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Jul 26, 2020

Strange Dance

Strange Dance

Passage: 1 Peter 3:1-7

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Strange Faith

Keywords: marriage, subject, husbands, wives, honor, pure, conduct, adorning

Everyone who gets married gets all kinds of advice on what a thriving marriage requires. Everyone has a theory of marriage--what it is, what it needs to flourish. What does belief in Jesus have for those who would live well as marrieds--whether currently or one day? What does the truth about the relationships between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit say both to those married and unmarried?

Order of Worship

CALL TO WORSHIP: Revelation 19:5-8
OT READING: Genesis 2:18-3:1
CENTRAL TEXT: 1 Peter 3:1-7 ESV
MESSAGE: Strange Dance
BENEDICTION: Jude 1:24-25

Children's Lesson

Drama Illustration

readings & Scripture

CALL TO WORSHIP: Revelation 19:5-8
LEADER: 5 Then a voice came from the throne, saying: ‘Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, both great and small!’ 6 Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:

ALL: ‘Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. 7 Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. 8 Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.’

OT READING: Genesis 2:18-3:1
LEADER: 18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
1Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made

CENTRAL TEXT: 1 Peter 3:1-7 ESV
LEADER: 1Pet. 3:1 Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they see your respectful and pure conduct. 3 Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— 4 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. 5 For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, 6 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. 7 Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

BENEDICTION: Jude 1:24-25
LEADER: 24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy,

ALL: 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Related Scripture

  • Genesis 2:20-25
  • Genesis 3:16
  • Genesis 21:8-14
  • 1 Samuel 16:1-8
  • Prov. 25:15 Through patience a ruler can be persuaded, and a soft tongue can break a bone.
  • Proverbs 31:13-14, 30, 31
  • Mark 10:35-45
  • Luke 10:38-42
  • Acts 17--with special attention to verses 4, and 12
  • 1 Corinthians 11:3
  • Ephesians 5:22-33, Colossians 3:18-22

ILLUSTRATIONS:

InView Media Album 7.26.20

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Talk about your parents’ marriage. How would you describe it? What about it did you find encouraging? Troubling?
  2. If you are married what’s it like to make decisions that affect you both? How has that worked? If you’re single, how do/did your parents bring their insights to an issue and come to a conclusion on action? How do you think that (has) worked?
  3. Peter commends a general guideline, but then imagines a particular situation in which we might not expect it to apply: a wife married to a husband who has not (yet) believed in the gospel. How does that change the way we understand the basis of the guideline? Imagine what the opposite of following that guideline would be. Why might heeding Peter here be a potent form of persuasion to a husband who does not (yet) believe?
  4. What are ways this text could be used to dismiss, silence, or abuse women? Do those awful outcomes necessarily follow from what Peter is saying? Why or why not?
  5. What leads wives (or anyone for that matter) to focus on outward adornment to the exclusion of their inner character? Is Peter arguing for no external adornments, or a de-emphasis of outward appearance in favor of attending more to the inner being? Why or why not?
  6. What are several ways a husband might live with their wife “in an understanding way”? What must many husbands learn about their wives in order to “show honor” to them?
  7. What is the ultimate basis for a husband’s understanding, honoring treatment of his wife? What do they both share that makes any other behavior illogical? How does that basis represent a huge departure from cultural attitudes and mores of that day?
  8. For what reason would a husband’s prayers be hindered? What might Peter mean by that? How is that meant to motivate?

QUOTES:

  • But you see that obedience and rule are more like a dance than a drill — especially between man and woman where the roles are always changing. - C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength
  • One of the problems with writing about the history of something like Christianity is that you cannot help but deal in headlines, and the headlines tend to be written by powerful men. But it’s clear that by and large, generation after generation after generation, the primary influence tends to have been women: mothers, godmothers, Sunday school teachers, whatever. - Tom Holland, author of Dominion
  • Jesus, beaten and humiliated out of love for his people, was and is the perfect man. No one who uses the Bible’s teaching on marriage to justify chauvinism, abuse, or denigration of women has looked at Jesus. - Rebecca McLaughlin
  • So too [Jesus’s] priesthood does not consist in the outward display of vestments and gestures, as did the human priesthood of Aaron and our ecclesiastical priesthood at this day, but in spiritual things, wherein, in His invisible office, He intercedes for us with God in heaven, and there offers Himself, and performs all the duties of a priest. . . . - Martin Luther
  • The servant leader aspects of headship are pivotal. Christ emptied himself and laid his life down for those under his care. Adam, like Jesus, was to lead in love and in service of another. We tend to elevate the language of leadership and dominion over the language of service and nurture, especially when it comes to headship. But I believe they are inseparable: to lead is to serve; to have dominion is to render care. - Sarah Viggiano Wright 
  • One of the most basic skills in marriage is the ability to tell the straight, unvarnished truth about what your spouse has done – and then, completely, unself-righteously, and joyously express forgiveness without a shred of superiority. - Tim Keller
  • "A marriage in which all the privileges are on one side and all the obligations on the other is bound to be imperfect with every chance of failure. This was a new conception in the ancient world. We have already noted the woman's total lack of rights then and quoted Cato's statement of the rights of the husband. But we did not finish that quotation and we do so now: "If you were to catch your wife in an act of infidelity, you can kill her with impunity without a trial; but, if she were to catch you, she would not venture to touch you with her finger and, indeed, she has no right." In the Roman moral code all the obligation was on the wife and all the privilege with the husband. The Christian ethic never grants a privilege without a corresponding obligation." - William Barclay
  • Anything which hinders prayer must be wrong. If any management of the family, or want of management, is injuring our power in prayer, there is an urgent demand for an alteration. - Charles Spurgeon
  • The Puritan ethic of marriage was first to look not for a partner whom you do love passionately at this moment but rather for one whom you can love steadily as your best friend for life, then to proceed with God’s help to do just that. - J.I. Packer (who died just this past week)

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