Peter writing to the saints (v.2) in the Northern half of Turkey (Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, not Pisidia in the South), whom he knows not (v.1).
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Chapter 1
v.2: Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father...προγνωσιν (prognosin) here is not the kind of foreknowledge the Pelagians or the Molinists are tempted to define as precognition or prognosis. This is not a 100% forecast of what will come to be, as if God needs to obey a set of rules in Himself. If so, this Author is no better than our common authors of novels.
v.6-7: When we pray for challenges, we are not praying for negativity, as GCC's Pastor Chris often identify it as (it may not be surprising seeing him coming from a generation and culture of not taking up much challenges in life). We are praying for both negativity and positivity that only result in good. Not just one or the other. But here, negativity is stressed. So the wording is best put as challenges rather than negativities, to avoid misunderstanding. For challenges are always negative yet opening the possibility for positivity that is always, always, greater than non-challenges. The focus is in the worth of such sufferings and trials. "If need be" is truly needed. Only through this may greater praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ be found. The genuineness of faith is to be tested, as it is more precious than gold that perishes.
v.12: John Gill interestingly associated the hint of the Cherubim facing the mercy seat in Exo 25:20, with "which things the angels desire to look into".
v.20: Calvin treated this verse briefly on the question that "What if" Adam had not sinned. Or if before Adam had sinned, how could the remedy not be posterior to the disease? Calvin answered: God's foreknowledge. But he referred curious minds to his Institutes for further investigation. One could probably find it in Book III, Chapter 23, on the keyword of "foreknowledge". Where "decree" and "foreknowledge" are of equal standard: ...he foresees the things which are to happen, simply because he has decreed that they are so to happen...