Read Introduction to 1 Peter
“Rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.”
of a gentle
Peter now prescribes the true ornaments of a beautiful woman’s soul: gentleness and a quiet spirit.
A “gentle” person is not a wimp. This woman is not mousy or whiny. She is not afraid to assert herself. She is not a fearful person. This is not the point here.
The Greek word for “gentle” means in-wrought grace. This is grace that God works in her life. She humbly recognizes that she is what she is because of what God has done in her life. This humility recognizes that it is God who made her, who changed her. Therefore, she is not the cause of domestic war. She so appreciates what God has done for her that she will take the high road – the road of spiritual maturity. This springs from her relationship with God.
A “gentle” woman is a person who orients to the grace of God. This person humbly accepts God’s plan for her life. She appropriates grace. She understands who she is and is who she is because of Jesus Christ and what he has done for her. She is not what she is because of what she has done. Jesus has made all the difference in her life. “Gentile” is, therefore, not self-effacement. This is an attitude of humility. Humility orients to the grace of God.
PRINCIPLE:
God’s grace will feed the facets of the wife’s soul.
APPLICATION:
When God feeds the facets of the wife’s soul, her husband will see something in her soul he never saw before. She no longer operates on jealousy. The wife no longer nags him. She is no longer angry, implacable, spiteful, or vindictive. Her life calms down so much that he looks forward to coming home. He does not have to stop at the bar on the way home to build up immunity to a nagging wife. This is how some men’s clubs begin – they want to escape their wives.
This woman does not think of Christianity in superficial terms, such as Christianity is morality. It is something beyond that. She no longer thinks in terms of straightening out her husband. This Christianity is far beyond an overt system of morality. She no longer tries to pour her husband into her mold. That is not marriage but slavery. She believes that she cannot change him. Only God can do that. She keeps the apertures of her soul open to God and his Word.
Suppose for a moment that a certain woman destroys the inner beauty of her soul. Let us say that she allows jealousy to dominate her thinking. The Word of God is not foremost in her thinking, so she sucks jealousy into the vacuum of her mind. This attitude sin turns off her inner beauty. This leads to self-pity and produces self-induced misery. She then decides to hurt the man she loves by having an affair with another man. Her attitude sin becomes a soul kink.
She puts the soul kink into action. To do this, she must violate her conscience, norms, and emotions. She does not truly care about the man with whom she has an affair. Her real motive is to hurt her husband. Two wrongs do not make a right. We cannot build our happiness on someone else’s unhappiness. Nevertheless, she turns to this intruder.
Just as a thorn may inflect our flesh, so her emotional pattern becomes infected and becomes even more vulnerable to other men, she has another affair. By accepting another foreign substance, she knocks genuine emotions out of her soul.
By accepting this foreign norm, she will develop emotional scars after her recovery. This will affect her relationship with her husband if they ever get back together. She warps the area where only her husband has the right to be. It started with jealousy and bitterness. It developed into antagonism. She went out and became unfaithful. She became corruptible. She rejects true love by her attitude sins. Her conscience will never resolve by this method of operation.
Women should avoid becoming tramps because it will scar their souls. They should avoid any lascivious activity. It ruins the woman. This is especially true for a woman because of her nature of femininity. Femininity means that women are finely tuned instruments. It is easier to get out of whack than masculinity. That is why it is vital to protect teenage girls, especially early teens, from situations that will score her soul. Keep them from solo dating till later teens. Have them call home at least once while they are on a date.
