The unsettling virtue of Christian submission: 1 Peter 2:13-25

Christians are called to live submissive lives. How did your heart respond when you read that? Maybe you cringe—squirm a little in your chair. I would understand if the past few years have caused you to become reluctant to view submission as a quality you care to embody. Maybe you have grown to wonder if submission is a good thing at all. Or perhaps you are a little more ‘choosy’ with your submission, waiting for the right entity to submit to. You do not have a problem with submission, so long as you get to choose whom you are submitting to and the ways in which you are submitting. I have bad news on that—that is called agreement, not submission. Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:13, ‘submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution.’ In an individualistic, personal autonomy-centered, self-care seeking, post-covid sensitive, increasingly and overreachingly governed world, Peter’s command to submit is jarring, particularly in the specifics he chooses to apply it.

‘Submit yourselves, for the Lord’s sake.’ Sure, we can do that, we trust the Lord. But Peter continues, ‘to every human institution.’  Every human institution? Perhaps Peter should qualify that a bit. Unfortunately for the reluctant submitter, he does. Peter continues, ‘Submit yourselves …whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.’ Then in verse 18 he calls on servants (or slaves) to ‘be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable.’ And, again, in the next chapter, Peter calls on wives to ‘be subject to your own husbands,’ even pressing the point home with an example in 3:6, ‘as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord.’ Peter’s command is not just a call for Christians to live in submission, it is a call to live in radical submission by extending our submission to all the areas of life where we tend to push back against authority and are reluctant to submit. Peter tells us that submission is not just in the things we like to submit to, but all the way out to the extents of which our usual ‘yeah but’s’ extend.

If that is where true submission lies, then true submission is hard. When did it become so difficult? The truth is, submission did not just become unpopular after Covid mandates took over the world, nor when leaders that we did not prefer took office. Submission did not even stop being the norm when King George started overtaxing tea in 1767. Submission has never been particularly easy, at least not since Genesis 2. That’s why Peter is compelled to write it here, to Christians back there. Christians have, apparently, always been tempted to refuse to submit, to submit in deed but to grumble all the way, or to submit this far and no further—all of which are a failure to submit completely.

Do I have to?

Hear me out, because I am sure there are alarm bells going off in your head. You are probably thinking, right now, that there are certainly times when it is appropriate to reject the king’s command, for servants to defy their masters, and for wives to refuse to follow the bad lead of their husbands—and you might just be right. Those cases can be made, and with God’s blessing. There is a place for rejecting human authority when our high king Jesus’ command runs at odds with the imposition of the leader in front of us. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego certainly proved that when they refused to bow down to the king’s idol on the plain of Dura. In that refusal, they did not sin, nor for unapologetically telling the king that they had no need to even answer him on the matter (Dan. 3:16). And the apostles, who continued to preach even after being told by the governors of the regions in which they were preaching, were not violating God’s command by continuing either; on the contrary.

But let’s not let such examples be used to tamp down the weight of Peter’s command here in 1 Peter 2. It is easy to take a passage like this and stretch it into a game of ‘find the boundary and see how close we can get to it.’ But we must understand, true biblical submission, the stuff Peter is talking about here, does not start by asking how close we can get to the cliff without falling over the edge. Submission is a mark of Christianity, and it comes out of everything we believe, so submission works its’ way out in how we respond to everyday things like our response to government, our workplace, a wife’s relationship to her husband, as well as other things Peter does not mention here. Maybe what we should be asking is why we are so eager to look for loopholes rather than jumping to consider where we sinfully fail to submit. Such quickness to escape the command probably suggests that we struggle with submission more than we realize.

The fact of the matter is Peter is not ignorant to our situation. True, he may not have lived to see Covid-19 and the insanity that followed it, but he is not ignorant. He knows a corrupt and overreaching government when he sees it. Remember, this is the same Peter who has seen friends killed for preaching the gospel and who has, himself, been beaten and jailed by local authorities for the same thing (Acts 12:1-5). We also know that Peter would eventually be crucified by the hand of governors who would punish him for doing what is right (inverting the job description he just gave in verse 14). He is aware of the potential for corruption among governing authorities. Peter is not even unaware of the fact that the emperor of Rome hates Christians. Emperor Nero is infamous to this day for his cruelty to those who followed Christ. And let’s not forget that Peter was there when Pontius Pilate unjustly ruled to crucify Jesus so that he could appease the crowds and save his own skin. It did not matter if Pilate washed his hands of the matter, he still acted corruptly (Matt 27:24). Peter has witnessed leadership abuse firsthand.

Despite Peter’s sober perspective on these things, the amazing trajectory of his life is that after he has grown more informed and more mature, he is calling for more submission to these ‘human institutions,’ not less. Don’t forget that it was Peter who brought the sword to the arrest of Jesus and even used it on the authorities present (Jn 18:10). But now, all these years later, the more mature and aware Peter tells us, with the full force of the authority of God’s word, that Christians are called to live submissive lives to these human institutions. So let us not be so quick to minimize the command here with the hypothetical and extreme situations we can think up just yet. Instead, let us take in the simple audacity of what we are called to. ‘Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution.’

Questions for reflection and personal application:

1.    In what areas of life is submission easy for you? Where is it most difficult for you? Why do you think that is? How does this passage challenge and motivate you to think about those areas?

2.    In those areas where you are not quick to submit, why do you think it so easy to look for exceptions to submission? How can you work on those areas of your life?

3.    As you have aged and matured, have you grown more open to the idea of submission or less? Peter’s example shows us that we should grow toward God-honoring submission. How can you grow in your desire for that kind of biblical submission this week?