What Makes Women the ‘Weaker Vessel’?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Several times in this podcast,
00:00:05.720 | we have looked at 1 Peter 3, 7,
00:00:08.160 | but only briefly and never at length.
00:00:10.960 | Now's our chance.
00:00:11.840 | Today's question comes to us from a listener named Patricia.
00:00:14.660 | Hello, Pastor John, thank you for the podcast.
00:00:16.400 | What does Peter mean in 1 Peter 3, 7
00:00:18.400 | when he writes that husbands should live with their wives
00:00:21.520 | in an understanding way as the weaker vessel?
00:00:25.160 | Specifically, what is the weaker vessel?
00:00:27.880 | Is she physically weaker, emotionally weaker,
00:00:30.760 | spiritually weaker, or something altogether different?
00:00:33.720 | Thank you for your help, Pastor John.
00:00:35.640 | What would you say?
00:00:36.460 | - Well, let's begin with a literal translation
00:00:40.680 | of the verse she's asking about, 1 Peter 3, 7.
00:00:45.240 | Here's the way I would translate it.
00:00:47.080 | Likewise, husbands, live together according to knowledge
00:00:55.460 | with your wives, although that phrase with your wives
00:00:58.660 | is not there in the original,
00:01:00.820 | but it's implied by live with.
00:01:03.360 | As with a weaker vessel, the feminine one,
00:01:08.360 | showing honor as also living together
00:01:14.120 | with fellow heirs of the grace of life,
00:01:19.260 | which I take to mean eternal life
00:01:21.900 | because of the use of the word grace and life
00:01:24.380 | back in 1 3 and 1 13,
00:01:27.160 | in order that your prayers may not be hindered.
00:01:30.380 | So Peter is saying to husbands,
00:01:33.300 | as you live with your wives,
00:01:35.620 | consider two central realities that you should know.
00:01:40.620 | Now, there's according to knowledge.
00:01:42.060 | Here's what you should know.
00:01:43.580 | One is that you, husband, are the stronger
00:01:48.120 | and she is the weaker vessel.
00:01:51.780 | And the other fact that you should live in the light of
00:01:55.460 | is that she shares with you in the glory of being
00:02:00.340 | an heir of God.
00:02:02.580 | So two things govern a Christian husband's demeanor
00:02:07.580 | toward his wife in this verse.
00:02:11.300 | The fact that she does not share
00:02:14.540 | his superior masculine strength
00:02:16.900 | and the fact that she does share
00:02:19.740 | the glory of being an heir of God.
00:02:22.140 | That's very significant.
00:02:24.100 | I don't think Peter made any mistake there
00:02:27.500 | or was writing carelessly.
00:02:30.200 | Her being weaker draws out of him one kind of honoring
00:02:35.200 | and her being a fellow heir of glory
00:02:39.980 | draws out of him another kind of honoring.
00:02:43.660 | And those two ways of being drawn out to this woman
00:02:49.240 | interweave to create the unique Christian beauty
00:02:53.940 | of what Paul calls headship and submission.
00:02:58.940 | So Patricia's question relates specifically
00:03:02.500 | to the term the weaker feminine vessel,
00:03:07.020 | the weaker vessel, the feminine one.
00:03:09.900 | So three words need explanation, right?
00:03:12.820 | Vessel, what's that?
00:03:14.860 | Feminine, weaker.
00:03:16.860 | Let's start with vessel.
00:03:18.460 | The first thing to notice is that she's called
00:03:21.980 | the weaker vessel, meaning the husband is a vessel.
00:03:26.020 | All right, you got two vessels,
00:03:27.460 | weaker and stronger vessel.
00:03:29.420 | She's not just a vessel, he's a vessel
00:03:31.300 | 'cause she's the weaker and he's the stronger vessel.
00:03:35.220 | Probably the root idea behind that
00:03:40.140 | is that the male sexual organ is a vessel
00:03:44.760 | and the female sexual organ is a kind of vessel.
00:03:48.740 | The male vessel is a giving, dispensing vessel
00:03:52.160 | and the female organ is a receiving, accepting vessel.
00:03:55.760 | So in the very act of sexual relations
00:03:59.180 | where the difference between male and female
00:04:01.140 | is anatomically clearest, both men and women
00:04:04.660 | are seen as different kinds of vessels.
00:04:07.480 | And you can see that meaning in 1 Thessalonians 4.
00:04:13.800 | But the reason I say that's the root idea
00:04:17.880 | is because I don't think that's the present prominent idea
00:04:22.240 | in Peter's mind.
00:04:23.560 | It doesn't really make much sense
00:04:26.480 | to describe a woman's sexual organ as weaker than a man's.
00:04:31.480 | What would that even mean?
00:04:35.460 | And what point would it have for their relationship?
00:04:39.180 | Rather, what we need to see is that the term vessel
00:04:43.700 | became, I think, rooted down there
00:04:46.680 | in that anatomical complementarity.
00:04:50.480 | There grows out of it a generalized use
00:04:53.720 | of the word vessel for the human body.
00:04:57.400 | The woman's body is a vessel,
00:04:58.760 | the man's body is a vessel in general.
00:05:00.920 | And the reason I say that
00:05:02.620 | is because of 2 Corinthians 4.7,
00:05:07.080 | where Paul, after referring to the preciousness
00:05:11.860 | of the glory of the gospel,
00:05:14.160 | says we have this treasure in vessels.
00:05:18.700 | So all Christians have this treasure of the gospel
00:05:24.240 | in vessels of clay to show that the surpassing power
00:05:29.240 | belongs to God and not to us.
00:05:32.120 | That doesn't mean that we have the gospel
00:05:34.140 | in our sexual organs.
00:05:35.720 | That's not the meaning.
00:05:36.800 | It means we have the gospel in ourselves, in our bodies.
00:05:41.480 | Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit,
00:05:43.960 | making the gospel powerful in our lives,
00:05:46.740 | and our bodies are fragile and prone to decay.
00:05:51.740 | So I take the term vessel in 1 Peter 3.7
00:05:57.420 | to refer mainly to the woman's body.
00:06:01.540 | Likewise, husbands live together
00:06:03.540 | according to knowledge with your wives
00:06:06.620 | as the weaker feminine vessel
00:06:09.540 | means live with one who has a weaker body.
00:06:14.540 | That's the primary focus, I think.
00:06:16.940 | Next comes the word feminine.
00:06:19.580 | And the phrase is literally
00:06:21.660 | as with a weaker vessel, the feminine.
00:06:26.320 | The point of that word is to draw attention
00:06:29.980 | to the fact that he really,
00:06:33.060 | Peter really is making a general statement
00:06:37.520 | about maleness and femaleness, or men and women,
00:06:40.620 | not just about the particular wife
00:06:43.940 | that you happen to be married to.
00:06:45.580 | In other words, in Peter's mind,
00:06:47.780 | this is the real God-created world of male and female.
00:06:52.780 | God designed men to have stronger bodies,
00:06:57.260 | and God designed women to have weaker bodies.
00:07:01.580 | That's the plan.
00:07:02.880 | That's God's purpose.
00:07:04.480 | That's part of what feminine is in reality.
00:07:09.160 | To be a woman means, with a few exceptions,
00:07:13.880 | to be weaker than men.
00:07:16.660 | It's not a fluke of nature.
00:07:19.360 | It's not a random effect of natural selection or evolution.
00:07:23.420 | It's the way God designed it to be.
00:07:27.800 | And when you pause and think about that,
00:07:30.720 | it should carry enormous implications, I think,
00:07:34.960 | especially for Christian men,
00:07:37.580 | which is why Peter draws explicit attention to it here
00:07:42.580 | and says, "Now, husbands, look, you know this.
00:07:45.760 | You should live according to this knowledge.
00:07:48.600 | This is part of God's design for womanhood and for manhood.
00:07:53.600 | She is the one with the weaker body.
00:07:58.940 | Take that into account as a Christian
00:08:02.220 | when you contemplate honoring your wife."
00:08:06.420 | And then here's the last word to zero in on.
00:08:09.160 | It's the one that Patricia was especially asking about,
00:08:12.660 | namely the word "weaker."
00:08:15.260 | And what we've seen is that the most immediate meaning
00:08:18.800 | of "weaker" would be bodily weaker or physically weaker.
00:08:25.400 | Now, we live in a culture that desperately wants
00:08:30.400 | for this not to be true and to find every way
00:08:36.500 | that it possibly can to obscure this truth
00:08:40.920 | and to avoid its implications
00:08:43.400 | for male and female relationships.
00:08:46.680 | So movie after movie and video after video
00:08:51.440 | attempts to show women being as violent, as crude,
00:08:56.440 | as able to neutralize male strength as any man can.
00:09:00.840 | Any thought that a woman might properly and joyfully
00:09:05.840 | look to a man for superior strengths
00:09:10.960 | is sidelined or minimized or denied or mocked.
00:09:16.640 | So we live in a culture that is doing all it can
00:09:21.640 | to put its head in the sand
00:09:24.240 | and ignore what is palpably true.
00:09:27.360 | Historically and universally, namely,
00:09:30.320 | men are in general stronger physically than women.
00:09:35.320 | We are living a cultural contradiction
00:09:40.880 | because all of that cultural effort
00:09:43.440 | to deny the obvious is countered by the fact
00:09:47.800 | that in the Olympics,
00:09:49.860 | no sport involves women competing with men.
00:09:53.400 | In professional basketball,
00:09:55.460 | there's a league for men, a league for women.
00:09:58.080 | In professional golf, there's an association for men
00:10:01.720 | and one for women.
00:10:03.220 | In professional tennis, there's one for men
00:10:06.160 | and one for women.
00:10:07.160 | 98% of the construction workers in America are men.
00:10:11.400 | 88% of police officers in America are men.
00:10:14.480 | 86% of military are men.
00:10:18.360 | And whatever sinful chauvinism may infect all of that,
00:10:23.360 | none of those statistics are going to significantly change
00:10:28.280 | if all such sins could be taken away.
00:10:31.840 | These differences are rooted in God-designed nature,
00:10:36.840 | not in sin.
00:10:39.440 | Now, my guess is that Patricia is a very thoughtful woman.
00:10:43.800 | And when I say that weaker refers to bodily weaker,
00:10:48.800 | weakness primarily,
00:10:52.560 | she will realize, given the nature of the modern world,
00:10:57.560 | that we know today that the body includes the brain
00:11:02.680 | and the hormonal system.
00:11:04.940 | And the differences in these physical organs and systems
00:11:09.940 | produce differences in men and women,
00:11:12.520 | not only in raw muscular capacities,
00:11:16.060 | but in other ways as well.
00:11:19.120 | All one has to do is type into Google,
00:11:22.200 | you should try this,
00:11:23.400 | what is the difference between male and female brains?
00:11:27.180 | Just type that into Google.
00:11:28.800 | And you'll find dozens of scientific studies
00:11:32.640 | producing amazing discoveries in the last 20 years.
00:11:37.280 | But we have to stop somewhere
00:11:39.040 | in dealing with this massive subject.
00:11:40.920 | So let me draw to a close.
00:11:43.880 | Let's focus on what Peter seems to regard as most central.
00:11:48.880 | Peter is focusing on the way Christian husbands live with
00:11:54.000 | and honor their wives.
00:11:57.400 | And he says, "Husbands, take into account,
00:12:01.680 | keep this knowledge in your focus,
00:12:04.920 | you carry as a Christian husband,
00:12:08.360 | the responsibility and the burden
00:12:11.800 | of having the superior strength
00:12:14.480 | for the sake of protecting and providing
00:12:17.160 | and leading your wife through the threats
00:12:19.000 | and challenges of life,
00:12:20.760 | all the while realizing that at your side
00:12:23.640 | is a fellow heir of God,
00:12:26.500 | a breathtakingly glorious human being
00:12:29.920 | who will shine like the sun in the kingdom of her father
00:12:34.240 | and who will not be married to you in the age to come
00:12:38.680 | because there's no marriage in the age to come,
00:12:41.040 | but will stand before the King of Kings
00:12:43.360 | as his bright and glorious subject.
00:12:47.220 | So mingle your caring, protecting, leading strength
00:12:52.220 | with a sense of wonder and awe
00:12:56.560 | that you get to live temporarily with an heiress of God."
00:13:01.560 | - Amen, that's glorious.
00:13:03.280 | Thank you, Pastor John, for that survey
00:13:05.080 | and for that reality, that glorious reality.
00:13:07.580 | Thank you for the question, Patricia.
00:13:08.680 | You can send us a question of your own.
00:13:10.820 | You can search through or browse our 1,600 episodes to date,
00:13:14.420 | or you can subscribe to the podcast.
00:13:15.840 | You can do all that at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:13:20.840 | Well, when God tells Abraham and Sarah
00:13:23.520 | they will bear a child at ages 190 years old, respectively,
00:13:28.400 | Abraham seems to laugh it off in unbelief.
00:13:31.000 | Was it an act of unbelief?
00:13:33.160 | We're gonna look at the story more closely next time
00:13:35.400 | and the implications for our lives.
00:13:37.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:13:38.960 | We'll see you back here on Monday
00:13:41.160 | when we look at, "Did Abraham Laugh God Off?"
00:13:45.440 | See you then.
00:13:46.280 | (upbeat music)
00:13:48.860 | (upbeat music)
00:13:51.440 | [BLANK_AUDIO]