Do not let your adorning be external – the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear – but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.  For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord.  And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.

1 Peter 3:3-6

The apostle had just told Christian wives to do something very hard: obey their husbands and be respectful and pure to them even if they were disobedient to God (3:1-2).  Now Peter builds on his point by using their “adorning” as an illustration.  The Greek term used here is kosmos, from which we get our terms “cosmos” and “cosmetic.” In some contexts kosmos is translated “world,” as in the “arrangement” and “order” in which the world was designed and created (e.g., Acts 17:24; Rom. 4:13).  In other contexts, including here in 1 Peter 3:3-4, kosmos and its derivative kosmeo (used in verse 5) is translated “adorning,” referring to the “arrangement,” “order,” “decoration,” or “ornaments” which women use to clothe themselves for the purpose of emphasizing their beauty.  Peter’s point to Christian wives is for them to place a higher priority on arranging how they look on the inside as opposed to how they look on the outside.  He (and Paul – 1 Tim. 2:9-10) are not saying that it is a sin for women to braid their hair or wear gold jewelry.  Indeed, take note that Peter includes “the clothing you wear” as part of the command “Do not let your adorning be external.”  If inspiration’s intent was to prohibit braiding hair and wearing jewelry outright as sinful, then wearing clothes would likewise be inherently sinful!  Such a conclusion would go against the inspired command to be modest (1 Tim. 2:9-10).  No, it’s not a sin for women or men to care about how they look on the outside and make efforts to look beautiful or handsome.  This is why the NASB has verse 3 saying, “Your adornment must not be merely external…”  What the inspired apostles command here is that more effort be made to make the real you – how you are on the inside – beautiful in the Lord’s eyes because you faithfully work to be more like Jesus in every way.

The apostle points out that holy women in the Old Testament, like Sarah, were like this.  By submitting to their husbands and doing good (3:5-6a), even to the point of determining to still conduct themselves in “respectful and pure” ways even when their husbands were disobedient to God’s Word (3:2), Christian wives would follow Sarah’s example (the meaning of “you are her children” – cf. Gal. 3:7, 27-29).  This would especially be true if they “do not fear anything that is frightening.” Here Peter is likely indicating that they were to follow God even if obeying Him might mean doing something potentially frightening, perhaps like in situations where their disobedient husbands might try to coerce them to disobey Him.  Sarah likely was scared when her husband lied about their marriage to Pharaoh (Gen. 12:10ff).  She probably was frightened when God told Abraham to pack up everything and move away from home and family while not knowing where they were going (Gen. 12:1ff; Heb. 11:8-12, 17-19).  It would have been difficult for her to submit to her husband and recognize that he bore the primary authority in their family (“calling him lord” – cf. Gen. 18:12) when doing so meant that living the rest of their lives without a place to call their own.  Yet she still chose to be “subject to (her) own husband” (3:5-6a; cf. 3:1; Eph. 5:22-24; Gen. 3:16) and respect him (cf. 3:2b; Eph. 5:33b).

As we will study further in the next article in this series on 1 Peter, this does not permit husbands to be “tin-pot dictators” in their homes who demand that their wives “bow and scrape” before them (3:7; cf. Eph. 5:25-33; Col. 3:19).  When both spouses treat each other as God wishes, marriages grow stronger.

— Jon