Have you ever heard anybody use something from 1 Peter 3 to explain what a wife should be or do?
If so, how often have you heard them take this text literally:
3 Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. 4 Rather, it should be that of your inner self…
“Women, your beauty should not lay in outward things. Spend no time on your hair, make-up, or figure, even if your husband wants you to – rather spend time on the inward beauty.” – Hypothetical preacher of this text
By comparison, how often have you heard them take this text literally:
1 Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives
“Women, submit to you husbands! Do not talk to them about God, only submit to win them over!” – Hypothetical preacher of this text
Why would the latter, only two verses prior to the verses on the outward appearance, be preached more? Because female submission pleases husbands, while spending no time on outwards appearances do not please husbands. Such a focus is based on man, not the will of God.
Another example: do you know Christians who will specify in detail how wives have to submit/ subject themselves to husbands, but when the Bible uses the same term for believers having to submit/ subject themselves to authorities, (Romans 13:1)1 they hardly talk about it, and qualify it to the point of being almost meaningless? This is not sincere Bible Interpretation, but men wanting to lord it over others – maximum subjection for everyone below them, the minimum for them towards anyone above.
So, tell me: Do you really think that man-on-top theology “takes the Bible on face value”? I don’t.
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Note
1 “The most disturbing thing about the hyper-fundamentalist, patriocentric crowd, though, is the hypocrisy of every political position they take. They want the government out of their lives as much as possible, with intrusion at an absolute minimum, no Big Brother forcing them to do things they don’t want, telling them how to do the things they are allowed to do. No controlling or meddling in their lives in areas the government has no right to be snooping and directing… Freedom, freedom, and more freedom, so they say. I’m with them so far.
They want … freedom galore for everyone, so they say – except for their own families (who are treated like their own personal state property), ruling their own homes in the oppressive style of Stalin, and except for those with opposing political views. Freedom…for them to be unabated religious tyrants and control the lives of others.
Democracy for themselves. Communism for their families and enemies.” – Lewis Wells http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.co.za/2010/06/paradox-of-patriarchal-politics.html
Biblical Personhood 
Comments on: "Gender hierarchy people do not “take the Bible at face value”" (3)
Amen!!!!
And let’s not the Proverbs 31 woman. Absolutely not ONE WORD is mentioned about physical attributes. It’s ALL about character, not characteristics. When a men want to ‘fawn’ over and compare women to Proverbs 31, let them NOT forget the END of the story.
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Well, I think the “husbands are leaders of wives” can be a biblicaly defended IF AND ONLY IF being a leader-husband means leading as Christ leads…. which means, by *dying* in order to help His bride. That’s not the sort of leadership anyone has fun with. And, of course, that only applies to husbands and wives, not to men and women in general. Though, as you rightly point out, this sort of passage is often insincerely interpreted to mean “men get what they want from their women and women just gotta do what the man wants.” And that’s a very pagan notion, not Christian.
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Yet if the husband commits adultery or uses porn he blames it on the wife’s appearance. It’s a lose lose situation.
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