Mountain Oysters

I didn’t know much about America, Americans, and American cuisine when I went to the States in my late teens. The first Christmas, I went to Oklahoma, a cattle country, to stay with some friends. The main host, Bob, had a radio and television ministry. Every morning, we went to his office, recorded, and edited videos. One late morning, a retired judge in a cowboy outfit came in saying that he had locked the keys in his car and didn’t know how to get in. Bob and I went out with a court hanger and fiddled around the lock, and to our surprise, the doors opened. The judge asked us to join him for lunch to thank us. We accepted his offer, and he took us to a steak house. As we sat, Bob said, “Andrew should try mountain oysters.” The judge laughed, I had no clue, and Bob ordered mountains oysters for me. After I finished eating, Bob said they were the testicles of a bull.

A lack of knowledge can get us into trouble. Paul spoke of a similar incident while discussing food offered to God and Christians eating them. Some mature Christians thought that an idol wasn’t a god and ate food offered before idol gods. But new converts didn’t share the same thought and thought eating food sacrificed to idol gods was worshipping those gods. As such, Paul wanted the mature Christians not to hasten to eat food offered to idol gods (1 Cor 8:4–13).

We don’t combine knowledge with weakness but with informed or uninformed. But early Christians combined knowledge with weakness or strength.

I said all these to talk about another dangling or misplaced modifier.

After instructing the wives in his congregation, Peter instructed the husbands.

“Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.” (1 Pet 3:7, NIV)

The message was that wives were weaker than their husbands, but that didn’t give the husbands an upper hand because the wives were still heirs with them in salvation, and as such, they must live considerate with the wives. This is an acceptable translation.

But there is another way to read the text. Remember me saying that participles explain the main verb? This verse doesn’t have a main but two participles (“living together” and “showing”). In addition, the sentence begins with the word “likewise,” comparing what he said here with the above verses. The main verb there was “adorned themselves.” That’s the main verb here as well.

“Husband, likewise, adorn yourselves by living together with your wives with the knowledge as a weaker vessel and by showing honor as also to co-inheritors of the grace of life so that your prayers might not be hindered.”

The phrase “as a weaker vessel” modifies the husbands’ knowledge, not the wives. The husbands adorned themselves by living with their wives with limited or weaker knowledge, i.e., humility. They weren’t to live with an “I know it all” attitude or arrogance. Further, they were to live with respect honoring their wives as coinheritors. When they adorned themselves with humility as they lived with their wives and respected them as coheirs, their prayers reached God unhindered because there was unity, love, humility, and respect in the house. They were like Adam and Eve before the fall.