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1 Peter

1 Peterchapter 3

22 verses · BSB1 Peter book hub →

Speaks with:Romans 12×41 Peter 2×4Colossians 3×3Ephesians 5×3Psalms 34×3Hebrews 9×3

Summary

Chapter summary

Wives are counselled to an adornment that is not the plaiting of hair or jewels of gold but 'the hidden man of the heart… the incorruptible apparel of a meek and quiet spirit' (3:4); husbands, to give honor as joint-heirs of the grace of life, 'to the end that your prayers be not hindered.' Then the apologetic charge: 'be ready always to give answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, yet with meekness and fear' (3:15). Christ suffered for sins once, 'put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison', disobedient in the days of Noah, and read here in the house's Genesis 6 frame as the bound angelic offenders of 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6.

Context

Epistle · Peter — 1 Peter overview

  • A. 1–7 Wives, Husbands, and the Hidden Adorning of the Heart
  • B. 8–17 Ready Always to Give an Answer for Your Hope
  • C. 18–22 Alive in the Spirit: The Spirits in Prison

The outline

  1. A.Wives, Husbands, and the Hidden Adorning of the Heartvv. 1 to 7

    Read vv. 1 to 7 →

  2. B.Ready Always to Give an Answer for Your Hopevv. 8 to 17

    Read vv. 8 to 17 →

  3. C.Alive in the Spirit: The Spirits in Prisonvv. 18 to 22

    Read vv. 18 to 22 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

Suffering, then glory

Pattern

1 Peter reads the whole Christian life on the shape the prophets searched out: the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Every chapter of the letter walks its readers through the fire toward the far side of it.

Peter writes to churches entering Nero's decade, and he does not promise escape; he promises sequence. Because the pattern is Christ's own, suffering for the name is not a sign that grace failed but the road glory has always taken.

  1. 1 Peter 1:11

    The prophets' own study

    The Spirit of Christ in them testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.

  2. 1 Peter 2:21

    Leaving us an example

    Christ also suffered for us, that ye should follow his steps.

  3. 1 Peter 3:18 you are here

    The just for the unjust

    Christ also hath once suffered for sins, that he might bring us to God.

  4. 1 Peter 4:13

    Partakers of Christ's sufferings

    When his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

  5. 1 Peter 5:10

    After ye have suffered a while

    The God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.

The world behind this chapter

1 Peter 3
When
The years just before Nero's persecution · c. AD 62–64
Where
Marriage in mixed-religion households, then the hardest paragraph in the letter
Who first heard it
Wives whose husbands had not converted, and a church asking about the spirits in prison

The history

A wife was expected to worship her husband's gods. Roman writers said so plainly, and a woman who took up a foreign religion on her own was seen as insubordinate and possibly dangerous to the household. That is the exact situation behind the instruction about winning a husband without a word.

The comment on hair, gold, and clothing addresses a live status contest among women of the period, and Peter's alternative — a gentle and quiet spirit, precious in God's sight — reverses the whole scale of value used in her street.

Verses 19–20 speak of Christ proclaiming to spirits in prison who disobeyed in the days of Noah. The house reading takes these as the angelic beings of Genesis 6 — the Watchers, whose imprisonment is described in the book of 1 Enoch, a book MannaFest treats as a labeled study resource rather than Scripture, and whose story 2 Peter and Jude both echo. On that reading Christ's proclamation is a declaration of victory over rebels already held, not an offer of salvation.

The main alternatives are named honestly: that Christ preached through Noah to the people of that generation, who are now spirits in prison; or that he preached to the human dead of the flood. The Watchers reading is preferred here because the chapter ties the spirits to Noah's day, and because 2 Peter 2 and Jude 6 place angels and the flood side by side in the same order.

What it meant to them

The first hearers included wives risking their marriages and everyone risking their neighbors. The instruction to always be ready to give an answer, with gentleness and respect, assumes they were being asked — and were afraid.

The flood section lands as encouragement, not puzzle. Eight people were the whole faithful remnant in their world, and they came through the water; a scattered handful of believers in a hostile province is told the same thing.

Sources cited

  • 1 Enoch (R. H. Charles translation), read as a labeled study resource
  • Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on 1 Peter 3. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

Connections from this chapter

v. 20 · A picture of Christ

One door, pitch-sealed, carrying the remnant through the flood; 1 Pet 3:20-21 warrants the ark-baptism link (NT-warranted, not extended).

Genesis 6:14→

Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark and coat it with pitch inside and out.

Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (public domain)Puritan

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

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