1 Peter 3:2

While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. BEHOLD - on narrowly looking into it [ epopteusantes (G2029)]. CHASTE - free from all impurity. FEAR - reverential, toward your husbands. Scrupulously pure; not the noisy ambitiousness of worldly women....

2_While they behold _For minds, however alienated from the true faith, are subdued, when they see the good conduct of believers; for as they understood not the doctrine of Christ, they form an estimate of it by our life. It cannot, then, be but that they will commend Christianity, which teaches purity and fear....

1-7 The wife must discharge her duty to her own husband, though he obey not the word. We daily see how narrowly evil men watch the ways and lives of professors of religion. Putting on of apparel is not forbidden, but vanity and costliness in ornament. Religious people should take care that all their behaviour answers to their profession. But how few know the right measure and bounds of those two necessaries of life, food and raiment! Unless poverty is our carver, and cuts us short, there is scarcely any one who does not desire something beyond what is good for us. Far more are beholden to the lowliness of their state, than the lowliness of their mind; and many will not be so bounded, but lavish their time and money upon trifles. The apostle directs Christian females to put on something not corruptible, that beautifies the soul, even the graces of God's Holy Spirit. A true Christian's ch...

Verse 1 Peter 3:2. _CHASTE CONVERSATION - WITH FEAR._] While they see that ye join modesty, chastity, and the purest manners, to the fear of God. Or perhaps _fear_, φοβος, is taken, as in Ephesians 5:33, for the _reverence_ due to the husband....

WHILE THEY BEHOLD YOUR CHASTE CONVERSATION - Your pure conduct. The word chaste here (ἁγνὴν hagnēn) refer’s to purity of conduct in all respects, and not merely to chastity properly so called. It includes that, but it also embraces much more. The conduct of the wife is to be in all respects pure; and this is to be the grand instrumentality in the conversion of her husband. A wife may be strictly chaste, and yet there may be many other things in her conduct and temper which would mar the beauty of her piety, and prevent any happy influence on the mind of her husband, COUPLED WITH FEAR - The word fear, in this place, may refer either to the fear of God, or to a proper respect and reverence for their husbands, Ephesians 5:33. The trait of character which is refe

EXPOSITIONS 1 PETER 3:1 LIKEWISE, YE WIVES. St. Peter has spoken of the duties of servants: why does he omit those of masters? There must have been Christian masters in Asia Minor, as is plain from Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 4:1. But we notice that St. Paul, though he has a few words for masters, addresses slaves at much greater length. Probably Christian masters were comparatively few, while large numbers of slaves had embraced the religion which could do so much to comfort and elevate the oppressed. Again, the immediate purpose of the apostle is to inculcate submission to authority; therefore, having enforced upon Christian servants the example of their Lord, he proce

WHILE THEY BEHOLD YOUR CHASTE CONVERSATION,.... Cheerful subjection, strong affection, and inviolable attachment to them, and strict regard to the honour of the marriage state, and to the preserving of the bed undefiled with lusts and adulteries: COUPLED WITH FEAR; with reverence of their husbands, giving them due honour, and showing all proper respect; or with the fear of God, which being before their eyes, and upon their hearts, engages them to such an agreeable conversation....

1 Peter 3:1. _Likewise, ye wives be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear._ Could any men be won to Christ without the Word? Yes, it was even so in the apostle's day. When they refused to attend the little Christian meetings that were being held, and so could not hear what was there said, yet, at home, they saw the change that the gospel of Christ had wrought in their wives, and they said, «She is quite different from what she used to be. Certainly, she is a far better wife than any heathen woman is; there must be something in the religion which can make such a change as that.» In this way, without the Word, many of them were won to Christ by the godly conversation of their wives....

III. CHRIST THE PATTERN FOR HIS SAINTS CHAPTER 2:11-3:9 _ 1. Abstinence and submission (1 Peter 2:11)_ 2. Christ the pattern for those who suffer (1 Peter 2:18) 3. Glorifying Christ in the marriage relation (1 Peter 3:1) 4. True Christian character (1 Peter 3:8) 1 Peter 2:11 The first exhortation is addressed to them as strangers and pilgrims. Such all true believers are. Because we belong to a heavenly home we cannot be at home in a world which lieth in the wicked one, which has cast out the Lord of glor

This counsel to wives and husbands is full of a fine courtesy, and true chivalry, and shows how the new leaven is at work in the thought of the Church. It is not only a contrast to paganism, but has the essence of a real advance upon Judaism, even though the example of Sarah is cited; and the claim of obedient Christian wives to be her spiritual children is almost as highly thought of, as the place of all Christians as children of Abraham is by Paul. Faithful, wise, and loving wives are regarded as the best missionaries, who may win, without a word, those who despise the Word. Deeds are more eloquent than speech. The peculiar vanities of pagan society are deprecated, and a full idea of Christian womanhood set up. Men are granted their rights in a fuller way than modern thought would recognise them, but they are reminded that these rights mean responsibilities, and the claim upon them for...