The Story, Week 3

This section covers one of the more famous stories in the Old Testament; Joseph.
Let’s summarize our way through this part of the Bible and pull out some practical lessons as we go. The practical application parts are italicized.

Joseph is one of 12 brothers, the sons of Jacob. He is the favorite, and Jacob lets everyone know it. Joseph shares some dreams he as about his brothers bowing down to him. The other brothers were rightfully a little hurt. Even when we are dealing with God’s plans to bless us, humility is so very important. Even if God reveals to you that His plan involves you being very successful in some area, or even if you understand that God has gifted more than others in some area, sharing these things in an improper way always leads to trouble.

This hurt among the brothers ends up going way too far. Jacob sends Jo out to check on the brothers and they see his bright coat coming a ways off. They plot to kill him, but Rueben speaks up and talks the group into just throwing him in a well instead. Rueben’s attempt at mercy seems disgusting (Let’s not murder him, lets just through him in a pit and then sell him. After all, he is our beloved brother). He should have stood up and rebuked his brothers for their hatred. As sad as this is, it strongly resembles our attempts at mercy and generosity at times. We often pat ourselves on the back for helping someone in the most minuscule way, or for treating people just a little bit better than others, after all they are our fellow humans and after all God does love them too. The reality is we often pick and choose who is worthy of substantial help and who is worthy of real mercy, and give everyone else a scrap here and there.

Joseph is sold to the Ishmaelites, who in turn sell him in Egypt to an important guy named Potiphar. Over time he proves his administrative skills to Potiphar until he is running the entire household. Potiphar actually says “You are in control of everything I own.” Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce the young studly Joseph but he resists over and over again. Notice Joseph’s understanding of stewardship. He recognized that in spite of how easy it would be to feel entitled, or proud, or like he had earned the right to cheat a little, none of this stuff was actually his. That included Potiphar’s wife. She grabs him and tries to drag him to bed, but he takes off running and leaves her with his cloak in her hands.
Some situations are risky enough that you should just run. Get out of there. Whether is spiritual pride or the secret desire to keep certain things in our lives, we often think we can continue to be around a certain temptation without it affecting us. “I’m strong enough to resist this, so it’s ok for me to be around it.” That is arrogant, and dangerous. Joseph realized the best way to deal with this very tempting situation was to run. Here’s some practical truth: If you struggle with getting drunk with your friends…DON’T GO TO THE BAR WITH YOUR FRIENDS! If you struggle with boundaries in your relationship…DON’T HANG OUT IN THE BEDROOM WITH THE DOOR SHUT! Don’t continue to struggle with the same things because you’re too proud to get out the situation.

She lies about what happened and convinces Potiphar that Joseph tried to rape her. Joseph gets thrown in jail. While he’s in there are 2 major things happen. First, the jailor begins to see that Joseph’s admin skills are amazing and Joseph gets a pretty serious promotion. He goes from normal inmate to an inmate who is running the entire jail. The other thing is that Joseph interprets a few dreams for some officials and becomes known for this ability.

Now, the pharaoh has 2 dreams that nobody can figure out. He hears about Jo and calls for him. Jo gives glory to God saying, “I can’t do this, but God can.”
It is so easy to begin to think you are the source of good things in your life. You are the one with talents. You are the one with good work ethic. You are the one who is better at this or that than everyone else. Because we think we are the source of good things we think we feel the need to take credit for these things. This is not to say hard work doesn’t deserve credit, but we must remember that the ultimate source of every good thing and every ability is God (James 1:17). Therefore, He deserves the credit.
Joseph explains that the dreams mean there are going to be 7 years of plenty followed by 7 years of drought and famine. Then he suggests Pharaoh save enough from the 7 years of surplus to last through the 7 years of famine and that a very smart person be put in charge of this plan. Pharaoh is so impressed he takes Joseph out of jail and makes him the number 2 person in the entire nation. In fact, similar to Potiphar and the jailor, he tells Joseph, “I’m putting everything in your hands. You are actually running this thing. I’m only more important than you in name.”

Stop and think about this process. This story is one of betrayal and struggle and trial, but it also allowed Joseph to train and develop a raw talent. He didn’t get pulled out of the cistern and land a job as the deputy Pharaoh. Not looking at the roadblocks, but the promotions, Joseph was put in charge of a single household, then a jail of several hundred, AND THEN a nation of several million. How important is it that we are willing to go through the steps? How important is it that we are willing to start small? This is not just common sense, it’s often God’s way: prove yourself in small things and then move up to larger things. You may not graduate from college and land a VP job at Apple. Jesus taught this very principle in Matthew 25:21

This is where the story gets really juicy. 2 years into the famine Jacob and the other sons start to starve. Jacob hears Egypt has plenty of food so he sends them to buy some food from Egypt. He sends everyone except Benjamin, Joseph’s only full brother. Apparently he had taken Joseph’s place as the favorite son and Jacob was worried he might lose him too. They show up and don’t recognize Joseph. But they do bow down. It’s been about 22 years since he had this dream. That’s a long time to wait for God to fulfill a promise. Joseph is nervous that Ben isn’t with them thinking they’ve done the same thing to Ben as they did to him. He concocts this big plan to make sure Ben is alive. He sends them back with orders to bring Benjamin and he keeps one of the brothers as collateral. Jacob is all bent out of shape but they really don’t have any choice. So they bring Benjamin back and Joseph sees all of his brothers. They still don’t realize who he is.

Joseph had the perfect opportunity to have vengeance. They are completely at his mercy. He has the full authority of the pharaoh. He could order them to be killed, or made into slaves, or thrown into a cistern. But he doesn’t. Instead he is moved with love for his family and rejoices when he learns his entire family is still alive and well. In fact, several times in this story it says he got so emotional that he had to leave the room to cry and weep.
Why didn’t Joseph get even? Why didn’t he show any resentment at all towards his brothers who almost killed them then at the last minute decided to sell him instead? Because at this point Joseph realizes God’s sovereign hand has been in this entire situation. At this point he realizes that all this had to happen to fulfill the original dream. I don’t think he denied the suckiness of the situations he had been in, but he saw the bigger purpose behind them and recognized God was working good into these horrible situations. He even tells his brothers, “Don’t beat yourselves up about that. You didn’t send me here, God did.” That realization is so much more powerful than grudges and bitterness.

This new nation that is central to God’s plan was in jeopardy. This nation was only 4 generations old, and couldn’t even be called a nation yet, but they were in danger of starving to death. God went to these lengths to bring Joseph to a position where he could ensure the survival of Abraham’s family.