Well, Joseph gets a surprise in Genesis 42:1-21. His brothers, every single one that threw him into the pit and then sold him into slavery, are in Egypt seeking to purchase grain, and they are bowing before him. Imagine that! Joseph's brothers don't recognize him. So Joseph proceeds, not revealing who he is and treating them fairly harshly. And the more he interacts with them, the more he finds out about his family.
So what do you think is up with Joseph here? The more I thought about it, I could understand Joseph's thinking and actions. Think about it. He hasn't seen his brothers in over 20 years, and the last time he saw them, they hated him. He doesn't have any clue what's transpired with his brothers. He doesn't know if or how they've developed or changed. So we see some investigating, probing and examining of his brothers. In my mind, that makes sense considering the situation. So Joseph's actions were a good reminder for me that there will be times when I need to be cautious and patient before I jump in and respond or act, and I need to be tuned in to when that may be the case.
So what spoke to you from this passage? What did you learn from Joseph or even Jacob and the brothers today? Tami W.
P.S. We're in the middle of a 3-week study on the life of Joseph. And if you'd like to go a little deeper, jump in to the series on Back to the Bible. It's called Joseph: Making Life Out of Lemons.
Surprise!
what spoke to me is that we need to give God the glory for all he does in our lives. I think like you said Tami we need to proceess evry situation before we jump in and let God lead us.
The word that came to me is - patients. So many times we want to "get even". But this is where we need to turn to Jesus and ask Him to take over. Every moment of everyday we should be talking to Him and asking for direction. We need to live by faith and not by sight.
What spoke to me is how awesome God is with His promises. He promised Joseph in a dream that his brothers would bow down to him and even though they tried to thwart God's plan for Joseph's life, they still ended up bowing to him. So, no matter what happens if God gives you a promise no one can change it with whatever they do to you.
If I had been Joseph, my heart would have been jumping inside of me thinking oh my goodness God really did fulfill the dreams that he gave me so many years ago. Good thoughts, Tami, on Joseph testing out his brothers. He wasn't sure what was really on their minds. Previously, I thought maybe he was just trying to get back at them a little bit.
I guess I've always seen this as caution on Joseph's part, as well. As the story proceeds, we find that he doesn't fail to show great generosity to them in the process, but he's got to be careful.
There was 2 statements in the scripture that said, "he (Joseph) reconized them but they did not reconized him." There was another statement which was, "he (Joseph)remembered dreams. Now Joseph's response to his brothers does not surprise me after the way they treated him, but Joseph's motive was different, Joseph treated them with a harsh love. But I think the most important question is, "what is God up to." We know the story and we know how it ends but Joseph's brother's don't nor any of the rest of the household.