I believe this is the argument Peter is making. We are redeemed in Christ. We are loved by God. As His beloved children, we serve one another and the world as a holy priesthood in humility of spirit and tenderness of heart. Our lives became a witness to the principalities and powers that Christ is victorious and His love will ultimately conquer sin and death.

Amen.