First Peter, the First Chapter, verses 1 and 2.

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens scattered through Alponches, Galatia,

Capidocia, Asia, Bethinia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying

work of the Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood.

May grace and peace be yours in fullest measure.

Father in heaven, I praise you for babies, I praise you for light, I praise you that we are

redeemed, and I praise you that we are elect in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world.

And I ask that you'd come now and help me to deliver this word in Jesus' name,

Amen.

The first word in Jesus' name, Amen.

The first word, the very first word that Peter uses to identify the believers scattered throughout the regions of Asian,

Bethanyan, and Kepidocian, and Pontus is the word elect. Now you can't see that if you have a new American Standard Bible or if you have a King James Bible or if you have a revised Standard Bible, you can see it if you have a new international version.

The reason you can't see it is because the translators are very eager to take the word

elect or chosen and move it from its first place down either at the end or at the beginning

of verse 2. End of verse 1 or beginning of verse 2 because they want to show that it is connected directly

to the three phrases in verse two which tell us three things about our election.

We elect according to the foreknowledge of God. We are elect by the sanctifying

work of the Spirit. We are elect to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood. Those three things define election. They tell

us about the origin of our election in the foreknowledge of God. They tell us about the experience

of election in the sanctifying work of the spirit and they tell us about

the goal or the purpose of election, namely that we might obey Jesus.

It's so crucial to see the connection between election and those three things in verse two that most translators take the word from its position at the beginning and move it to the end of verse one or put it at the beginning of

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