Call to Commitment

                Chosen and born again, with               resurrection life from Christ

       1.      Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,  

       2.      elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied. 

3.      Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 

4.      to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 

5.      who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 

 After an introduction of the apostle Peter and the people, to whom he is writing, I want to refer to the first verse again, simply to look at the word pilgrims.  When Jacob met the Egyptian Pharaoh, he referred to his life as a pilgrimage… he was one, who had not settled down, but was on a continual journey: “Jacob said to Pharaoh, "The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty years.” (Gen.47:9). He had learned that lifestyle from his father, Isaac, and his grandfather, Abraham.

 In Psalms 39:12, David identified with his forefathers as a foreign sojourner: “I am a stranger with You, A sojourner, as all my fathers were.”  The writer of Hebrews referred to the Old Testament saints, using the same Greek word, translated pilgrims in Hebrews 11:13, as in Peter’s first verse: “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” Peter is writing to pilgrims and I can see no other position for a Christian in this world, than that of a pilgrim (1).

 The apostle goes to great lengths to express to these people, with temporal residency on earth, that they have a history that was initiated by God the Father in eternity. He had chosen them, from the time that He had knowledge of them. Now, of course, we must consider the fact that, due to His omniscience, there is no beginning to His foreknowledge. In the timeless eons of eternity, He knew these pilgrims and chose them for His own. The place that they occupy in Peter’s day, was the result of God’s special attention given them from before the beginning of time.