Hello and welcome
to "Books of the Book."
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My name is Deyvy Rodriguez
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and I'm glad you're able
to join us in today's study.
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Dr. Tom Shepherd is with us.
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He is a
professor of New Testament
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at the Theological
Seminary of Andrews University.
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We've been
studying the books of Peter.
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And today we are talking
about the silent evangelist.
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So stay with us
for the next half hour.
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Dr. Shepherd, what's
this silent evangelist?
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Well it sounds like a--it sounds
like an oxymoron, doesn't it?
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An evangelist is
somebody who speaks,
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but if the
evangelist isn't speaking,
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how can they evangelize.
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That's exactly what our
passage that we're looking
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at today is
going to tell us about.
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It's 1 Peter 3:1-7.
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We want to read the passage
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and then we'll take a look
at some questions related to it.
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1 Peter 3:1-7, why
don't you read that for us?
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"Wives, likewise, be
submissive to your own husbands,
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that even if some
do not obey the word,
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they, without a word,
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may be won by the
conduct of their wives,
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when they observe your chaste
conduct accompanied by fear.
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Do not let your
adornment be merely outward,
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arranging the
hair, wearing gold,
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or putting on fine apparel
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rather let it be the
hidden person of the heart,
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with the
incorruptible beauty of a gentle
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and quiet spirit, which is very
precious in the sight of God.
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For in this
manner, in former times,
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the holy women who trusted
in God also adorned themselves,
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being submissive
to their own husbands,
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as Sarah obeyed
Abraham, calling him lord,
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whose daughters
you are if you do good
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and are not afraid with terror.
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Husbands, likewise, dwell
with them with understanding,
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giving honor to the
wife, as to the weaker vessel,
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and as being heirs
together of the grace of life,
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that your prayers
may not be hindered."
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Okay, well, this is really
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kind of a controversial
passage for several reasons.
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And we're gonna place it
within proper context here.
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In the Greco-Roman
world of this time period,
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the father was
the head at the home.
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He was called paterfamilias
in their Latin term.
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Basically, all power
and authority in the home
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was centered in the
father figure, okay?
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The family--he had
much control over them,
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both the wife and the children
and the slaves, everybody.
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And they were
supposed to follow his lead.
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In fact, they were
supposed to adopt his religion
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and they were
supposed to worship his Gods.
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So this setting
we have in 1 Peter 3
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with that kind of a set up,
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it's
interesting that once again,
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Peter turns things upside down
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instead of
talking to the husband,
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the father figure first,
talks to the wives, you know.
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And actually he
talked to the slaves
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before that back in Chapter
2 that we looked at before.
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So it's rather an
unusual kind of a setting
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that we've got before us here.
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So what does Peter tell
women to do in this setting?
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Well, what he tells
them to do is to submit.
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Now we've
already noticed that he,
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you know, he's
changing power structures
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and we're gonna see
how this whole setting here
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is part of that
change process of subverting
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the power structures
of the Greco-Roman world.
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When he tells
the women to submit,
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it doesn't sound like he's
subverting power structures,
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but he's going to do
this for a particular reason.
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All right, so we need
to understand something
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about this word submit,
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because it is quite
misunderstood today.
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First, the terminology,
the verb in Greek is Hupotasso.
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It's a compound word, Hupotasso.
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And tasso was
actually a military term
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that was used when
you line soldiers up
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and you are in
charge of the soldiers.
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So Hupotasso, you're
under the command of somebody.
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And the person who is in
command had two things going.
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They were in charge, yes,
but they also had responsibility
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to care for those who are
under them, all right, so.
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They are in charge, but
they have responsibility.
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The idea of
submission, within the family,
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the wife submitting
to the husband is taught
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elsewhere in the
New Testament as well.
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And sometimes people get
the wrong idea about submission.
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One of the mistaken ideas is
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that submission
means inferiority.
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That if you submit,
you must be inferior.
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Well, if we
turn to Luke 2:48-52,
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we can help to
alive that problem.
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Luke 2:48-52 is the story
of Jesus when He was a boy.
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And He goes to the
temple with His parents.
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You remember this
story when He's 12 years old.
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And they leave Him in Jerusalem
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and He ends up
staying in the temple.
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So this is when they find Him.
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So if you'd
read verses 48 to 52.
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"So when they saw
Him, they were amazed,
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and His mother
said to Him, 'Son,
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why have You done this to us?
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Look, Your father and I
have sought You anxiously.'
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And He said to them,
'Why did you seek Me?
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Did you not know that I must
be about My Father's business?'
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But they did not
understand the statement
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which He spoke to them.
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Then He went down with
them and came to Nazareth,
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and was subject to them,
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but His mother kept all
these things in her heart.
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And Jesus increased
in wisdom and stature,
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and in favor with God and men."
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Okay, so here's
Jesus in the temple
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and they find Him
there and He says,
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"Why were you looking for Me?
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Didn't you know that I
must be in My Father's house?"
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We tend to kind of
glorify that a little bit.
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I mean, it's of course a
statement that our Lord made,
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so it's right for us to
think about those--that phrase.
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But if you were to say something
like that to your mother,
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what would she say to you?
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Maybe, she would be
probably very upset.
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I think so, she'd say,
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"Young man, what do
you think you're doing.
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You can't talk to me like that."
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So, I mean Jesus' words
are true what He had said.
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But Luke doesn't
want you to get the idea
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that He was a cheeky,
young fellow that was,
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you know, just
talking back to His parents.
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He wants to
tell what Jesus said,
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he wants to tell--
express the truth of this
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that He's the
Messiah and there's,
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you know, great
things coming out of this.
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He's the Son of God, not merely,
you know, there under them.
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But he also doesn't
want you to give the idea
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that somehow He is, you know,
disrespectful of His parents.
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So when you look at
the following verses,
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they didn't understand.
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And then it says in verse 51,
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"He went down with
them and came to Nazareth,
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and was
submissive to them," okay.
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"And His mother treasured
all these things in her heart."
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Jesus submitted to His parents.
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And it's the same terminology
that Peter uses, submissive.
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So was Jesus
inferior to His parents? No.
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No, actually, He
was superior, wasn't He?
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Because He was the Son of God.
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So submission does
not mean inferiority.
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That's one idea
that needs to be removed.
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Submission also is not a denial
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of a personal
relationship to God.
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In our text here, the
woman is related to God
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first of all and
not to the husband.
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She's going to obey God
and evangelize her husband
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rather than follow
just what he has to say.
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So submission does
not mean inferiority,
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it does not mean a denial
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of a personal
relationship with God.
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And submission does not
mean that you're a doormat,
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that people can walk all over.
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The wife is related
to-- with moral language,
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she is addressed as
a moral agent by Peter.
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So she's not a
doormat, she's not just,
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no relationship with God herself
and she also is not inferior.
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In fact, there are seven
reasons from this one passage
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that we can say that
women are not inferior to men.
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First of all,
women are addressed
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as moral agents, all right.
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Second, women are a means of
a evangelizing their husbands.
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Third, women are told
that they should not be afraid.
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Fourth, husbands are told that
they are to honor their wives.
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Fifth, women fellow--are fellow
heirs of the grace of life.
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Sixth, mistreating women
leads to prayers being blocked.
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And seventh, women are
examples for the congregation.
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So over and over again,
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Peter shows that women
have this equal par with men.
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He tells them to submit
within this cultural setting
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where they are,
that's the norms of society,
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he tells them to do that.
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But his reasons for doing so
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are somewhat
different than what they expect.
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So why does Peter
tell women to submit then?
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Well, he does this actually
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not to meet
society's expectations,
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but rather so that the
woman can win her husband
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to Christ which is really a
topsy-turvy kind of an idea.
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Because as I said
the, in that society
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the family was supposed to
follow the father's religion.
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They were supposed
to worship his gods.
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And here's a woman who's
not only rejected his gods,
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but she's the means of winning
him to the Christian faith.
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So it's very interesting.
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There's a subtext of again this
changing of power structures
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within the Greco-Roman world.
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Now you said that the wife,
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by her testimony
or by submitting,
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that she can win
over her husband.
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It sounds almost
like what Paul is saying
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in 1 Corinthians
also 7 where He says that,
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"For the unbelieving husband
is sanctified by the wife."
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In another verse, he says,
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"For how do you know, oh, wife,
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whether you will
save your husband?"
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Does that sound
similar to what Peter's saying?
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Yes. Yes, she can--
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the non-believing wife
can win the husband to Christ.
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Yeah. Okay.
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That's a very
important idea. Okay.
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And how are the wives told to
win their unbelieving husbands?
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Well, it's very interesting.
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The apostle Peter says that
they do it without speaking.
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This is the silent evangelists.
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They are the silent evangelists.
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And they do it, he
says, without a word.
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Now we've already
noticed how powerful God's word
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is in our study
of 1 Peter Chapter 2.
00:11:29.77\00:11:32.47
The word of God is powerful,
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you know, and it abides
forever and things like that.
00:11:33.90\00:11:36.85
In one sense you could
say there are couple of things
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that are more
powerful even than that.
00:11:39.26\00:11:41.44
One is the stubborn will of
people who refuse to believe.
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God is not gonna
force them to believe.
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But the other is the
lifestyle of a Christian.
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The lifestyle of a Christian
speaks louder than the words.
00:11:50.95\00:11:54.70
And so here you are,
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it's almost like the
story of Jesus in John 4
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where He heals the
son of the king's servant
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at a distance, you know.
00:12:05.86\00:12:07.23
He doesn't have to go to
Capernaum to heal that boy.
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He just speaks the word
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and the boy is
healed, at this distance.
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So here is, you know, the
woman is working just quietly,
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just, you know, submissively,
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she's just working-- And
her husband is won to faith.
00:12:21.89\00:12:25.75
It's pretty amazing.
00:12:25.78\00:12:27.35
Well, you know,
someone said once,
00:12:27.38\00:12:29.49
"Preach the gospel and
when necessary use words." Yes.
00:12:29.52\00:12:32.97
So that's kind of the
same kind of the same idea.
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And I think that's true also
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because, you know, I've seen
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that happen in my
family, Dr. Shepherd.
00:12:38.31\00:12:39.84
My mother
married a non-Christian,
00:12:39.87\00:12:45.21
not of our faith.
00:12:45.24\00:12:46.61
And so she was married before,
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you know, with
him for 30 plus years,
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who is my father and
they're stay together.
00:12:52.06\00:12:54.42
But it will took 30 years
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before he finally
decided to attend church.
00:12:56.88\00:13:00.28
And she never
really made that sermon
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or made that appeal
for him to come to church,
00:13:05.70\00:13:08.31
I mean she did--
It was without a word.
00:13:08.34\00:13:10.00
Yeah, there you go.
It was without words.
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I did see that she
would preach through
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her pious character, the gospel.
00:13:13.81\00:13:16.96
And not too long
ago, a year ago actually,
00:13:16.99\00:13:19.78
my father joined the
Seventh-day Adventist Church.
00:13:19.81\00:13:22.72
He was baptized and was won
over to Christ by my mother.
00:13:22.75\00:13:26.42
So I think it's possible. Yeah.
00:13:26.45\00:13:28.92
Well, friends, this
is a very exciting topic,
00:13:28.95\00:13:31.13
we're studying
the Books of Peter.
00:13:31.16\00:13:33.82
So continue joining us after
we return, after this break.
00:13:33.85\00:13:37.90