You can win your husband without a word to avoid being a nagging wife: "For the wife can win over the husband by being righteous" (1 Peter 3:1-2). Read or listen to this material from Your Marriage God’s Way to learn how to win your stubborn husband over without a word.

Table of ContentsDoes a Believing Wife Submit to an Unbelieving Husband?What If You Are Married to an Unbeliever?A Wife's Nagging and a Husband's StubbornnessThe Line Between Helping and NaggingA Warning About Winning Over Your HusbandWin Your Husband Over by Godly ConductJesus Sets the Example of Godly Conduct Versus Words

Through my ministry, I organize marriage conferences across the country. In between sessions, I meet with people. They almost always ask me difficult questions, and they often hope I can help fix a problem they’ve been experiencing for years in a five-minute answer.

For example, a wife will ask, “My husband won’t lead our family spiritually. How can I get him to pray and read the Bible with us?” If a woman married an unspiritual man, what are the chances that I can tell her something that will encourage him to be spiritual?

A husband will ask, “My wife disrespects me at home and is rude to me in front of my friends. What am I supposed to do?” If a man married a rude and obnoxious woman, how can I tell him, in a brief conversation, how to have a gentle, respectful woman?

Does a Believing Wife Submit to an Unbelieving Husband?

The above dilemmas typically take hours of counseling to resolve. But there is one question I get asked at almost every conference, and ironically, it’s one of the easiest to answer: “Should I submit to my spiritually immature or unbelieving husband?” Why is this so easy to respond to? The answer is spelled out in Scripture: “Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear” (1 Peter 3:1-2).

These verses are directed to wives and once again deal with submission—but with a new twist. We have established that wives are not expected to submit to abuse, sin, or even other men. But is a spiritually mature wife expected to submit to a spiritually immature husband? According to 1 Peter 3:1-2, submission is called to a spiritually immature husband and a spiritually bankrupt husband—or more specifically, an unbeliever.

How do we know that unbelieving husbands are what Peter had in mind? Each human author of the Bible has a recognized style of writing. When Peter mentioned husbands who “do not obey the word,” we know that he was referring to unbelieving husbands because he used similar terminology for non-Christians elsewhere. For example, in 1 Peter 1:2, he described believers as “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience.” Peter equated obedience with salvation, and rightly so. While obedience does not save us, Scripture clarifies that believers should obey. In 1 Peter 2:8, he described unbelievers as “being disobedient to the word.” Because Peter used “obedience” to refer to believers and “disobedient” to refer to unbelievers, we know that when he wrote about men who “do not obey the word,” he was referring to unbelieving husbands.

Now, just because a man is an unbeliever doesn’t mean he is a scoundrel. He may be kind, affectionate, and hold to a high moral standard. However, if he has not taken the first step of obedience—the obedience of faith, which leads to salvation in Christ—he is correctly identified as disobedient.

A wife whose Christian husband is not as spiritually mature as she would like should be encouraged because although submitting to an immature believing husband may be difficult, it’s not as difficult as submitting to an unbelieving husband. Because God’s Word commands wives to submit to unsaved husbands, how much more willing should wives be to submit ...