Through the years here we’re seen a variety of men and women say that if you are a believer married to an unbeliever you are to win them without a word. Smile and submit. Submit until he comes to the Lord. World without end. Today pastor John Piper of Desiring God says exactly the same thing before ending at a rather strange set of exceptions. None of which are things most normal folks minds go right to. Win him without a word right up until he asks for group sex? I swear, everyone in Evangelical Quiverfull has much dirtier minds than the average Joe!

First part, standard boilerplate Christianese about winning without a word by total submission:

Piper misses that what most people say about that scripture, that it means to smile and submit in all things until your man is convicted enough to accept Christ.

Then Piper warns you not to nag. Don’t nag him to glory.

I don’t even know what to say here, begging him and assuring him that he’s not second after God? How about about leaving him alone about his beliefs or lack of beliefs?

One thing I do know is that marriage in evangelical quiverfull circles sounds all types of bad, stressful and weird. No one really genuinely discusses legitimate problems, it’s all this carefully tiptoeing around land mines and conversations like this, that should just be a given. I would never assume if my partner loves a deity that he loves me less.

Piper spends a lot of paragraphs talking about Jesus and his words before we end up here, the strangest of left turns you could imagine. Sex yet again:

How do you issue a submissive no? Notice that while Piper is mentioning ‘wacko elders’ he’s not saying ‘wacko pastors’

Everything, and I mean everything, in this world eventually leads back to sex with these people. Talking with someone on the issues of a different faith couple should not automatically lead there!

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Tawreos

How could a good biblical woman find herself married to an unbeliever when the bible clearly states.

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? – 2 Corinthians 6:14

Of course it makes me wonder why their would be instruction for just such a thing in 1 Peter. It really doesn’t make sense when you consider that, at the time, they did things the way quiverfull wishes they still could like buying and selling woman to be wives. Wouldn’t the advice be better directed at the father to make sure he was selling his daughter to a good christian man and not just the highest bidder?

Weird, it’s almost like the bible was written by a bunch of people looking to control others and keep men in power instead of being inspired by a divine all knowing being.
Raging Bee

They don’t think it’s sufficient to say “I can’t do group sex because I’m not into it and wont be able to enjoy it?” That says a lot about these moralistic idiots2.

Also, did I miss the bit where they said “Win him without a word right up until he starts hitting you?” I should think they’d be eager to clarify that rather important bit.
Jim Jones

> “Smile and submit.”

The latest E L James book?
wannabe

A “good biblical woman [could] find herself married to an unbeliever” if she converted after marriage.
Tawreos

Oh sure. Come in here and poke the obvious holes in my theory that I should have seen and didn’t. And this is why I never deny being an idiot2. =)
Silverwynde

… group s3x shouldn’t happen unless all parties involved give enthusiastic consent.

Oh wait, this dude has no idea what enthusiastic consent actually is. My bad.
Dave Maier

Naturally he likes the verses that tell women to shut up.
persephone

The verse uses the word “may.” But Piper, of course, says “will.” Therefore, once again, if the husband doesn’t convert, it’s the wife’s failing, not the church, not the pastor, not the faith. It’s ALWAYS the wife’s fault.

And he says “wacko elder who’s left the faith” as someone not to submit to all the time, because, again, any elder or pastor in the church has to be obeyed without question, no matter the demand.
Jennifer

Seriously! I couldn’t believe his bald statement that he just loved those passages.
Jennifer

The wife shouldn’t even have to say I can’t do that because of Jesus. She should feel free to say, I’m not doing that because it’s gross and hugely disrespectful to ME as your wife! And I simply don’t like it, so no, I’m not doing it.
Aloha 2

Marrying an unbeliever sounds like a bad idea. All they want is group sex.

* That was sarcasm. But what a statement by Piper to automatically assume that an unbelieving husband is into such extreme types of sex. Or that believing husbands never are.
persephone

Weird, it’s almost like the bible was written by a bunch of people looking to control others and keep men in power instead of being inspired by a divine all knowing being.

Yes, funny that.

The men could easily divorce a wife, but a woman could not do the same. She was pretty much stuck, so I feel like it was sort of a “keep your chin up” bit to help the wives cope with a bad situation.
Jennifer

When Jesus spoke of “putting a woman away” He actually didn’t mean divorce; some immoral men would simply leave their wives without divorcing them and remarry later on. Divorce was mentioned as being permitted a few times in the Bible, just rarely.
Mel

Well, yes. Mainly because he wishes he could apply them to men as well.
Mel

I feel pretty safe that whoever wrote 1 Peter 3(ish) was trying to avoid nagging – but also avoiding that weirdly fangirl-meets-drippy-wife monologue that Piper put together. Also – and this is a quirky oversight by Piper – the wife’s response implies that she’d totally be down for group adult times in the absence of Jesus. So….why would the husband be drawn to Christianity when it is the ONE THING standing in the way of fun adult times?
AFo

These people spend way too much time worrying about what other people are doing in their bedrooms. Are they worried that someone might discover that sex is supposed to be fun and enjoyable instead of a chore to produce babies?
Saraquill

I think Piper was trying to write erotica1.
Saraquill

Worse, it might lead to dancing 😛
Quinsha

I thought that a marriage was supposed to be a husband, a wife, and Jesus. Sounds like group sex from the get-go.
24CaratHooligan

“We’re going to do group 7sex tonight” said no swinger ever…
Ruthitchka

That’s one of my favorite “Baptist jokes”. Told it to my Episcopalian mom the other day!
Saraquill

I’m more adept with Unitarian jokes myself.
Iain Lovejoy

On a side note, 1 Peter 3:1 doesn’t actually say that the wife wins her husband over without saying anything. What it actually says, after a section saying that Christians should be obedient to secular laws, authorities and customs, is: “Similarly, wives place yourselves at the service of your husbands, that even if some of them will not obey the word, through their wives’ conduct, if not with the word, they may be won over.”
It has nothing to do with not saying anything: “without” is a translation of a Greek word which means “apart from” or “separate from”. The point is that if hubby can’t be persuaded by preaching he may see the Christian wife’s exemplary and loving behaviour and think there might be something on this Christianity thing after all.
Desperate Ambrose

When all’s said and done, I think the best summation of the believer/nonbeliever dynamic is what True West magazine describes as an “Old Vaquero Saying”: “The best sermons are lived, not preached”.
Raging Bee

What?! Conservative Christians misinterpreting the Bible? That’s INCONCEIVABLE!!! You must have ignored the twelve-volume theological tome that retcons their bigoted opinions…

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Win Him Without a Word Right Up Until He Asks For Group Sex?

Comments open below

NLQ Recommended Reading …

Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement by Kathryn Joyce

I Fired God by Jocelyn Zichtermann

13:24 A Dark Thriller by M Dolon Hickmon