We no longer have to live in emptiness and defeat. God has called us to take the ultimate step of trust in His faithfulness. "Your faith and your hope are in God...."

Bible Studies for Women

Daughters of Sarah: Wives of Great Worth

Living by Faith

"Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands..." (3:1).

We are no longer ignorant of God's requirement. God has called us to submission to himself. This submission will be demonstrated by our submission to our husbands. Anything short of that is rebellion against God.

But what if my husband leads us into sin. Will I not be held accountable?

The Bible has much to say about submission to our husbands. Yet no where in Scripture does the Bible address how a woman is to respond if her husband asks her to actively participate in a direct sin.

There is a good reason for the Bible's silence on this issue. When a woman submits to her husband in an act of total submission and sacrificial obedience to God, God will never allow her husband to require her to actively participate in a direct act of sin. She is "shielded by God's power" (1:4).

God will never allow his children to be placed in a position of having to choose between two opposing commands. It may seem so at first. But if she looks to God, he will provide a way of escape.

God may allow a husband to deny his wife the privilege of actively participating in commands that God has given. For example, a wife may desire to tithe or be active in church and her husband may forbid it.

"Her husband may confirm or nullify any vow she makes or any sworn pledge to deny herself. But if her husband says nothing to her about it from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or the pledges binding on her. He confirms them by saying nothing to her when he hears about them. If, however, he nullifies them some time after he hears about them, then he is responsible for her guilt" (Numbers 30:13-15).

God may allow her husband to deny her the privilege of certain acts of commitment and worship. But even as her husband denies it, he is unknowingly providing her opportunity for a more supreme sacrifice of commitment and trust in God by submission to her husband.

"Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear" (1:17).

"Man" in this verse is referring to "mankind," both male and female. We call on a loving heavenly father. In our father's eyes we are judged individually and impartially. We are accountable before God to be the wife he has called us to be.

Whether our husbands fulfil the role God has called them to as Godly leaders is immaterial to our responsibility before God. It is also immaterial to God's provision for us. God will judge us impartially and provide for our needs as we are faithful to the wifely role of submission he has given us.

How can this be, you ask? We are bound together as one flesh. Our livelihoods are bound together. Yet the God who created male and female, who ordained marriage, who hung the stars -- this God will move heaven and earth if necessary to meet the needs of a wife who faithfully submits to her husband and trusts in her God!

We no longer have to live in emptiness and defeat.

"For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake" (1:18-20).

We are "chosen...for obedience." Christ was chosen for the sacrifice that would pay for our disobedience!

"Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God" (1:21).

"Your faith and hope are in God..."

When we as wives refuse to submit to the leadership role God has given to our husbands, we are placing our faith and hope in our own ability rather than in our God. We are deliberately choosing to live outside God's will. That is the most dangerous place on earth to be!

God has called us in some ways to take a step of faith even greater than that to which he has called our husbands. He has called us to willingly submit to the judgement of another whether that judgement is sound or unsound. God has called us to take the ultimate step of trust in His faithfulness.

"Your faith and your hope are in God...."