Submission and the Triumph of Christ – 1 Peter 3

This is the third talk of five in 1 Peter from Lee Abbey 2026

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A New Zealander called Ivan Segedin hated seat belts. The police ticketed him thirty-two times in five years, and still he refused to buckle up. So he got creative and made a fake belt that hung over his shoulder to fool them. It worked brilliantly, right up until his head-on collision. He was thrown onto the steering wheel and killed.

Sorry, Ivan, but you were a fool. Submission can be very good for you!

1 Peter 3 gets a bad press, I know. And it’s one of those passages you’d quietly skip if you weren’t preaching through the whole book. (I could see some of my audience wincing as the verses were read out.) But biblical submission is a voluntary, humble yielding, ultimately to God, and it comes from reverence for Jesus rather than any sense of inferiority. Ephesians 5:21 sets the tone: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

I love the story of the bloke who crossed a narrow one-lane bridge with a “Yield” sign in front of it. On the way back he found another one. Yield signs at both ends! What a gracious way to avoid a head-on collision. Let the other person have the right of way.

Now for the tricky bit. Peter tells wives to submit to their own husbands, even unbelieving ones. Context matters hugely. Women in that world were largely treated as property. They couldn’t initiate divorce, and they couldn’t go beyond the women’s court in the temple. But it’s lazy to say it’s all cultural. John Piper helpfully spells out what submission doesn’t mean: It doesn’t mean agreeing with everything he says (Especially when she’s chosen Jesus and he hasn’t!). It doesn’t mean leaving your brain at the altar. It doesn’t mean putting your husband’s will above Christ’s, or relying on him for your spiritual strength, or acting out of fear. “Do what is right and do not give way to fear,” says verse 6. That’s a free woman talking. And husbands, before you get smug, Ephesians 5:25 calls you to love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Oof!

In 23 years of marriage I’ve never once said to Lizzie, “Submit to me.” We submit to each other. Occasionally we’ve profoundly disagreed, and usually I’ve given ground… because she’s normally been right.

Then Peter throws in verses 18–20 about Christ preaching to “the spirits in prison”. Martin Luther called it perhaps the most obscure text in the entire New Testament and admitted he didn’t know for certain what Peter meant. So what chance have I got? I’m going with RC Sproul. After his resurrection, Jesus proclaimed (Peter uses kērussō, to herald, rather than euangelizō, to preach good news) his victory over the defeated demonic powers. Think of it as a victory lap. Christ suffered unjustly, was vindicated and triumphed. So will we. For a suffering minority like Peter’s first readers, that’s dynamite.

So how do we live in the meantime? Verse 8: be like-minded, sympathetic, loving, compassionate and humble. Compassion literally means to suffer with. Years ago in Brazil, our team got attacked by street kids, and we legged it with glass bottles shattering on the pavement behind us. That night I was weeping over the sheer scale of the need, and my team leader said, “Pity cries and then goes away, but compassion stays.” I went to Brazil for that line. It changed my life. For me, staying meant twenty years in Burundi. What does suffering with look like for you?

Verse 9: “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult.” My dear friend Edith in Rwanda lost her husband and three of her children in the genocide. At a roadblock, a soldier started stripping her. He was going to rape her and then kill her. When she said God was with her, he told her God was dead. Then he found the money stashed in her bra and ran off with it, and she escaped to Congo with her three surviving kids. Months later she heard that soldier was in prison, and she went to see him. “You told me God is dead. I’m here to tell you that he’s alive, that he loves you, and he’s told me to do the same. So I love you, I forgive you, and I’m going to care for you.” She brings him food. Isn’t that nuts?

Then there’s Charles Nkazamyampi, World Championship 800m silver medallist, who learned just before his race that his parents had been murdered. Later he spotted the killer and chased him down (the poor bloke never stood a chance), but he heard God say, “Don’t do this.” Today he uses his fame to preach reconciliation to Burundi’s young people.

Peter says we must seek peace and pursue it, which means going after it rather than just keeping it. Michael Cassidy of African Enterprise saw that in South Africa in 1994, when Henry Kissinger was predicting Armageddon within a fortnight. The international mediators went home. Kenyan Christian mediator Washington Okumu stayed, and while 25,000 believers prayed at a rally in Durban, a deal was found beneath the stands. Cassidy’s verdict: “You can do a lot of things after you have prayed, but you can do nothing until you have prayed.” That gives me hope for Burundi.

On the cross, Jesus cried tetelestai, “It is finished” (birarangiye in Kirundi). That word went on receipts to mean fully paid. It was scrawled across a prisoner’s cancelled charge sheet to mean sentence served. And crowds roared it when a general came home to Rome dragging his captives behind him, meaning victory gained. So stop living under shame. The debt is paid, the sentence is served and the enemy is disarmed.

That’s who we yield to. A crucified, risen, triumphant Saviour. And we do it gladly.

See the story of Charles Nkazamyampi here: