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A few more Josephs Posted at 04:40 PM - 03/29/09 in General by Dennis

Today in church, we studied Joseph.

To recap:  Joseph was a young man who had 11 brothers, 10 older  and 1 younger.  He was the favorite son, and had some dreams that made the older brothers jealous, and mad.  So, they dumped him in a cistern, and then sold him into slavery (nice, huh).  He ends up in Egypt, with Potiphar who is the Captain of the Guard.  God blesses him, and he ends up running Potiphar's household, until Potiphar's wife takes a liking to him.  When he turns her down, she get him thrown in prison after claiming that he attacked her.  Once in prison, The Lord blessed him once again, and he found favor with the warden who put him in charge of everything at the prison.  So eventually the Pharaoh had some dreams that only Joseph was able to interpret.  Joseph tells Pharaoh that there will be 7 years of abundance, followed by 7 years of severe famine, and that he should save up in the abundant years so there would be food to live on in the years of famine.  Pharaoh thinks this is a pretty good plan, so he puts Joseph in charge of all of Egypt, and tells everyone to do whatever Joseph tells them.

Today's sermon was all about being a good steward, like Joseph was for Egypt, saving for a (not) rainy day so to speak.  One of the things that Pastor Mike said was, "We don't need Democrats or Republicans in charge, we need Josephs in charge."  That really stuck with me, because instead of saving for the bad times, we've (as a country) been foolishly squandering what we had during the good times.  Proverbs 21:20 (NIV) says:  "In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has."  I guess we've been foolish.

If you'd like to read the story of Joseph, it is located in Genesis 37, and Genesis 39 - 48.