 welcome. It's great to have all of you on today's call. Let's go ahead with the remaining chapters from the book of 1st Peter. We had completed the 1st Peter chapter 2 and today we're going to pick up 1st Peter chapter 3. So I would like to begin with a word of prayer. We'll then go into reading the entire chapter explaining it and similarly we will try and do chapter 4 as well in today's session. So we'll start off with the word of prayer. Could one of us open up with prayer please? Heavenly Father I come to you under the name of Jesus. I thank you for this day. Thank you for your grace your kindness and your goodness that is following us throughout this day Lord and God I just give this class into your hands right now. We ask for good vibe for your connections and God I pray that you will help us to understand every single thing that Pastor Nancy teaches us and also to store it and treasure it in our hearts and mind so that we can shine bright for your kingdom. I give all my classmates into your hands be with the same guidance. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Thank you Jefina. As we've seen the book of 1st Peter began with Peter reminding the believers about their spiritual inheritance and their true identity in Christ and the fact that though we are here in the world we are actually representatives of heaven and that we must live a life which is you know which is holy which is a powerful victorious life and in chapter 2 we saw how he calls the community of believers as a chosen generation as a holy people as a special people unto God and God has done this the result of being the special people is to praise God to proclaim the praises of our God so time and again there are reminders about who we truly are in Christ Jesus as individuals as well as a community and of course you know he is preparing the heart of the believer to live a righteous Christian life so he says that once walk should be such that you know we are different from the world if we are just like the world and we indulge in gratifying our fleshly desires there's nothing special you know about us anymore we are called by God and so we must represent God well with holy living and he is speaking to the believers to have the right attitude in a time of persecution and so while talking about it he also talks about submission so we saw he spoke about submission to two masters where he said that one must be committed to the the person that they work for and if at all you know there are some instances where even unfair treatment is needed to us we must trust that God will turn everything around for our good and because of our faith in God you know we keep going forward and he taught us about the example of Jesus and he said see Jesus also suffered and it was not it was not a right kind of a suffering because he never deserved that suffering however the patience of Jesus the trust of Jesus on on the Father enabled him to go through that suffering and come out victorious so he gave us the example of Jesus and told us that even in times of unjust suffering we still have the assurance of God's reward in our lives so with that we had stopped now we are coming to chapter three let's go ahead and read the whole whole chapter and then we'll go ahead and explain it out so there are 22 verses 11 and 11 verses if two students can please read you know it'll be helpful for us to explain first Peter chapter three verse one wives likewise be submissive to your own husbands that even if some do not obey the word they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear do not let your adornment be merely outward arranging the hair wearing gold or putting on fine apparel rather let it be the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is very precious in the sight of God for in this manner in former times the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves being submissive to their own husbands as Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him lord whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror husbands likewise dwell with them with understanding giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life that your prayers may not be hindered finally all of you be of one mind having compassion for one another love as brothers be tender hearted be courteous not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling but on the contrary blessing knowing that you were called to this that you may inherit a blessing for he who would love life and see good days let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit let him turn away from evil and do good let him seek peace and pursue it in thank you Rosalind we can have another person read the remaining verses should i continue uh i know you can do uh we can just hold on if someone else on the team wants to read that would be nice okay fine Trefina let's go ahead please yeah first paper chapter 3 verse 12 for the eyes of the lord are on the righteous and his years are open to their prayers but the face of the lord is against those who believe him and who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good but even if you should suffer for righteousness sake you are blessed and do not be afraid of their threats not be troubled but sanctify the lord god in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who ask you a reason for the hope that is in you with neatness and fear having a good conscience that when they defame you as evil doers those who rival your good conjection fries may be ashamed for it is better if it is the will of god to suffer for good doing good than for doing evil for christ also suffered once for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to god being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the spirit by whom also he went and preached to the spirits at present who formerly were disobedience and once the divine long suffering waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in which a few that is eight souls were saved through water there is also an antitype which now says is baptism not the removal of the filth of the flesh but the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God angels and authorities and powers have been made subject to it thank you Rosalind and thank you Jeffyna we'll go ahead and see what these passages are conveying to us so as we start out here with chapter three was what we see the context of marriage and earlier we saw that Peter was saying submit to the uh masters excuse me and now in the context of marriage he's speaking to the wives even paul wrote about husband wife relationship and the covenant of marriage we look at this in Ephesians chapter five where he talks about the relationship between the husband and the wife which is which is emulating the relationship of the of Jesus and the church so Jesus is the bride group and the church is the bride and the way the Lord Jesus actually loves his bride sacrificially he talks about that paul and then he also goes on to say that uh you know when it comes to the wife right there is the aspect of submission to the husband so that is a requirement in the marriage relationship so here Peter also has some instructions uh so in Ephesians chapter five it would be verse 22 where uh it is said wives submit yourself to your own husbands as you do to the Lord and and you know the the rest of it so here again Peter is talking about submission of the wife to the husband and he says be submissive to your own husband so notice both of them are saying be submissive to your own husbands that simply means that uh this this instruction of submission is specific to the marriage context so to say that you know every woman has to come under a man uh is not is not accurate because sometimes we we see certain uh standards that are set where it is said like you know let's say there's a woman preacher if she's married it's okay you know her husband is her authority but if she's unmarried then there is a force for that woman to come under the submission of male uh only under like you know uh male leaders because you always meet a man as a covering for any lady so it's not talking about you know like any lady it's talking about a wife and very clearly it says wives submit to your own husbands so it it does not mean that you know all women are to come under uh men in that sense you know in terms of submission or covering so it's in the context of marriage and then we also notice here he talks about the conduct of a wife he says without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives so there is an importance on godly living so let's say you know that uh uh husband is is not in the lord now looking at the the wife's life can make a positive impact on the husband and he can actually come to the fate so there is that much power in the uh conduct which displays god in the marriage context and so you know wives are being encouraged to have a righteous conduct have a holy and a godly conduct and then he says uh when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear uh there is a possibility for that husband to come to know the lord and now there is something about adornment and I know in our culture the world that we live in today there is so much emphasis on appearance and grooming and you know adornment and so as believers as Christians what is it that this passage is talking about so when we read through the the passage there is a specific specific things that are pointed out so it says do not let the adornment be merely outward arranging the hair wearing gold or putting on fine apparel rather let it be the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is very precious in the sight of god so reading this passage in some uh places there is this understanding that the bible is actually telling us not to have any arranging of hair or don't wear gold or don't wear fine apparel like one must be very sober uh looking in appearance and clothing uh for women well does that what it says is is something we must examine you know if it says so then yes that can become a rule for everyone but if that's not exactly what it says then we have to be a little careful otherwise we will come up with uh you know a regulation uh which will bring people uh under you know you could say like it's never easy right like when you put those those boundaries and say no all women do not uh you do any arrangement of the hair or do not wear gold or do not wear any fine apparel so very clearly he says let not the adornment merely be outward meaning yes externally there are things that you know women generally do but he says what is more important is the spirit or the inner person or the heart of the person now heart of the person what is the emphasis that he places here he says uh the characteristics of a quiet and a gentle spirit gentle and quiet spirit what does it mean gentle means humility so when we look up those greek words from uh where we can get the meaning it means humble humble so having a humble spirit right and quiet spirit what is a quiet spirit quiet spirit has to do with calmness or stillness how can one be still unless they are trusting in the Lord you know they're not anxious but they are trusting in the Lord so he's saying the things that can beautify us from the outside are nothing compared to a character or an inner person who is humble and who is trusting in the Lord so he's saying that is more important he's not saying the other things should not be there at all but he's saying let the prioritization be correct so you give more importance to the inner person and then of course you know any form of external adornment that uh you know women may uh women may do like what he has stated here so ultimately it's about the spirit or the inner person and then he points out to other godly women so in verse five he says for in this manner in former times the holy women who trusted in God also adorn themselves being submissive to their own husband so notice he is pointing to people like Sarah he'll come to Sarah and he says Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror so the quality of Sarah that he is pointing out is that of submission to her husband you know she was there by his side when he had to journey out of his own land and you know he had to trust God for the promise of God to be fulfilled so she was with Abraham and she was that supportive submissive wife so he's pointing to that and he's saying look we can learn from Sarah because in that marriage relationship she was faithful she was committed she was submissive to her own husband and it says she called him lord what does it mean you know are women supposed to call their husband's lord uh well women's understand it in its context so it's talking about honor placing honor on the husband right so uh the wives should honor their husbands and Paul talks about this uh and similarly you know though he's not pointing Peter is not pointing to the role of a husband and you know a lot of what they need to do of course there's a little bit coming up later we must understand it in its context so he Peter is mainly talking about submission submission to authority submission to masters submission to husband and you know that's the right form of living now here again to just help us understand when we talk about Sarah you know in the Old Testament we know that Abraham was very rich and also we know that when it came to uh the culture of their times and marrying of girls what they would do is they would hand over jewelry right so they would give a lot of jewelry and other things uh when the girl like Rebecca when we read about all these people they had uh you know external adornment and we also see like you know Sarah was very beautiful uh when Abimelech saw her and so the point that you know we're trying to make is we are not being told that external adornment in any way will uh you know make us unholy before the lord uh because we should not go by the thing of hey you should not wear gold right at least here that's that's not what Peter is saying he's saying whatever you do on the outside uh it's it's nothing compared to what must be done on the inside so there is a prioritization kind of language that he's using because he's also taking the example of Sarah who actually wore jewelry so then how do you explain uh you know regarding jewelry so this is all to do with attitude character behavior conduct uh and then he speaks to the husbands uh so he told all this to the wives and now he's telling the husband to live with the wife with understanding there is a beautiful uh passage in Proverbs 24 verses 3 and 4 it says through wisdom a house is built and by understanding it is established by knowledge the rooms are filled with pressure with all the precious and pleasant riches so how can a family be built how can a house be built God is giving us the blueprint and he's saying to in order to build a family there needs to be wisdom there needs to be understanding and that's what Peter is speaking about right now he's saying look husbands you want to have a family you want to uh uh you know raise up a household then you live with understanding with the wife so if there is no understanding that becomes difficult I mean this is part of you know your marriage course we won't get into that but since Peter is talking about it here I'm just making a mention the importance of understanding in a marriage relationship and and a marriage covenant and you know he's also talking about giving honor to the wife and Paul talks about you know loving the wife in uh Ephesians chapter five so while there are duties or responsibilities of the wife towards the husband there are also responsibilities of the husband towards the wife so it's it's like when both are doing their part it becomes so much easier to establish a godly family so the importance of understanding the importance of the wife submitting to the husband the husband honoring the wife and it also states here weaker vessel the wife as a weaker vessel so what does it mean see weaker vessel does not mean that when it comes to salvation God discriminates between the gen uh between the genders we don't have any confirming reference anywhere else that there is something different about the inheritance or the power or the authority the position that a woman has in Christ as compared to uh what a man has in Christ because the same Peter he says later on as being heirs together of the grace of life so he's saying that God has given equal spiritual blessings spiritual uh inheritance to both the the man and the woman but weaker vessel then how do we explain weaker vessel uh it obviously has nothing to do with the spiritual aspects so weaker vessel could simply mean physically when we compare the ability to uh you know to compare the strength the physical strength it's quite obvious that in general you know we can always sit here and argue that oh there are women who are stronger than men but in general physical abilities of men uh you know capabilities to stretch themselves physically is probably more you know as compared to women so it's just the physical aspect that he's making a comment on he's not saying when you say weaker vessel spiritually he's not saying that God has two different um uh you know like uh uh uh positions for the genders male and female so that's a little bit about the marriage context any questions thoughts before we go further into the chapter yes question but so when uh we seen this was that um that your prayers may not be hindered does it mean uh sometimes the prayers will be hindered when uh maybe the husband is not being responsible or the wife is not being responsible that family uh would that be a reason for some of our prayers uh to be hindered under that context of fact yeah thank you jeffina sorry for my oversight i had to speak about it but i somehow missed it so it's saying to the husband here mainly not to the wife to the husband that one must a husband must treat the wife well and live with the wife with understanding only then prayers will not be hindered so it is what it says so let's say a husband is not treating his wife well and uh he's not giving honor to the wife and there are issues answer is yes his prayers will be hindered so it's pretty dangerous even spiritually uh is what peter is saying so something for husbands to take seriously and of course you know the wives have to do their part all right so there are no additional questions we'll just go to the next section here so now coming to the context of uh uh christian life and brotherly love for uh others in the body of christ he calls the believers uh he says be of one mind what is one mind in the context of home he said have understanding all of husband and wife so when it comes to the family of believers one mind means agreeing together on the core matters you know our faith then righteousness holy living we are all in agreement about these matters and when we are having one mind it helps us move together it helps us flow together so there are no divisions among God's people so one mind refers to that and what are some other characteristics which make for good fellowship he says compassion have compassion for one another so when there is compassion for one another obviously there'll be lesser quarrels because you know we are thinking of that other person just the way we consider ourselves so he says uh having oneness of mind compassion love as brothers so having love for each other let me just quickly look up this word love here okay charity charity the NKJV yeah so interesting I was just wanting to look whether it says filio or does it say agape so it says agape so which is God kind of unconditional love have unconditional love for brothers and sisters in Christ and usually when the term brother or brethren is used by these you know these apostles in their writing it refers to believers yes we can take it as family members but it refers to believers so other believers love as brothers be tender hearted be courteous all of this is you know to consider the other person more than us so that's the point and then he says not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling uh so what does that stand for it means competition avoid competition or avoid bitterness of heart jealousy envy towards other people you know avoid those things on the contrary blessing or we wish well for people around us and why do we do this because we were called to this God called us called us to this kind of a you know a blessed fellowship and also blessing for our own lives all of us have been called for blessings and because we realize that we go ahead and we we extend whether it is compassion or love or tender heartedness towards our brethren we imagine if we actually do what Paul is Peter is saying it it is like heaven on earth so that's how our fellowship should be as far as you know these apostles are concerned and he says there is a point here James spoke about the tongue the power of the tongue and how it can be so damaging even Peter says you know anyone who loves if you love your life if you love good days then refrain his tongue from evil his lips from speaking deceit so being careful with our words is a requirement for us as believers and there are obviously blessings that come from the right words that are spoken by us and he also talks about righteous living he says turn away from evil do good seek peace and pursue it and he says that our God is faithful so in verse 12 he says that when we live a godly life like this and when we pray to God right we are maintaining a godly life right attitude towards family members right attitude towards church believers then what is the advantage of that he says that when we pray God is open to the prayers of the righteous so when we have the right kind of lifestyle right heart attitudes our prayers are heard okay prayers are answered now we may have this question of when it says the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous doesn't it mean all those who are saved yes of course it means all those who are saved because we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus but there's always a truth about us living out that righteous life I mean imagine a believer who is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus but living an unrighteous life would that be a hindrance to his prayers or not it will be you know sinful life will hinder our prayer life and so we can also say that walking righteous living righteous is necessary for our prayers to be effective and now he talks about enduring suffering even if it is unjust right unjustly when we are we are treated he says you need we need to be strong and know that as long as we are doing the will of God and we are suffering for that it's a good thing so we always say that there these persecution like experiences that people have opposition that people have as long as it is happening because we are doing the right thing it's fine but imagine if you're doing the wrong thing and then we call it persecution you know the bible doesn't you know encourage that the bible is saying you do what is right and if at all you're facing problems because of doing right then don't worry because even Jesus suffered unjustly and you too will be able to overcome this so from verse 13 he says whenever you know we suffer for righteousness it is it is good take it in a positive way verse 14 but even if you should suffer for righteousness sake you are blessed so when we suffer for righteousness sake we are blessed don't be afraid of their threats nor be troubled why is Peter saying this because remember we said persecution was already existing but a greater level of persecution was anticipated more is going to happen then when more happens and what how are we going to face it and to help the believer orient themselves for the for the rising persecution he's saying keep doing the right thing and when we are doing the right thing and persecution happens just consider yourself as blessed okay and he also says that people are watching us and people may have questions so they may come and ask us right they may ask us and they may want us to speak about our faith and to defend ourselves saying what we believe in is unto the Lord and it is not you know rebellion against the authorities or it's not rebellion against man so when we have to explain these matters he says sanctify the Lord God in your hearts what does it mean it means to consider God as holy consider God as holy in our hearts right and it could also mean consecrating ourselves and living a holy life so we have come we are committed to holiness and sanctification so we are living a righteous life and we are also capable or we are becoming capable of give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you so being able to explain our faith people may ask you know so Jesus died what does it mean can we explain it so this is what the work of the cross stands for people may ask you talk about salvation explain it to be able to explain salvation means this this and you know the other so being able to explain what our faith is about is a necessity for all of us as believers how are we going to get to that place when we ourselves are growing in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ so being able to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you and he also adds there with meekness and fear which means when we are presenting our case or when we are presenting our views we do it with humility we do it with godly fear you know there is a thin line sometimes we can start arguing with people sometimes we can start putting people down sometimes we can display arrogance right by competing with them and challenging them oh your faith is like that my faith is like but what is Peter saying he's saying look it is important to explain our faith but carry the right attitude it's not for the sake of competition it's not for the sake of you know putting someone down it is for the sake of revealing Christ so that hopefully they will also understand and they will come to know our Lord Jesus Christ to do it in an honorable way now in some places this passage is taken up and the the ministry emphasis is only on what we call as apologetics give a defense you know keep giving a defense for everything that unbelievers are questioning us about well it is correct we should give a defense but in in some instances it can go to an extreme where people say that faith Christian faith is only about giving defense and there's no excuse me connection to the supernatural but let's think for a moment is that what Peter is stating that only keep giving defense this is the same Peter who was at the gate beautiful Peter and John who saw that lame man rise rise up so giving a defense along with the other aspects of ministry where we are demonstrating the power of God is you know it's the complete picture so the supernatural is also a part of revealing Christ to people not just us giving you know verbal explanations to people but also the demonstration of the power of God because that's the kind of ministry Peter himself did and how could he be saying that one shouldn't have a supernatural element or you know part to the work of the ministry so that's about you know explaining to people or you know apologetics that we speak about now coming to the next section over here it talks about baptism and it very beautifully explains to us that baptism is not what gives us salvation let's see it says having a good conscience that when they defame you as evil doers those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed okay hold on yeah later verse 21 right so good conscience okay good conscience the reason why I connected it to baptism is you have the scripture over there which again says but the answer of a good conscience toward God okay so baptism how does water baptism help us it does not remove the filth of the flesh verse 21 so it doesn't make us saved but once we are saved we declare our salvation or we declare our faith in Christ through the act of water baptism and it says good conscience towards God that means see when can we have the right conscience towards God when we are obedient if we are disobedient our conscience will will prick us and there will be conviction you know conviction of the spirit working in our hearts so good conscience has to do with obedience now obviously we know the command of Jesus was to be baptized in water so it's a step of obedience that every believer must follow okay it's not a requirement to to be saved but it is a command where one every believer must obey that that command and when we do that we will have a good conscience towards God because we have been obedient so over here in verse 16 also he you know he talks about good conscience so sorry I just connected that to the baptism so having a good conscience that they when they defame you as evil doers those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed so basically he's saying we give a defense with the right attitude when we do that then those who are watching us and listening us listening to us also will understand that we are coming from the right place they'll have nothing to accuse us and you know prove that accusation later on okay and then he says it is better to suffer for doing good than doing evil and then he talks about the Lord Jesus he says even Christ he suffered for our sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the spirit so he's talking about both the sad part where Jesus died but then he also was made alive the happy part where he rose from the dead and we see the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ and notice he is now making a reference to what God has done in punishing the disobedient so till now he's giving instructions and he's saying live by it do the right thing anyway it's better to suffer even if you know for doing the right thing now what if people are disobedient so he is giving us the example of the spirits in prison okay so Jesus he went and preached to the spirits in prison who formerly were disobedient when once the divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in which a few that is eight souls were saved through water so what is he saying the reference is back in Genesis 6 so many of us know over there the Bible talks about the angels of God you know having sexual relationships with the daughters of men and that was forbidden that even in the book of Jude you know he talks to that it's rebellion where God has given spheres and boundaries within which our authority lies what did these spirits do they actually disobeyed God and they rebelled against God and that is not pleasing to the Lord right so that is not something that is accepted instead of that obedience is what God is looking for and then you know while talking about it he talks about Noah and the his family in the ark and in that context he says they were saved through water so saved through water what does it mean you know we can we could say that God protected them even though they were in the flood it's a huge flood and God protected them from there he's just making a connection to water baptism right water baptism and the experience of Noah so Noah was in the water you could just put it that way Noah and his family was in the water and they were saved so similarly when we are baptized it's a proclamation he's also clarifying that that's not what brings you salvation but it's a picture of us being in the water you know and the way Noah and his family were saved we now have salvation and then towards the last the conclusion he says now Jesus he is in the he is in heaven at the right hand of the right hand of God and he talks about the authority of the Lord Jesus and he says angels and authorities and powers have been made subject to him so that's from 1st Peter chapter 3 I trust that tomorrow we should be able to complete chapters 4 and 5 and then we have only one more book to go which again is very similar to the book of Jude 1st 2nd Peter and and so you know that again should be very easy for us to complete so I'm hoping that yeah next week we should be done with all the chapters so any thoughts or questions based on what we have learned today please let us know just a few thoughts yeah so we see in verse 18 that he went to the spirits and he preached so I remember I don't know who told but one of the faculty told that he went down and preached the victory of the house I hope that I understood that correctly but why was baptism and the story of Noah's is together over here is is my question and I also want to know if there's any other thing that happened when he went to the spirits and preached thank you Jeffina so here going to the spirits and preaching in fact I think we'll come back to these spirits in the prison later on also Peter will make more reference at that time we can go into more in depth but right now what we can say is I think it's there again in the book of Ephesians where Jesus went down to Hades so Hades at that point is a term used where you had both the righteous and the unrighteous waiting in the Hades so once Jesus died he goes down to Hades and he basically proclaims so preaching to the spirits doesn't mean for the sake of salvation it's not that it just means declaring what he has done so what did he do he died on the cross and that is the victory so basically he went down to tell the spirits you are now defeated I have finished the work that's it you know so that is the meaning and I hope you got your answer for that and the second part is why the connection between Noah and the work of baptism so we're saved through water I I don't see like a you know logical connection actually so he's just made a mention they were saved through water and then he just goes ahead and he talks about water baptism so yeah I I don't think I am able to explain that correctly accurately to you let me also just quickly look at what I have here so it's just I feel like it's not you know how we we we say that that thought pours into the next thought or you're building up with with ideas so it's not a build-up so when you look at the word there they were saved by water when we understand the term by over there it also has a meaning which says saved through water and also like after water so after the flood they were safe because of the ark okay and that ark is a picture of salvation because they were saved now that he's talking about water it's kind of not exactly a connected thought he suddenly goes to baptism yeah so there is no connecting or building thought there but I look up little more and you know validate what I'm saying yeah good questions thank you Daphila any other questions show so if we are done we could just pray and wrap up I would again like to request one of us to kindly pray Heavenly Father I come to you under the name of Jesus and thank you for this day thank you for the class that we have and we thank you for everything that we learned we thank you for your salvation we thank you for everything that you have said Jesus for us we thank you for the new revelations and your understanding that you have given us through the class help us to learn more about you and to glorify your mother on this life we thank you for Pastor Nancy and I thank you for all my class in Jesus name I pray amen amen thank you thank you Jaffina thank you everyone God bless you thank you thank you please do take up please oh yeah thank you so much brother yeah appreciate you