Commentary on 1 Peter 3:13-22

Morality is the concern in 1 Peter 3:13–22. “Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good?” (3:13). The author makes multiple appeals that their audience maintain “good conscience” (3:16, 21) and “good conduct” (3:16).

Morals need context: Whose morality?

For good reason, the lectionary skips 1 Peter’s version of the “household codes” in 2:18–3:7. In this section of the letter, the author exhorts enslaved people to submit to their enslavers “with all respect,” regardless of whether these enslavers are good and gentle or dishonest (2:18; see further 2:18–25). The author then commands wives to be subject to their husbands and encourages women to “win over” men who do not “obey the word” through purity and respectable conduct (3:1–2; see further 3:1–7).

Similar household codes appear in Colossians 3:18–4:1 and Ephesians 5:21–6:9 (and echoes of their ideas can be found in 1 Timothy and Titus). These codes’ commands replicate Roman imperial expectations for how elite men should govern their households, subordinating all others under their rule. Governing the household was like ruling a miniature empire.

We don’t and shouldn’t read this segment of 1 Peter aloud in worship, but that doesn’t mean we can’t address it and condemn the abusive injustice of its words. First Peter’s household codes have been cited by preachers to encourage women to stay in abusive relationships and to legitimate enslavement, including cruel treatment of enslaved humans.

Naming the horrific legacy of 1 Peter’s household codes is not a detour away from the good conscience that enables doing “what is good” in 3:13–22. In 1 Peter’s moral schema, “good conduct” begins with the household codes. Roman enslavers praised the goodness of enslaved people who were able to adopt and anticipate their enslaver’s mindset: a good conscience. First Peter’s moral universe replicates the hierarchy of empire and deems it good. Anything that resists this rigid structure becomes evil. Goodness means Roman morality.

The author pontificates, “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil” (3:17). Read in light of 2:18–3:7, we expose that—for women, enslaved people, and others at the bottom of Roman society—suffering for “doing good” meant enduring violence despite obediently submitting to the rules. “Doing evil” in this context might be any number of resistant acts that enslaved women took to enable their own moral agency: laziness, work stoppage, fleeing, and killing their husbands or enslavers. The author claims suffering for obedience as God’s will. They promise an impossible fantasy: The empire, via God, will reward “good” suffering. In reality, the suffering lays bare this optimism’s cruelty. Obedient goodness sustains empire’s moral hierarchy.

Like other New Testament texts containing household codes, 1 Peter seemingly preaches moral goodness in ways that seek positive attention from Rome’s elite, perhaps hoping that living into Roman goodness will lead the audience upward in this hierarchical society. This household-based morality tones down and demands order from women and enslaved people, whom we know were prominent among the leaders in the earliest Christ-assemblies.

The author of 1 Peter gives a new theological explanation for baptism: “And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (3:21). This “good conscience” marks a departure from the more egalitarian ethos proclaimed in one of the earliest baptismal formulas: “There is no longer slave nor free, male and female” (as quoted in Galatians 3:28). As opposed to other theological meanings, for 1 Peter, baptism now saves as an appeal to the good conscience and conduct reflected in obedient suffering. Instead of removing the “dirt” of one’s social status, baptism keeps everyone in their place.

Who gets to be good today?

Reading the moral idea of goodness in 1 Peter 3:13–22 requires a recognition of its broader context in the letter and its imperial world. Goodness is contextual, and its terms tend to be determined by those with sociopolitical power. Roman imperialism defined and enforced goodness. The writer of 1 Peter, like many other Roman subjects, accepts and replicates these moral terms.

Writing about the impact of the household codes from a womanist perspective, Clarice Martin acknowledges the truth made blatant in these narratives: Early Christian texts predominantly reflect non-enslaved men’s perspectives. They may proclaim glimmers of justice, but they are limited by their author’s relative privilege. Martin writes, “We must create and nurture strategies and paradigms that can provide clues to the more empowering and inclusive traditions in the Early Christian movement.”¹ Recognizing how 1 Peter’s baptism for good conscience tones down a more egalitarian ethos in favor of conforming to Roman goodness makes space to consider alternative moralities then and now.

First Peter’s household code continues to impact understandings of goodness today. It stands behind celebrations of long-term monogamous marriages as the bedrock ideal for social stability. It urges suffering without investing in change. It leaves many folks to suffer obediently at the margins, trying their best to become good. Noticing who gets to be good in 1 Peter can help us notice who does and doesn’t get to be good today. A critical reading of 1 Peter demands renewed ethical reflection in community: What does it mean to define goodness differently? What does goodness look like when it reflects the lives, needs, and desires of those most marginalized?

Notes

1. Clarice J. Martin, “The Haustafeln (Household Codes) in African American Biblical Interpretation: ‘Free Slaves’ and ‘Subordinate Women’,” in Cain Hope Felder, ed., Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation. 30^th Anniversary expanded ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2021), 255.