When you think of examples of biblical courage, who comes to mind? Perhaps Abram leading his 318 fighting men into battle to rescue his nephew Lot? Or perhaps young David and his sling facing off against Goliath? Or perhaps Peter and the apostles standing before the Sanhedrin and boldly promising to obey God and not men?

All of these would be good answers. But here’s another, courtesy of the apostle Peter himself: Sarah, the wife of Abraham. In his letter to the churches in Asia, Peter commends Sarah as a model for her spiritual daughters who “do good and do not fear anything that is frightening” (1 Peter 3:6). Sarah is a prime example of biblical courage and fearlessness, and exploring the expression and source of her courage can strengthen women of God today.

Her Well-Ordered Soul

What form did Sarah’s courage take? It began in what Peter calls “the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (1 Peter 3:4). This is not a personality trait (as though God prefers introverts to extroverts). There’s nothing inherently virtuous in being a shy wallflower. Instead, “a gentle and quiet spirit” refers to mental fortitude, emotional strength, and spiritual composure. This sort of woman has a well-ordered soul, one that is composed and content in her calling and station.

“‘A gentle and quiet spirit’ refers to mental fortitude, emotional strength, and spiritual composure.”

A quiet spirit is the opposite of a loud one. Consider Solomon’s warnings about the forbidden woman, the adulteress: “She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home” (Proverbs 7:11). The apostle Paul issues a similar warning about women who are “idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not” (1 Timothy 5:13). The opposite of such loud, discontented, wayward women is those who “marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander” (1 Timothy 5:14).

In sum, Sarah-like courage begins with a composed soul, with firmness and emotional fortitude to be self-controlled — not brash, harsh, loud, or meddling, but sober-minded and strong in the face of dangers and potential fears. We might consider Peter’s commendation in light of an earlier exhortation, where he urges all of his readers to roll up the sleeves of their minds, be sober-minded, and set their hope fully on the coming grace of Christ (1 Peter 1:13). Such is the posture of Sarah’s spiritual daughters.

Feminine Courage in Action

Though such courage starts with the hidden person of the heart, Peter is clear that it becomes visible and manifest. He says that the well-ordered soul is a beautiful adornment for a wife — a beauty that is expressed not in the ostentatious and decadent way of the world, but in Sarah-like submission to her husband.

This is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. (1 Peter 3:5–6)

Notice that submission involves both actions and words. Sarah obeyed Abraham, and she called him lord.

Modern people may chafe under such exhortations or roll their eyes. Our egalitarian culture has conditioned many to bristle at any talk of obedience (at least outside of very small children). The words submit and obey now carry infantilizing or patronizing connotations. For a wife — a grown woman — to obey her husband is to debase herself. For him to desire and expect such submission is boorishly arrogant and presumptuous. What a different world the Bible is.

When Equality Goes Awry

C.S. Lewis would undoubtedly say that our imaginations have been baptized by the democratic and egalitarian sentiments of our age, and this to our own harm. While recognizing the need for some measures of political equality, Lewis lamented and warned of the danger of an undue elevation of equality.

The man [or woman] who cannot conceive of a joyful and loyal obedience on the one hand, nor an unembarrassed and noble acceptance of that obedience on the other, the man who has never even wanted to kneel or bow, is a prosaic barbarian. (“Equality,” 9)

The submission of Sarah does not diminish her in the slightest. She obeys Father Abraham, the great patriarch, because she is Mother Sarah, the great matriarch. She calls him lord because she is his lady, his wife, his glory.

We ought to recognize the significance that Peter references Genesis 18:12: “So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, ‘After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?’” What’s remarkable about Peter’s citation is how unremarkable the term is in the passage. The use of the honorific term lord is, in context, rather mundane. This is simply the way Sarah talks about her husband.

Two Questions for Christian Wives

In commending Sarah at this point, it’s not necessary that we bring back the use of the specific term lord. The particular term is a matter of custom and convention, differing across time and space. The more pressing issue is the heart, the orientation, the spirit from which the words come. And so, Christian wives would do well to ask themselves a couple of pointed questions.

How do you speak about your husband? Do you speak well of him to others? If someone’s perspective on your husband were based solely on your words, what impression would they have of him? In other words, is your speech marked by respect and admiration for him, or contempt and dishonor? What sort of heart does it reveal — a loud and discontented one, or a gentle and quiet one?

What’s more, how do you speak to your husband? Are his initiatives met with scoffing and scorn, or with eagerness and support? Do you take his words, efforts, and labors (even the weak ones) and seek to make them more fruitful, more abundant, more glorious? To use other language from Peter, is your conduct toward your husband respectful and pure (1 Peter 3:2)? Does it show proper holiness, regard, and esteem?

Bravery Before Warriors

Looking to Sarah as a model of submission, obedience, and respectful conduct and speech doesn’t entail that a wife join her husband in disobedience, or passively accept his negligence and folly.

“This sort of woman has a well-ordered soul, one that is composed and content in her calling and station.”

Just consider Abigail, a true daughter of Sarah if ever there were one. She recognized the ingratitude and idiocy of her foolish husband Nabal and immediately took action to save her household (1 Samuel 25:14–35). But she did so like Sarah, not like Abraham. Abraham showed courage by assembling 318 fighting men and leading them into battle. Abigail showed courage by assembling gifts and food and offering them to David with respect, honor, and gratitude while appealing to God.

In other words, Abigail, in seeking to rectify her husband’s sinful error and folly, showed the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. Her soul was in submission to God, content in his kindness, and ready to speak and act with appropriate submission and obedience. And God blessed her.

Deepest Source of Courage

Sarah-like courage begins with a well-composed soul, the hidden person of the heart, and then expresses itself in respectful words and obedient conduct. But underneath the hidden person of the heart is something even more fundamental, which we dare not miss. The fundamental marks of women like Sarah are holiness and hope. “This is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves.” Sarah hoped in God. He was her refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. He upheld and strengthened her in the face of dangers, and this holy hope composed her soul and quieted her heart.

Submission, obedience, and respectful speech adorned this hope. Maintaining this hope was undoubtedly difficult. It’s frightening to follow a fallible man, especially when God calls him to leave country and kindred and journey to a far country. Maintaining such hope requires real mental and emotional effort. But God was gracious, and Sarah hoped in God and did not fear anything that was frightening.

May her daughters today do so as well.

Audio Transcript

Well, if you listened Friday, we looked at 1 Peter 3:8. There Peter calls Christians to strive toward “unity of mind.” But we also saw that this “unity of mind” is not uniformity. We don’t all think identically, which means that Christian unity must hold together by love, not simply by uniform thinking. Without this critical heart of love, unity simply cannot happen.

And speaking of love, and how love unifies, just a little later Peter goes on to say, in the same letter, that love “covers a multitude of sins.” Our love covers sins. Peter makes that point in 1 Peter 4:8. But what does this mean? Two listeners want to know. Dustin in Atlanta asks, “Pastor John, how does love cover over a multitude of sins? What sins? Whose sins does it cover — mine, or the person or people I’m loving?” Similarly, Alan in Brisbane, Australia, asks, “Pastor John, what is Peter driving at in this text? Are we covering over our own inclination to sin by loving, or covering over others’ sins by not reacting to them — that is, forgiving them rather than taking revenge?” Pastor John, what would you say to Dustin and Alan?

Here’s 1 Peter 4:7–8: “The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly” — and here comes that key phrase — “since love covers a multitude of sins.” So let’s begin by observing a few Old Testament texts that lie behind Peter’s language of covering a multitude of sins.

Old Testament Backdrop

For example, here’s the closest parallel — Proverbs 10:12: “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.” That’s really close to what Peter says, that “love covers all offenses.” You can see how close the parallel is to Peter’s “love covers a multitude of sins.” So what does this proverb mean? The contrast is between hatred and love. What hatred does is stir up strife, and what love does is cover offenses. The opposite of covering offenses is to stir up strife.

I take the strife to mean what happens when you don’t cover offenses, but rather when you try to uncover as many as you can. You’re on the lookout for people’s flaws and failures and imperfections. You draw attention to them, and you stir up conflict by pointing out as many of a person’s flaws as you can. That’s what hate does, according to Proverbs.

The opposite of this would be that you’re not eager to draw attention to people’s flaws or failures. You’re not eager to create corporate blame and conflict. Instead, love seeks to deal with flaws and failures and sins another way, more quietly.

Of course, you’re not ignorant that some sins must be dealt with publicly — as in the case, say, of sexual abuse or some kind of violence. But you also know that there are hundreds of things that people say and do that are offensive, or selfish, or prideful, or off-color, and they need to be dealt with quietly and kindly. I think this is what Paul was getting at in Galatians 6:1, where he said, “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.”

In other words, you don’t blow a trumpet and try to placard the person’s transgression all over the community. You do your best to bring about repentance quietly, personally. Or if there are reasons that it’s not your place to confront the person, you simply give the person slack, and you hope and you pray that the kindness that you show by overlooking the sin would have a good effect in due time.

Two Ways to ‘Cover’

So cover offenses can have two meanings. One is to simply “let it go; overlook it,” and that’s referred to in Proverbs 19:11: “Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.” That’s one meaning of cover — to overlook. You see it, but love inclines you not to take offense, be angered, or be hurt, but to hope that your endurance of the injury (perhaps against you), your forgiveness, and your patience will bear fruit in change.

The other meaning is that, under that cover of patience, you may be quietly and actively dealing with the person in one-on-one ways that quietly and actively seek repentance. We shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that when “love covers a multitude of sins,” it’s not talking to anybody. Love wants peace, not conflict. Love wants holiness, not sin. Love wants the good of the sinning person, not public vengeance.

“To ‘cover’ is to work toward forgiveness.”

And in both of these meanings of cover — the “overlook” one and the “quietly deal with the sinner” one — there is a forgiving spirit at work. We see that in Psalm 32:1: “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” In this verse, cover parallels forgive. To cover is to work toward forgiveness, where the sin doesn’t break the relationship anymore.

Now, back to 1 Peter 4:7–8: “The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” So against the Old Testament background, as well as the New Testament parallels that we’ll see in just a minute, the sins that are being covered here are the sins of fellow Christians. Not your own sins, and not those outside the church, but the failures of Christians to live up to the biblical path of righteousness.

Parallels in Paul

And with that in mind, we start to see this work of love all over the New Testament. That covering idea is everywhere. For example, in 1 Corinthians 13:5, it says, “Love is patient and kind. It does not keep an account of wrongs.” That’s the New American Standard Bible, and it’s good. Isn’t “not keeping account of wrongs” the same as saying that “love covers wrongs”? Love doesn’t keep an account of them.

Or Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians 13:5 and says, “[Love] is not irritable.” That’s like “overlook.” It’s like “covering.” Isn’t that the same as saying that “love covers irritations”?

Then he says, “Love bears all things . . . endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). Well, “bears and endures” means that love doesn’t throw your flaw and your failure back in your face. It bears it. It endures it. That’s covering it, rather than waving a flag over it and saying, “Hey, everybody, look what I found. Jim is a loser — he offended me. Mary is a hypocrite — she hurt me.” That’s not bearing and enduring. It’s not covering.

We also see this covering work in Colossians 3:13, where Paul says to believers, “[Bear] with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, [forgive] one another; as the Lord has forgiven you.” So enduring, forgiving, means that people have offended me, hurt me, irritated me, and I choose not to retaliate. Instead, I cover the offense of the hurt or the irritation.

Covered by Christ

The closest parallel in the New Testament to 1 Peter 4:8, which sheds even more light on what’s going on with this covering, is James 5:19–20: “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth . . .” So you’ve got a believer who’s straying off, about to make shipwreck of faith. James continues: “If anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back . . .” You go after your brother. You quietly plead, and deal, and pray, and share, and you win him. Finally, he ends by saying, “. . . let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.”

“As we cover the sins of those who offend us, we are offering them an expression of Christ’s covering by his blood.”

In other words, when we mercifully pursue a wayward brother or sister and win them back to the path of faith and obedience, they are saved from making shipwreck of their faith. And when they take their place under the blood of Jesus, all their sins are not only covered by our own patience and endurance and forgiveness, but they’re also covered by the blood of Jesus, which is why James says that you will save their souls.

So I think it is fair to say, as we cover the sins of those who offend us, rather than retaliating, we are offering them an expression of Christ’s covering by his blood, so that if they rest their faith in Christ because of our kindness, our covering, they will experience the ultimate kindness and the ultimate covering of the forgiveness of sins in Christ.

How do you approach the Lord’s Table? What is your attitude when you partake of it?

For many years, I viewed Communion as mainly a time of deep introspection, somberness, heaviness, and self-examination. Somewhere along the way, I picked up that this was the right and proper way to approach. I subtly adopted a number of unwritten rules for receiving the Lord’s Supper:

Bow your head.
Close your eyes (or look at the floor).
Hunch your shoulders so that you feel the heaviness of this time better.
Search your heart for unconfessed sin.
Avoid eye contact with others.
Try not to be distracted by the 6-year-old behind you who wants to know why he can’t have a snack like everyone else (or feel guilty because it’s your 6-year-old doing the distracting).
Check your heart for sin again, just to be sure.
Think deeply about your own wickedness.
Try to think about the cross (but don’t forget your own wickedness).
Seriously, don’t acknowledge, notice, or make eye contact with your neighbor; you don’t want to interrupt what God might be doing next to you.

Now, this somber, grave, introspective attitude had reasons beneath it. Paul says clearly that it’s possible to eat the bread and drink the cup “in an unworthy manner” (1 Corinthians 11:27). To partake in this way is to be guilty of the body and blood of Jesus and to drink judgment on oneself (verse 29). This type of sin is so serious that God brought illness and even death upon some of the Corinthians for their failure to eat and drink in a worthy way (verse 30).

Given these realities, it’s good and right for there to be a kind of gravity and weight to the meal. At the same time, it’s important to recognize just how flagrant the sins of the Corinthians were.

What Was So Unworthy?

The Corinthian church was wracked by factions and divisions. Those divisions clearly manifested themselves when they came to the Lord’s Table. Or more specifically, they forgot whose table it was. Far from being the Lord’s Supper, it became John’s supper and Jane’s supper and Mark’s supper and Carol’s supper. Everyone treated it like it was “his own meal” (1 Corinthians 11:21).

The Johnsons brought a spread that would make Solomon jealous, but they refused to share any with the Smiths, who had nothing. In fact, humiliating the Smiths was the reason they brought so much (verse 22). Some of the deacons were three sheets to the wind in the back of the room. Brother Billy had passed out in the third row (verse 21). The meal was marked by the flaunting of wealth, haughtiness, greed, drunkenness, and overall selfishness.

In a word, the Corinthians were despising the members of the church of God (verse 22). And in despising them, they were despising the Lord who bought them. That was the unworthy manner that brought God’s discipline and judgment down on their heads.

When Gravity Goes Wrong

My unwritten rules distorted the gravity that should mark the meal. I always felt rushed because I was rapidly running through my mind looking for leftover, unconfessed sins.

My goal as the elements were distributed was to make myself feel the weight of my sin and the horror of the cross so that I could receive the elements in a worthy manner (a grave, somber, heavy, introspective one). The result is that the Lord’s Supper became largely about me retreating into my cocoon to “feast” on Jesus with a heavy heart. My whole demeanor communicated this through hunched shoulders and eyes staring at the ground, only looking up to take the plate and pass it on.

What was noticeably lacking from my experience of Communion was a strong sense of awe, wonder, joy, Godwardness, and gratitude. In my zeal for gravity, I had forgotten gladness. What specifically did I miss?

Missing Ingredients

First, I missed that Jesus established the meal with thanksgiving. “The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it” (1 Corinthians 11:23–24). This is why some Christian traditions refer to the Lord’s Table as the Eucharist (from the Greek word for thanksgiving). The first note struck when the meal was given was gratitude to God.

“The first note struck when the meal was given was gratitude to God.”

Second, I missed that the meal was a meal for sinners. “This is my body, which is for you.” Every “you” in that sentence is a sinner, a broken rebel, a child of wrath saved by sovereign grace. Matthew records that Jesus specifically drew attention to the Supper’s connection to our sin. “He took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’” (Matthew 26:27–28).

In the Lord’s Supper, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. And the Lord’s death is explicitly a death for sinners. “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3). Therefore, sinners belong at the Table. In ourselves, we may be unworthy, but we have been made worthy by the blood of Jesus. We can approach the Table boldly because the patriarch at the head of the table sits on a throne of grace, making it a table of grace.

Meal Preparation

How then should we come to the Table? What should our demeanor and attitude be? Picture the prodigal son after he’s returned home. When the father killed the fattened calf for the celebration of the prodigal’s homecoming, he would not have been pleased or honored if his lost son had sulked in the corner all night, muttering about his unworthiness and trying hard to remember what it was like in the pigsty. Such an attitude in itself would not honor the graciousness of the father.

What would honor the father is if that sense of unworthiness that he felt on the way home from his sinful exploits gave way to a profound sense of amazement that he was actually sitting at his father’s table, fully restored to communion with him. What would honor the father is if, when the music started, the prodigal danced like he never danced before. That is a real gold ring on his finger. Those are shoes on his feet. That is the robe of inheritance on his back. And he can still feel his dad’s kiss on his cheek.

Amazement rises and converges with gratitude and joy and gladness, the kind that makes you want to pinch yourself to make sure that you’re not dreaming. What if we approached the Lord’s Table in that way?

“Self-examination has its place, but it is best done before we get to the Table.”

Of course, like the prodigal, this does assume that we’ve recognized our sin and turned from it. Self-examination has its place, but it is best done before we get to the Table. This is why, at my church, we set aside a time early in every service for the confession of sins and the assurance of pardon. By the time we get to the Table, we want our people ready to gladly eat in the comfort of God’s grace. (If your church’s liturgy doesn’t include a time of confession, you can still take a moment before the service, or during one of the early songs, and confess your sins in preparation for Communion.)

Full Cups and Full Hearts

Finally, as we come to the Lord’s Table, we remember that we are coming to eat together. This is a family meal. As Paul says, we all eat of one bread; therefore, we who are many are one body (1 Corinthians 10:17). This is not about Joe and Jesus in their special clubhouse with crackers and juice. It is not accidental that we eat this meal when the church is assembled. This is a meal of koinonia — of communion and fellowship.

When we are born again, we are born again into a family, the family of God. Baptism pictures this, as Adam’s children are buried and then emerge as sons of God through Jesus Christ, who is the firstborn among many brethren. Baptism depicts entrance; this meal is the regular family dinner. We partake of the one loaf together. We partake of the cup of blessing together. We feast on Christ together.

Practically speaking, this means that it is good and right that we notice and acknowledge each other during the meal. There are other prodigals at this table, each with a story of sovereign grace. Killing one fattened calf for one wayward son is one thing, but slaughtering the herd because a thousand prodigals came out of the pigsty is mind-boggling.

Therefore, it is good and right to look around and notice them, even smile at them. You don’t have to speak; let your eyes tell the story. “Can you believe that we’re here? That he actually invited us?” Take a moment, look around at all the people — young and old, rich and poor, male and female, from many tribes and nations — and say to yourself, “These are my people. This is my family.”

Next time you come to the Lord’s Table, come with gravity and gladness. Marvel that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have enfolded you into the triune life. Rejoice that God has made you worthy to enter his presence. Thank your heavenly Father for his kind provision of daily bread and living bread. Strike up one of the ancient songs and sing and smile and weep and laugh together.

Feast together, in a worthy manner, with a full heart, for the glory of God.