The Epistle of 1 Peter Chapter 3
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen:
I greet you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is my sincere Prayer that you are being Blessed even as you read this email.
Today, we study the Epistle of 1 Peter Chapter 3.
3:1-6. Peter’s teaching on a wife’s submission to her husband is similar to Paul’s in Ephesians 5:22-24. Disobedient or unsaved husbands are to be won over by the conversation (lit., “behavior”) of the wives. The woman is to emphasize her inner qualities, not just her outer appearance (v.3). The references to adorning are not prohibitions against jewelry and dress, so much as they are a caution against merely beautifying the external, while neglecting the soul.
3:15 An answer (Gr. apologian, “a defense of one’s beliefs”): The Christian faith is to be defended by a reasonable apologetic with meekness and fear.
3:16. A good conscience refers to a clear conscience, that is, one void of offense.
3:17. In the will of God we are sometimes called on to suffer for well-doing as a testimony to others.
3:18-22. That he might bring us to God means in order that Christ might bring us to, or give us access to, God. Since Christ has opened up the way to God there is no longer the need of priesthood; rather, each individual believer is himself a priest. Christ’s descent into Hades took place when he went and preached unto the spirits, which refers to those lost souls in hell who have rejected God. The immediate mention of Noah would indicate that these spirits be understood as the souls of those who heard and rejected Noah’s preaching, since they were the largest group of mankind ever to experience the universal judgment of God at one time. This preaching was the announcement of His triumph on the Cross, which sealed the fate of these doomed souls.
3:21 Baptism doth also now save us does not mean that water baptism is essential to salvation. Since it cannot wash away the filth of the flesh, baptism shows the answer of a good conscience toward God. In other words, baptism is a conscious testimony to one’s faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ because it symbolizes our resurrection with Him.
Yours in Jesus Christ,
Bishop William B. Caractor
