Translating ὑποτάσσειν in the Petrine Station Code as Fitting in Instead of Submission

The call for all Christians to submit to the governing authorities in 1 Pet 2:13 and for wives and slaves to submit to husbands and masters in 1 Pet 2:18 and 3:1 pose a problem for both the exegete and those who hold these texts to be authoritative in some way. This paper examines the term ὑποτάσσειν and argues that rendering this term as “submission” cannot account for the resistance these texts enjoin on the reader. This paper concludes that “fitting in” is a better translation than “submission” because it communicates more adequately the diverse strategies recommended by the Petrine author for the readers to negotiate their complex social relationships with those in power.