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1Pe 1:1-2. SALUTATION
1 I, Peter, am writing this letter as the commissioned Apostle of Jesus Christ and you, my readers in various Roman provinces of Asia Minor are God’s chosen people, the new Israel of God, although (like the Jews of the Dispersion) you seem to be strangers in a foreign land. 2 My commission as an Apostle and your position as members of the chosen people are not the result of chance. They are based upon the fact that God, our Father, from the first contemplated us as His children and His agents, and He effected His purpose for us by consecrating us to His service by the Holy Spirit, pledging us to obedience (like Israel at Sinai) as sprinkled with the blood of the covenant victim, Jesus Christ.
May God’s gifts of favour and peace be increased by all that you have to undergo.
The salutation closely resembles the salutations of St Paul’s epistles and is probably formed after their model. It designates the writer and his authority, the readers and their privileges, and indicates one of the leading thoughts of the Epistle that Christians were set apart by God’s foreknowledge to be His chosen people, consecrated for a priestly life of sacrifice as covenanted members of Christ.