“As Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror.”

whose daughters you are

If the women of Peter’s day follow Sarah’s example, they are her daughters. I do not think many women will form Sarah Societies today. This is to their detriment, however. The purpose of the Sarah Society is to develop inner beauty by following Sarah’s example. 

The word “are” is really “become.” The term “become” means that they became something that they were not previously. Previously they knew nothing of inner beauty based on femininity; now, they do.

if you do good

The word “good” means to do what is intrinsically right. We can translate “good” by the word “well.” A Christian wife does well when she operates with inner beauty toward her husband. 

and are not afraid with any terror

This is the only occurrence of this Greek word for “terror” in the New Testament. A Christian woman does not let her husband terrify her. Some husbands can terrorize their wives into doing what is wrong. If women operate under terror, they do not put their rest in God.

PRINCIPLE: 

Fear hinders the development of inner beauty.

APPLICATION: 

Wives are to live with their husbands without fear. Fear hinders the development of inner beauty. The wife is not to infer because God wants her to submit to her husband that she is somehow inferior in person to him. She does not merely exist to meet his needs. Her role is to meet his needs, and his role is to meet her needs. God’s design for marriage is a reciprocal relationship. Each has a role in fulfilling the other.  

Submission through inner beauty happens to be the wife’s role. This does not mean that she lives her life vicariously through her husband. Neither does this mean that she cannot achieve her full potential as a person. God designs that she also exists in her own right. God’s design for the husband is not to live like a leach sucking every ounce of blood out of his wife. Many men draw the very life out of their wives and offer little in return. 

Subordination does not imply inferiority. Submission is a purely pragmatic function so that each home has order. True, this does imply hierarchy but not the hierarchy of person. This is simply a hierarchy of functions. No one argues that because the United States President has hierarchical authority over the country, he is the country’s smartest person. His role does not equate to his person. The role of the husband does not equate with his person. He is not superior to his wife. 

Would we want pure egalitarian rights for our children? No. This is because they need their parents’ hierarchy to give them an environment to develop as people.

Christians who revolt against marital roles revolt against God. They allow deep invasion of their Christian belief system by a non-Christian, humanistic belief system. They never examine the assumptions of this cultural relativity.