Should Men Have Gentle and Quiet Spirits?

Then what you're gonna have is you're gonna have pastors or husbands or fathers who think it's actually sinful to even dare to suggest that someone else might be wrong in their understanding of scripture.

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People are tired of hearing nothing but doom and despair on the radio. The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrigg and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll answer the age-old question, should men have gentle and quiet spirits?

Now, as we kick this episode off, Tim, what Bible verse do you have for us?

Well, yeah, the obvious Bible verse is to read 1 Peter 3, one through six. Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, the clothing you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.

For this is how the holy woman who hoped in God used to adorn themself by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, and you are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that's frightening.

You know, when you read that Bible verse, the first thing I thought of is, I bet this applies to men, too.

I mean, it's obviously the natural reading of the passage, is to say that it did. No, I think I was trying to mess with people online. I was trolling them just to see what would happen when I asked this question online.

So I was, I mean, I am not above trolling anyone, but I had asked a question along the lines of, is there ever a time and a place for a husband to raise his voice to a disrespectful wife? And a lot of people were losing their mind and basically saying that that should never happen.

So a husband should never raise their voice. So, you know, a lot of them were basically hearing me say, well, a lot of the ladies were hearing me say at that point, I'm asking, is it okay for a husband to yell at their wife?

But, you know, that's not what I was asking. I was asking, is it okay for a husband ever to raise his voice to a disrespectful wife? And they had simply no category for that. So that put it in my mind, that gave me an idea.

I wanted to see what would happen if I would ask, you know, are husbands supposed to adorn themselves with a gentle and quiet spirit for their wife, too? Because if you're not allowed to raise your voice at all, then that seems like at least part of what the quiet part might be talking about, the idea of raising your voice.

And so then I wondered, well, maybe, do they see anything different there, you know, with the gentle and quiet spirit? Is that only for women to men, or is that just basically, you know, a two-way command there?

And I think it was like 55 said that, yeah, they should both have a gentle, quiet spirit towards each other.

Yeah, no, I looked at the poll just a few minutes ago, and the people saying that it did apply to men, that option won in the poll. And I didn't look to see how many people

I think it was like 55 to 45 or something like that. Something roughly like that.

Yeah, yeah, so 129 votes total, and 53 of them said, yes, men should also have gentle and quiet spirits, according to 1 Peter 3 anyway, which is, I'm gonna be honest, that's pretty concerning. You know, okay, and now, now, now, to be fair, I think at least based off of what some people were, you know, saying in their actual comments and their arguments for it, a lot of them were not, for whatever reason, they weren't actually pointing to 1 Peter 3 to prove that men should have a gentle and quiet spirit.

They were pointing to other things in the Bible. So things like, you know, Paul's listing of the fruit of the spirit, right? Where gentleness is one of those fruits of the spirit. I think another one was maybe some of Jesus' teachings.

I can't remember exactly, but

Jesus says, yeah, that he's gentle. Like, let's see, Matthew, a few of them, Jesus says, Matthew 11, 29, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and lowly in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls in me, essentially, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

So some of them use that.

I saw one argument for, you know, from 1 Timothy saying that Christians should lead, you know, peaceful and quiet lives. And so because of that, men ought to be gentle and gentle and quiet in spirit. So in fairness to the people who are saying yes, they weren't, you know, I want to assume, I want to assume that they were probably misunderstanding the question a little bit.

Because if we're just saying, hey, look, 1 Peter 3 specifically says that women should have a gentle and quiet spirit. And it even says that the beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit is unfading, you know, all very effeminate kind of language right there.

So for someone to read a passage like that just in a vacuum and say, yes, men should also have a gentle and quiet spirit is, if I'm just being honest here, it's just, it's just lazy and ignorant reading of scripture.

I mean, we don't read anything else like that.

Yeah, so part of the way I worded it, I worded it in such a way that a reasonable person should have understood that I was talking about, 1 Peter 3, meaning, I mean, I asked very specifically, should husbands also adorn themselves like in a gentle and quiet spirit towards their wives, you know, so I use the language of adornment and that's the language of 1 Peter 3.

But I mean, it very well could be that they just, it passed over their head that I was making reference to that for some reason, because they didn't even know what 1 Peter 3 says. And if that's the case, they're probably not really liable judges of what the right answer is in general, if they even know what the verse appealed to.

I think there's different ways to read these passages in general, meaning like the idea of, like if you're just to look at the language itself in 1 Peter 3, a wife should adorn herself with a gentle and a quiet spirit.

I think I've seen a lot of individuals online, particularly ladies who have kind of a loud personality and who talk in a loud kind of way, who I bet I could probably get people pretty riled up if I asked if ladies should be quiet, you know, like if they should have a quiet disposition in general.

I think even the reformed ladies want to fight that a little bit because they don't think that this verse is really about volume level at all. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Like, and I would say that, you know, I don't think it really is about volume level in the first instance, but I don't think that you can divorce the concept itself from having anything to do with volume level.

You know, so maybe if we could just try to think about the topic first with what the words are saying, and then what do they mean together? And then how do they apply with different genders? Like maybe that could be a good strategy to talk about what we're even talking about here.

But with the quiet word, you do have like a quiet spirit. So the idea of a quiet spirit in general, in the Greek, it is like, you do have a word that's talking about being a tranquil, like a tranquil spirit, a quiet spirit, meaning a spirit that isn't like at war, so to speak.

Does that make sense? Like, so the idea is like a lady shouldn't be loud and boisterous in the language of Proverbs, which means like, hey, look at me, I'm the center of attention. Pay attention to me, do what I say.

And I'm the contentious, quarrelsome kind of woman. So you have like the prostitute in Proverbs who is loud. She's described as loud. And I do think that has like a volume component, obviously, like meaning like commanding attention.

Everyone look at me, right, and do what I say. And then you have the contentious woman who obviously is going to have volume issues too, right? So like this idea of this quiet, tranquil spirit means you have a person, like a lady who has a disposition that isn't like a warlike disposition.

It's like a peaceable disposition. It's a submissive disposition in that way. It's not like her heart isn't a heart that's looking to fight. Does that make sense? Her heart is looking to follow. And that'll even show up in, I mean, I do think that that has some like volume kind of connotations for sure, in a way that I think a lot of the ladies who, you know, who might have a tendency to fight that kind of thing, they could do well to think about even the way they're communicating in terms of volume even.

But then like the idea of gentleness, I mean, I think with gentleness, you have an idea that is predominantly, like here's the thing, it's predominantly associated with women, but then it's not, like there are obviously passages where both Jesus and Paul described himself as being characterized by this language also too, okay?

So like the idea of gentleness is the, the word is praus, essentially. And like the idea is it's basically like pertaining to not being overly impressed by one's sense of self-importance. Gentleness, humble, considerate, meek in that way.

So, you know, the idea of gentleness in this way is really the opposite of proud, right? It's the opposite of proud. And I think, you know, the way you interpret these two words together, gentle and quiet together, you either have, like whatever way you go, you have to explain why Peter is saying this specifically to women and not to men.

And the problem is whatever route you go, it's offensive in different ways, okay?

Yeah.

Yeah, I especially think it's confusing because, you know, no one is going to come around and say that, hey, you know, like I think it's one thing to, I think it's one thing to, you know, think that 1 Peter 3 also applies to men, you know, because there's other places in the Bible that say that, that all Christians, you know, are supposed to be gentle in some way, right?

But then the quiet part is really, you know, I don't know. I mean, I guess unless you try and go like a, well, you know, the Bible says be quick to listen, slow to speak, therefore that means somehow be quiet.

I don't know.

That's like a, that is, like I said, it's one thing to think that the gentle thing applies to all people. I really don't understand how anyone can come to the conclusion that the quiet part applies to men and women the same exact way, especially in the context of 1 Peter 3.

So here's the two options that come to mind, but then either one of these options are not, no one's going to like them, okay?

All right.

Like me.

That's our specialty.

All right, there's three options. There's three options. And this is, I'll start with the one that a lot of people said online, and this is not right. So when they say gentle and quiet spirit, they're basically the idea, the strategy was to ignore the actual words that are being used.

So gentle and quiet, ignore those and then basically conclude that that phrase means submissive, okay? So gentle and quiet means submissive, and then that should be for women. But then the problem is that that's, so then those kinds of people would say, hey, quiet has nothing to do with volume whatsoever.

Gentleness, basically, who knows why that was there? But basically the idea is to be submissive. So the point was, the point though, is in the passage, these two words are being used to elaborate on what submission looks like, but then you can't ignore, like, you can't ignore the actual description.

Does that make sense?

Right, right.

Like meaning, like if you just say, hey, that gentle and quiet means to be submissive or whatever, then like the problem though is just to say, yes, this is in the passage which is talking about submission, but then it's giving you a description of what submission actually looks like, right?

So then you need that description. You can't just say, hey, it just means submissive, whatever that means. It's like, well, no, this is giving you a description of what a submissive woman's adornment towards her husband will actually look like, and it'll be gentle and quiet, right?

So in that way, so one, so the first attempt is just basically to say, who knows what the words mean? They just mean being submissive, so therefore be submissive, and they lose any like explanatory power as to what submission actually means in that way.

The second way to do it, and I don't know that anyone would like this, would be to say that, okay, both men and women should be gentle and quiet, characterized by gentleness and quietness in the same way, right?

As distinct ideas, except that women are being told to do this because they're naturally not. Does that make sense? So the thing that makes it distinct is that like they're naturally, as a result of the fall, really bad at being gentle and quiet.

They're gonna be like way worse at it than men, right? So like if you just camp out in this kind of framework for a second, what that would be, the idea would be, why does Peter tell women to do it? Because you're awful at it, as a result of the fall.

Your desire is gonna be to master your husband. You're gonna try to rule over him and dominate him. So you need to be told very specifically, do you need to fight that temptation in a way that the men, they're already, as a result of the fall, gonna be humble and compliant towards your wife.

Does that make sense? And so they don't need to be told it because they've already got it down. They're just like 100 times better at it than you.

Peter. Is that why Peter later on started talking about husbands, treat your wives with consideration as a delicate vessel, because they're not able to, they're just not able to do these things as well as God.

Is that what it was?

Jared. Well, you see, yeah, that would be one way to interpret it. And I don't know that a lot of people would like that one. The other way to interpret it is that there's something about a lady's disposition that a lady should be much more characterized by these adjectives than men, like meaning, if you were to take both of them together, you have the gentle, gentle one is not being overly impressed by one's sense of self-importance, humble, considerate, meek, a godly woman who clothes herself in humility, consideration, meekness, not being impressed.

By her own sense of self-importance. So like there's a unique kind of feminine, like this should be more characterized by women in general than men, as it would be, particularly as you're, you know, letting it be a description of submission in that way.

And then like the quiet part, you know, or the tranquil, the quiet spirit, the tranquil, well-ordered spirit in that way, like the peaceable spirit, like ladies aren't made for like fighting and war and contention and everything else.

Like that in that way, like that may be, those may be more masculine traits in general. Does that make sense? Like, so, and I think there's probably, I think there's probably like elements of both of those things that are at work in this kind of passage to where I think it is a little more complicated than what people realize, but I think there's a little, there's elements of both, like meaning, I think as a result of the fall, women are obviously going to try to rule over their husbands and they need to be told very specifically, hey, you need to be submissive to your own husbands.

You're going to want to fight them, right? You're going to want to be loud. You're going to want to be boisterous. You're going to want to be the contentious woman in that way, but you need to have the kind of humility to put yourself, needed to put yourself under the authority of your husband, right?

So like that's going to require a certain, you know, kind of humility that he is not going to have to have towards you in the same way, right? So he needs to be humble and like a humble person in general, but he doesn't need to be like humble in the sense of he's under your authority humble, right?

Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah.

And then he needs to have a, like he doesn't need to be like a warmonger or he doesn't need to be like a fighter towards you either, but then in the same kind of way, like it is his job to lead and it's your job to follow.

So this like being peaceable for a woman looks differently than being peaceable for a man, right? So like the idea, like meaning, like you're supposed to be subject to your husband, even if he doesn't obey the word and win him over without a word with your chase and respectful conduct.

So the idea is that both, I think here's the thing, both husband and wife take on these adjectives, but not in the same way. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

And then when you put them both together in this way, and then you say, hey, you know, should a husband be gentle and quiet towards his wife, just like a wife should be towards her husband? Well, the answer is obviously not, no, no, like, but they should both take on these character traits in different ways towards each other.

And then a woman should much more be characterized by these things as her standard mode of being, whereas like a man is made to fight in ways that women aren't made to fight. And there's more lawful uses of a man exercising those impulses, those fighting impulses than there are for women to do too.

And I think that makes a lot of sense when you look at Jesus's life, for example, because, you know, was Jesus humble? Yes, absolutely. I mean, he was God in the flesh. Pete. I mean, he came and took on the form of a servant.

I mean, you know, he showed humility in a way that, you know, none of us ever will in our entire lives. So, what, you know, was he humble? Yes. You know, was he often quiet at times? Sure. But then, you know, it wasn't Mary Magdalene going around making a whip and driving people out of the temple either.

Pete. Right.

Jared. Like you brood of vipers who want you to flee from the wrath to come. There may be no lawful use for a woman really to do that, you know, except maybe with children. You know what I'm saying?

Pete. I don't know though, if it's the best parenting strategy.

Jared I don't even think they can pull off. Pete Well, I mean,.

Pete. Even if you might want to, even if you might want to.

Jared. So the idea is like you have different adjectives that are used, you know, and so, I mean, the Bible will say things like this, meaning like Jesus says, like, you know, take my yoke upon me and learn from me for I'm gentle and lowly in heart, right?

Paul says, but we were gentle among you like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. Like that's, you know, that's like there's parallels, right? There's parallels. But then what happens is that when people see these things, they basically say, well, hey, there's nothing different about a man being gentle than a woman being gentle.

But the problem is that like when Paul is being gentle among the church, like a nursing mother, he's in no way comparable to the way an actual nursing mother would be towards her infant. You get what I'm saying?

Like it's an analogy that you're meant to make significant allowances for in your mind and in meaning like how it actually looks in practice, right? So like gentleness for a man looks very different than gentleness for a woman.

So if he's saying, hey, you know, we were gentle with you, like we didn't go to war against you at the beginning. There are points where he does go to war against the churches, right? Am I going to have to come to you with a rod?

Well, like there's a place for a man, like a man's standard disposition should be peaceable, right? And quiet. And there are times where, you know, men need to lay off, lay aside that in a way that women don't have as many.

Like that more summarize their disposition in general than it does with men. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

So men are made to fight. I can fight the enemies. Women aren't made to fight all the enemies in the same kind of way. So in that way, what's happening is people are just equivocating. So you basically have words that have different kind of applications to different genders, but they're not the same application.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So with the command in 1 Peter 3, I mean, it's not right to say that 1 Peter 3 applies to men, right?

Oh, no, absolutely not. 1 Peter 3, those words in that context, in that instruction, that is a unique gender-specific instruction to women that basically just to say that, hey, yeah, you should be submissive to your husbands.

And what that's going to look like, right? Is that you're not going to be at war fighting your husband. You're going to have a peaceable, quiet, you know, spirit. You're not going to be sassing him all the time.

You know, you're not going to be yelling at him all the time. You're going to be known, you're going to have a gentle, sweet, humble, submissive disposition towards him, right? So in that context, those words mean you need to have a submissive, humble, you know, quiet, following disposition towards your husband that's peaceable.

Like you probably want to put all that in there. You know, that's what it means. Like peaceable, you know, humble, quiet follower. You're not there to tell your husband the hundred ways in which he's messed up every single day and make every active leadership he has hard.

Like you're there as a follower role who, you know, you're not there just to be a thorn in the side, like a loud, boisterous, contentious, Proverbs 31 woman, for sure. So that has a very specific application there.

And then there's other ways in which, like there's ways in which a husband might be gentle towards his wife. And there's certainly ways in which a husband should be peaceable towards his wife, you know, but that more means he's humble as the leader, like a humble leader, not like a humble follower, right?

And he's, you know, peaceable as a leader would be peaceable to a subordinate, not peaceable as a subordinate would be to a, you know, superior in rank in that way, for sure.

So why then is it that so many Christians, you know, I mean, why is it that, you know, when you put a poll out like this, most of the people say, yes, you know, this command applies to both. Why, I mean, why, how have we gotten to a place where, you know, we're so convinced that men should follow all of the same exact commands women have, even to the point of like a command specifically addressed to women now applies to men in their mind as well.

Yeah, well, I mean, that's, I mean, the idea is that it's egalitarianism essentially. So the idea of egalitarianism is that we're all the same. We're all, you know, there's nothing different. We're basically interchangeable parts.

Men and women are the same functionally. I mean, there's only superficial differences in the minds of many people. So that God's like arbitrarily given men certain roles and given women certain roles.

And what you can't really do, you know, you can't really do this at all is you can't come along and point out the differences between men and women. You can't do that. So you basically have to view men and women as functionally the same, you know?

So we're, the only difference really is that, like in the minds of many people is that like a lady is actually a superior man. And I'm not saying that like as men go on their own way, bitter kind of person or something like that.

People think when I say these things that I'm just somehow bitter about it or something. But like the idea is I'm just, I'm speaking like the language of pure logic right now, okay? So like there's nothing emotional happening right now.

This is just pure logic. So think it through. If men and women are the same, but then women also can make babies and feed them with their bodies. It seems to me that a woman is a better man. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Meaning like women, if women can do everything a man can do and she has additional things you can do that men can't do, she's better than a man, right? So she's a better biological creation at that point because she has more inherent usefulness to them.

But the issue is it's just that's not really the way it works. And like men and women are just very different. They're made to do very different things. Women are made biologically to care for children.

And that's why even when Paul even used an analogy, we were like a nursing mother to you. He's basically just saying that there is an aspect of our pastoral care to you that in some small shadowy way mirrors like a woman's care for a child.

And everyone is supposed to make allowances in their mind to say that, but not even close, right? It's not even close to the same, but in one small way we can see how there might be a slight parallel or something like that.

But the idea is that people, they think of men and women as the same deep down. They think of them as the same. And part of it is because you're not really allowed to just talk about the differences. So the moment you start talking about the differences, then it's just like you come across like the 10-year-old boy or something looking at the 10-year-old girl saying, I can beat you up, right?

And that's what many people are trained. And so what's happened is like in a polite society, men shouldn't go around talking about all the ways in which they're better at things than women, right? Like that isn't really good form, but then the issue is that when you're living in a society that's constantly praising women, the society we live in, like their strategy for praising women is to tell women they're good at all the things that they're actually objectively bad at.

Does that make sense? So it's like, you go girl, you're strong, you're powerful, you're courageous. It's like, this is a joke. These are the things that men are strong at. Like men are strong and powerful and courageous.

Like women are not. They're, this is like biology and math and science are all converging together and God's word converging together to paint an entirely different picture that no one's allowed to talk about.

But what actually happens is when you tell like the ladies that they're strong and powerful and courageous, and then they're living in a society that protects them from ever having to find out how weak they are, then they might actually believe you.

So, but then the issue is like with, at every single level, what happens is like the society is saying, hey, women could be good leaders, and they're powerful and they're strong and they're courageous and they're independent and all this stuff, they don't need a man.

And so every single one of those things are just lies. They're all lies. Women was not made independently. She was made for man, right? So all those things are lies. And then what actually happens is in the minds of many people, they don't understand that men and women are different creatures that are made for different purposes.

And then if they believe the Bible at all, the Bible just says, hey, the guy's a leader. We don't know why, right? Like we have no idea why God made man a leader and a woman a follower because we've been telling women for years that they could lead just as well as a man.

We've been telling women for years that they're strong and powerful, courageous. We don't need, like why do we even need men for anything, right? Like men are just useless. Like they're all rapists, you know?

And

Pete Well, who would be the comedic relief in all of the 90s sitcoms?

Jared. I mean, it's true. So then once you get to that point, you have arbitrary commands. A man's supposed to technically lead somehow, but you got to be really careful with that because if he does try, then he's going to be a chauvinist and misogynist and everything else.

And if he does think, hey, there are things I'm better at than my wife, like maybe God made me a leader and her a follower because I'd be a better leader than her. And if we let her lead, maybe it'd be a disaster.

Like if you say something like that, people think you just demean women and you're misogynist and you hate women or something. And so, but then the end of the day though is, yeah, if we let men make the babies, how would that go?

It would go equally bad, you know? I mean, it really would. So think it through. So like we're okay with women being superior. We're not okay with like men having anything that's unique. And so then when you come to passages like this, and then you see like words that, like there may be certain senses in which a man and women do take on like the same kind of traits, you're not able to see how they're applied differently based on functional differences, role differences and everything else.

And so what you end up with is just a scenario where people, they really don't know. They're not allowed to say, they've been cowed into not being allowed to say men and women are different. They have different roles.

Petey. Well, it's really concerning too, because I think you brought this up last week, but you mentioned this idea when we were talking about Paul's charge to the men in the Church of Corinth to act like men, right?

I mean, he just says it that plainly. And there was a comment you made that I thought was pretty interesting when we were talking about that, where you pointed out that a lot of people actually, a lot of Christians actually look at, you know, a command like that and they don't actually read it as a gender-specific command, almost.

They read it more as a, you know, hey, men, act like Christians.

Jared Yep, that's exactly right.

Petey. And so this issue seems a little bit like, like it's the same problem, it's just on the other end of the spectrum, where now we're talking about, hey, here's a command given specifically to women.

And I mean, it is objectively to women and only women in 1 Peter 3. And, you know, you have this command that says, let's see.

Jared. Let your adorning be.

Petey. Yeah, adorn yourself with a gentle and quiet spirit, right? And so you have this command very specifically to women. And the impulse of many is to say, this applies to both genders.

Petey. Right.

And so it's very interesting that when it comes to the command given specifically to men, this, you know, saying act like men, that somehow means just general Christianity. That might as well say, you know, men of Corinth share the gospel.

Jared Right, that's what it means.

Because that's how people are reading it. But then when it comes to the command given to women, it's a, well, that's actually for everybody, kind of commit, you know, like that seems really concerning to me because it really does seem like in a lot of ways, we are trying to neuter men as much as possible in terms of their ability to lead, in terms of their ability to properly defend their families and their church from, you know, things like false teaching.

I mean, like, I think if you were to, if you were to entrust the same people who are saying 1 Peter 3 is a command to everyone, not just women, you would have a group of people who, if they had been there when Christ had done half of the things that he had done, they would have condemned him for it.

Jared Yep, yep.

Pete. You know, so when he's driving, when he's driving people out of the temple who are trying to profit,.

Jared That isn't very gentle and quiet.

Pete Yeah, I mean, like, they would have rebuked him for it, right?

Jared Right.

Pete I mean, when, you know, when he, when he's talking to the rich young ruler and he's just straight up, you know, you've got to do this.

Jared. Well, that's what they want. That's what they want right now. I mean, that's why, you know, the standard pastor that they want to hire is going to be the kind of person who basically is a submissive kind of pastor, right?