Bill's Bible Blog

The life of Jacob’s 10th son, Joseph, meaning ‘God has given him’, is one of the favorites from Genesis. From the ‘coat of many colors,’ to slave, to prisoner, to a ruler in Egypt–the story seems to span the entire spectrum of human experience–kind of a ‘from rags to riches’ story that we in America like.

Joseph’s story is used as an example in many sermons about trusting God, about waiting patiently for God’s plan, about maintaining one’s faith in difficult situations. I’ve heard many of these types of sermons in the 50+ years I’ve been a Christian.

A couple of years ago, our men’s discipleship group studied the first part of the life of Joseph in Part 2 of a study of the Book of Genesis. The study was a typical look at what the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did, with the aim of becoming more godly men.

For part 1 of Joseph’s story, the focus was on his patience and trust in God while obeying His moral laws, even in the face of great personal difficulties. 

However, during my personal studies of the weekly passages, another viewpoint of these historical stories, very different than any I had ever seen or heard of, began to emerge.

Have you heard the saying, that Biblical history is really ‘HIS-story’? That what we read in the Old Testament is really about God’s promised Messiah–Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World? THAT was the perspective that began to emerge as we studied part 2 of Genesis. For Joseph’s section, I began to see how it wasn’t so much Joseph’s story as it was God’s. It was HIS-Story.

🍎 Personal Application:

I don’t know what your experience of God is, but in my life, He has been very subtle. His voice has been very quiet when He speaks to me, so quiet that I have to get away from all the noise of the world to hear it. And if I actually want to understand what He’s saying, I have to quiet my inner voices until His is the only voice I hear. All of this takes time that I often don’t spend doing as I should.

His touch on my life and on those around me is subtle too. There’s always the question, “Did God cause this, or did it happen randomly?” I pray and ask for a change and it happens. Was it God? Sometimes I’m not sure because there was no big fanfare, there wasn’t anything flashy. No “Presto change-o” magic words; the answer just kind of happened, or at least that’s how it seemed from my perspective.

And God doesn’t just answer our prayers like making wishes on a genie in a bottle. He’s the Sovereign Lord, Creator and Ruler of the Universe. He has His own plans–not only for His creation outside of us, but for us–His creations made in His own image.

For these questions about how God acts and carries out His plans, we can see at least a glimpse of an answer in the life of Joseph. It’s not the only historical story in Genesis, but it’s the longest one and the one where we can see God at work clearest on an individual level.

One answer to these questions is–it comes down to faith. The writer of Hebrews put it this way in chapter 11:

The second element of faith in this verse is we believe that God will reward us, if we ‘diligently seek Him.’  What does that kind of faith and waiting look like?

I believe Joseph’s example answers these questions about faith in God and more.

I invite you to join me over the next two months or so as I work from Genesis 37 to the end about the Life of Joseph, but first touching on the earlier passages as part of the rest of my introduction. I previously covered some of the other stories of the Patriarchs we looked at in my blog series, and links to those blogs will be provided.

CONCLUSION 🏁

😯 I was astounded by what emerged from my study of part two of Genesis two years ago!  I anticipate many more revelations about God and ‘HIS-story’ as I prayerfully study through the full life of Joseph. 👏

Bill 🤓
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PREVIEW 👀

1. Key verse 🔑

2. Major players 🎭

4. Many people =

🍎 APPLICATION:  What I learned from this study.

God is gracious!  He’s willing to include everyone around us when He blesses because He CARES about everyone and He wants everyone to KNOW that He cares.