Joseph

The transatlantic blog continues, thanks so much to my good friend Matt Davis for doing Part 1 (http://onethessthree8.wordpress.com) of our Joseph series. Enjoy Round 2…

Intro

We know that the life of Joseph shows us certain things: primarily how suffering, no matter how (seemingly) unfair, develops strong character and deep wisdom. He ultimately wins through, forgiving his brothers and feeding a nation.  Remind you of someone?  Yep, he is a type of Jesus.  And we will use this Christocentric approach in each of our posts, showing how the gospel runs through the story, and how we apply it to our lives.

Part 2 (Gen 40-41)

Joseph we have seen in the previous chapters did well in the sight of God, however Potiphar had been told a vicious lie from his wife. She tells a story far from the truth – this wasn’t a small white lie, this was a lie which leads to Joseph being thrown in Jail and shown the back of the hand by Potiphar.

But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison. (Genesis 39:21). Wherever he sets his feet, the Lord goes with him, for God knows him personally. The keeper of the jail sees something in Joseph and gives him full control over the inmates, an amazing turn of events. We see that again that even though Joseph has been given the short straw, that he is mistreated again, dealt a bad hand, actually it is God’s grace that abounds and gives him new life.

Joseph wakes one morning and meets with a couple of the blokes in the prison. He sees that they are both unhappy, and look troubled. “What’s up?”, Joseph asked, well they both replied with the same answer. They both had dreams last night and were confused with what they meant. One was the Chief Cupbearer to the King (Potiphar – remember him) and the other guy was the Chief Baker. After explaining their dreams, Joseph knew God would reveal to him the meaning, so he began to tell each the interpretation of their dream. 

The Cupbearer it seems got the good news, he was to get his job back in 3 days time, serving the King. However in 3 days time, the Baker was to be killed and hung on a tree. Harsh perhaps. On the third day, it was Potiphar’s birthday and he did exactly as the dreams had been interpreted. Cupbearer lives, Baker dies. The one thing Joseph had asked of the Cupbearer was for him to remember what Joseph had done for him, but not a word was spoken, Joseph had again been forgotten.

This paints an incredible picture of Jesus.  He was the bread of life (John 6:35).  He was the vine branch (John 15:1).  On the night of his betrayal, he gave them wine, telling them it represented his blood that was going to be shed for you (Luke 22:20), and the bread that was going to be broken (1Corinthians 11:24).  He asked them to do this in remembrance of Him.  As we saw those in three days, the Cupbearer would be given life and the Baker would have his life removed from him. We see that picture of how Jesus would die and on the third day He would rise again.

Similar to Joseph, Jesus had the almighty favour of His Father. As we see in this chapter, Joseph continued to be obedient to God, Jesus was forever obedient in everything that the Father asked. 

God had a plan for Joseph, enabling him to rise to power, help feed the nation and show forgiveness to his brothers. In Jesus we see God’s plan for mankind, bringing salvation to the nations, restoring relationship between God and people, giving new life here on earth and in eternity with the trinity! Through the life of Joseph we get a glimpse of the coming Jesus!

Part 3 will follow shortly here….(http://onethessthree8.wordpress.com)

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