If going through what Joseph has gone through over the previous 13 years is the requirement for the Holy Spirit to be recognized in me, then I’m definitely not sold on the proposition.  Joseph was being groomed for high responsibility and high visibility, for literally that one-in-a-million job, so maybe his requirements were higher than the norm, but still, I don’t know that I want to suffer half that much or even a quarter that much.  None of the body blows that Joseph took would be something that I would necessarily choose, let alone all of them.

And then there is the recognition.  If anyone is going to be recognized, I would prefer it to be me.  I am the one who has done the work, absorbed the suffering and done anything else along the line that needed to be done, so it is only right that I be recognized.  Sure, I will pass on the religiously-correct kudos to God when called upon, but I want to be given the credit for the work that has been done.  It was my faithfulness, they were my good deeds and it was my time that was spent in rejection and darkness; I want my due.  I want people to know just how good of a person I really am, to have their faulty perceptions and downright wrong understandings corrected for good.

The problem with this attitude is that the only place we see it is in the world around us and within us; not in Joseph and definitely not in Jesus.  We don’t know just how many jealous hearts heard of Joseph’s promotion but it certainly isn’t hard to imagine them in the courtiers that surrounded Pharaoh.  It isn’t that much harder to see that same reaction in our own hearts when something that we want is given to someone else who just shows up and just hasn’t done anything at all (James 3:13-18).

Joseph, on his part, throws himself into his work.  He travels throughout the land of Egypt putting together the plan he had been given to rescue Egypt in the coming famine.  He collects the grain and he stores it until it would seem that Egypt is bursting at the seams.  In the process, he finds healing and a home.  He names his first son Forget (v.51) and then names his second son Fruitful (v.52).

Listen to yourself today as you go through your day.  What is your reaction to potential suffering?  What do you say to yourself when someone misunderstands you or even accuses you of wrongdoing that was not your intent?  How do you react to the kinds of events that were used to forge Joseph into the instrument that God was looking for?  Is there joy in the work that is put before you?  These are the day-in and day-out kind of things that made Joseph into the kind of man whom Pharaoh could look at and say ‘There is the Spirit of God…’  Your answers and attitudes towards what God is doing in your day today, are laying the foundations for what the Holy Spirit is going to do through you tomorrow.

Questions:

1. What do you see in these verses?  What are the concepts and ideas that strike you as important?
2. What is your impression of Joseph’s attitude and ethic through these years of preparation for the coming famine?  What are the words you would use to describe Joseph through this time?
3. Do you think that Joseph would have changed any of the events that lead up to his fateful meeting with Pharaoh?  Why or why not?
4. Is the Holy Spirit at work in your life?  What do you think He is trying to do?  What is it that He wants to forge within you through the events of your day today?
5. Do you want someone to look at you at some point in time and say ‘There is the Holy Spirit…’?

Please post your observations, comments, and questions as we study the life and character of Joseph and what it was that allowed him to finish so well.

The cupbearer and chief baker both have dreams and they recognize that the gods are speaking to them through those dreams.  They also know that they are in need of an interpreter, a go-between, someone who can understand the language of dreams and will tell them just what it is that the gods are saying.  Neither man knows that Joseph is their interpreter until he steps in to fill the need with a simple, yet faith-filled ‘Do not interpretations belong to God?  Tell me your dreams’ (v.8).

Joseph knows God will speak to him and tell him the meaning of these dreams.  This whole area of God speaking in dreams is something that Joseph is familiar with, it is one of his strengths.  And Joseph’s strength comes through as the prophecy turns out to be spot on; God speaks with specificity and accuracy.  What sounds the false note within Joseph’s prophecy is his personal request to be remembered.  For all of Joseph’s faith that God would reveal the meaning of these two men’s dreams, I am not convinced he has that same kind of faith when it comes to God getting him out of jail or righting the wrong that has been done to him.  As a result, he takes his own shot at coming to Pharaoh’s attention and gaining his freedom by asking to be remembered.  Joseph knew that the interpretation belongs to God, but what he needed to learn was that being remembered belongs to God as well.

Our faith may be simultaneously great in one area and profoundly lacking in another.  The good news is that God will not leave us where we are.  Again, as nearly always falls out in this story of Joseph, we just don’t know what happens.  What we do know is that Joseph’s appeal failed, the cupbearer forgot Joseph.  If Joseph was going to get out of the slammer, it was going to be by another avenue and not by attaching his personal rider onto God’s prophecy.  It really isn’t any different for you and I today.  We all have strengths that we want to exploit and use and we all have weaknesses that we want to avoid and hide.  But that isn’t necessarily what God has in mind.  As much as we may want to think otherwise, He wants our weaknesses as well as our strengths (2Corinthians 12:1-10).  The only way He can receive those weaknesses is when we allow Him to teach us and receive His lessons in His timing.

Questions:

1. What do you see in these verses?  What are the concepts and ideas that strike you as important?
2. What do you think Joseph’s mind-set and attitude might be like at this point in his life?  How might he be seeing God in the middle of all of this?
3. What does vv.6-7 tell you about Joseph?
4. Why do you think that Joseph asked to be remembered?  Does it necessarily follow that he is trying to gain his own release?  Why or why not?
5. Do you see this attempt by Joseph to come to Pharaoh’s attention as good or bad?  What do you think God’s view on it was?
6. What do you see as your strengths and weaknesses?  What is your attitude towards each?
7. How do you react to be asked to do something you are good at vs. when you are asked to do something you are unfamiliar with or bad at?
8. What are the challenges that you are facing today?  Where are your strengths being used and where are your weaknesses being challenged?
9. What can you do today to get on board with the lessons that the Holy Spirit does have for you, regardless of whether you may like them or not?

Please post your observations, comments, and questions as we study the life and character of Joseph and what it was that allowed him to finish so well.

For whatever reason, we really want Joseph’s success to be about Joseph.  We want Joseph to somehow prove that if we are really good enough, if we are faithful like Joseph, if we are obedient like Joseph, if we are patient like Joseph, if we have enough of and practice hard enough at any of the virtues and character traits that we are studying as we go through the life of Joseph, Joseph’s success will be our success.  There is just something within us that wants this to be about Joseph’s and therefore our efforts and not God’s Grace and Mercy.

But nothing could be further from the truth.  Yes, Joseph had an attitude and ethic that we can look at and be amazed, and we are amazed by what Joseph did in the middle of situations and circumstances that most of us find mind-boggling.  Yet Joseph’s success has nothing to do with him and everything to do with God keeping and fulfilling the Covenant that He made with Joseph’s great-grandfather Abram (15:12-19) and which had been passed on to Joseph as the family heir.  The kindness that God showed Joseph (39:21) was Covenant kindness and has everything to do with God’s Promises and nothing to do with Joseph’s character and effort.

You and I are heirs to that same covenant; we can trace our spiritual roots back to Joseph and the promises that God made to Abraham.  Along the way, we also became heirs to a new and greater covenant in Christ.  And just as Joseph’s rising to the top had everything to do with God’s Covenant kindness, anything and everything that we are has nothing to do with our efforts and everything to do with Christ on the Cross.  Regardless of where you are, whether you are on top of the world or in the pit, what counts is that Father’s Covenant Kindness has you in that specific place for His specific Purpose.  Whatever it is that is going on in your world is not about you, but rather about Christ, about the Holy Spirit who is at work within you, transforming your life into something He can and will use.

You and I will probably not become virtual rulers of one of the greatest kingdoms of the age nor will we likely face disaster on the scale that Joseph did.  But we will face the crises and challenges that Father knows lies in our futures and He would have us face them in His Strength, in His Wisdom and with the ability to let Him do what it is that He has up His Sleeve through us so that the world around us will be impacted for His Kingdom and His Name’s sake.  Today is practice and preparation in seeing God for whom He is in the middle of whatever it is that He has going on in our lives in order that we might take on whatever He has in store for us tomorrow.

Questions:

1. What were the specific challenges of the past, of yesterday, of last week, of last year?  What was the outcome of those challenges?  What did you learn and what were the results?
2. What are the specific challenges of your day today?
3. How do you see those challenges?  Do they have a purpose?  Do you see them as a pain in the neck or do you see them as vehicles for something larger in your life?
4. Who is at the center of your thinking about what is going on in your life?  Who defines the context for deciding what to do and how to see what is going on?
5. What does an understanding that God has promised impact that understanding and thinking?  What does Christ on the Cross really have to do with whatever it is that you are facing today?
6. What can you do today to put the focus squarely on the Holy Spirit in the middle of your day today and any challenges that it may hold?

Please post your observations, comments, and questions as we study the life and character of Joseph and what it was that allowed him to finish so well.

This is conflict; I see the need for justice now and God sees the need for the character that patience builds; the long-term results of learning to trust Him in all kinds of situations.  I can handle this conflict in a number of ways; I can impugn the character of God.  God doesn’t care about me that way I think He should, therefore He is a bad god, or if we are more pious in our outlook, He doesn’t care about the world the way I think He should, therefore He is a bad god.

I can take justice into my own hands and do everything that I can to get what I see as my own just rewards for my behavior.  I can become a vigilante and hunt down my antagonist and mete out personal justice in a very personal way.  I can become an activist and take on the cause and do all I can to make people aware and concerned over the specifics of this or that injustice, social or otherwise.

Or I can accept where God has me, the most difficult option of all.  Again, those initial days in jail must have been very dark days indeed for Joseph.  But as he accepted and embraced his new circumstances rather than railing against them or just doing his time and waiting it out, he discovered that God was still with him and showed him kindness, something that he might have otherwise missed.  As Joseph did whatever it was that he did in ugly circumstances, God granted him favor.

And that favor is really what we want.  The question is whether we will allow the Holy Spirit to work out His Character in us through the circumstances that He would engineer in order to grant us His Favor or are we going to settle for something less that we try and whip up on our own.  Joseph allowed God to use the crisis in his life to hammer out his conflict with the people around him and ultimately with God.  Then God used Joseph to be the man He needed in the time that He needed him.

Questions:

1. What is your reaction at this point in Joseph’s story?  Has he gotten a raw deal?  What do you think needs to be done?
2. What is your reaction to injustice, real or perceived in your life?  In the lives of others around you?
3. What kind of ‘Free Joseph’ campaign do you think could have been built around Joseph and his situation?
4. What do you think Joseph did in the midst of his conflict with God and with the society he lived in?  What do you see as key in Joseph once again, gaining the favor of the prison warden?
5. Where are you challenged by injustice, real or perceived, in your life?  How are you trying to deal with it?
6. What can you do today to allow the Holy Spirit to work out His Character in and through you in the circumstances of your life today?

Please post your observations, comments, and questions as we study the life and character of Joseph and what it was that allowed him to finish so well.

The first of the influences on Potiphar’s thinking was his culture and its outlook on race and slavery.  That race was an issue can be inferred from Joseph being referred to here as ‘that Hebrew slave’ (39:14,17) and Joseph’s interactions with his family when he has become a high Egyptian official (43:32; 46:31-34).  The bottom line here is that as much as Joseph may have been favored by Potiphar, Joseph was still a slave and still of a lesser race.  To maybe get a flavor of what this cultural thought looked like, translate this situation to the pre-Civil War United States and what the reaction would have been to a slave being accused of improper advances by the owner’s wife.  Joseph is lucky that he made it into jail.

The second of these influences that we can get a glimpse of was Potiphar’s marriage and relationship with his wife.  All we really know is that Potiphar’s wife didn’t seem to think it was such a big deal to take her husband’s slaves as lovers, which doesn’t speak well of that relationship in terms of the fidelity we see as the ideal in the 21st century.  We also get the idea that she has an axe of some sort to grind with Potiphar in that she seems to be blaming Potiphar for Joseph’s presence in the household (39:14,17) and by implication, blaming him for this whole incident.  Potiphar’s relationship with his wife has more than a little unresolved conflict within it.

The last of these influences was Potiphar himself.  He was an official in Pharaoh’s administration, the captain of the guard, an important and powerful man.  I don’t think that it is too much to assume that he had his own share of pride, that there was that within him that assumed that he was the important part of the program; really no different than you or I.

Whatever the story was that Potiphar heard from his wife, I think we can assume that she brought all these strands together and anything else she could think of in order to push Potiphar into reacting against Joseph, into removing him from his position of privilege at the very least and who knows what at the very most.  And Potiphar reacted without thinking and without the patience to hear the rest of the story in order to get to the truth as he ‘burns with anger.’

The point here isn’t that Potiphar may have ‘saved’ Joseph or that he was manipulated by his wife.  The point is that Potiphar was a creature of his culture and his own thinking, good, bad or otherwise and Joseph wasn’t.  Whatever it was that was going on between Joseph and God, and we know next to nothing of the specifics, Joseph no longer thought and reacted like your typical mid-2nd millennium BC inhabitant of what we would call the Middle East.  Those very thoughts and assumptions that had driven Potiphar into throwing Joseph into jail had been and were in the process of being completely transformed within Joseph.

While we may have a difficult time in getting into the mindset of Joseph and the rest of the cast of this story, this is one place where there needs to be direct correlation; if we are going to serve our God in a positive way, we must recognize our faulty thinking and assumptions for what they are and allow the Holy Spirit to trash and replace them.  This is not an option (Romans 12:1-2).  Yes, God used Potiphar and his wife as an integral part of his plan to save His people, but I don’t think any of us want to stand before our Lord to receive the reward for that kind of service.  You and I each have our blind spots and just plain bad assumptions about ourselves, the people around us, the world in general and specifically about God.  Until we recognize those blind spots and assumptions, we are condemned to going through life serving God in much the same way as Potiphar and his wife served Joseph.  When we do recognize bad thinking for what it is, then and only then is the Holy Spirit able to do His transforming work within us and we begin to become more like Joseph and ultimately, more like Christ.

Questions:

1. What do you see in these verses?  What are the ideas and concepts that strike you as important?
2. What do you see in the lives of Potiphar and Joseph as you compare and contrast these two men?  Why do you think that the important man Potiphar ultimately disappears and the unimportant slave Joseph ultimately becomes instrumental in saving his family and Egypt as a whole?
3. What are those places and circumstances in your life where you just can’t seem to make good decisions and regardless how hard you try, everything seems to end up in a mess?
4. What you see as your role in that ‘mess’?
5. What constructive step can you take in allowing the Holy Spirit to do His Work within those places where you struggle?

Please post your observations, comments, and questions as we study the life and character of Joseph and what it was that allowed him to finish so well.

When spurned by Joseph, Potiphar’s wife…have you noticed we don’t even know her name, she is so reviled in the story she isn’t even worthy of having a name…Potiphar’s wife stoops to trying to destroy a man with a boatload of lies.  She isn’t content with just making his life miserable around the house as the master’s wife but wants him to suffer greatly for rejecting her.

She comes up with an elaborate lie and repeats it a couple times.  She wants him out of the house, far away.  It is possible that she was worried that Joseph’s integrity would have led him to report any other indiscretions that she might have had or would have in the future.

A problem with having integrity is that others around you may not be so virtuous and resent it.  The brighter your light shines, the darker and more obvious their own lack of integrity becomes.  A clash may eventually occur where they may very well try to drag our reputation down into the mud with them.  There is nothing we can do but stand firm.

Integrity is a trait we have and not a reputation that others assign to us.  Potiphar might have thought his wife had integrity, that was the reputation he assigned to her, but her words and deeds showed that her very being was just the opposite.  Jesus taught, “What comes out of a person is what defiles them…out of a person’s heart” (Mark 7:20ff, cf. Proverbs 4:23; Matthew 12:34; Luke 6:43-45).

Joseph trusted in God and lived his life as unto God.  This deeply shaped who Joseph was and what he did.  Potiphar’s wife on the other hand was shaped by evil and she certainly exhibited it.  We need to lean upon the Lord, allowing Him to shape our lives, living in and through us.  As we do, we will certainly exhibit the trait of integrity.

Questions:

1. What do you see in these verses?  What are the ideas and concepts that strike you as important?
2. Who does Potiphar’s wife blame for all of the trouble?  Who does she point to as bringing ‘that Hebrew slave’ into the household in the first place?
3. What is the story that she tells?  What do you think her servants’ reaction is to her story?
4. What do you think is driving Potiphar’s wife in these verses?  Why do you think she is doing what she is doing?
5. Who do you relate to in this story?  Why?
6. What is your attitude to integrity?  Is integrity a trait to be cultivated and pursued?
7. What is your experience with integrity?  What happened the last time you stood firm with integrity?
8. Who are the people in your life that have integrity?

Please post your observations, comments, and questions as we study the life and character of Joseph and what it was that allowed him to finish so well.

There really isn’t anything that Joseph can do about his situation.  He is a slave and his master’s wife is making demands of him.  He can rearrange his environment to minimize the contact he has with his master’s wife, but that will only go so far.  Joseph could go to Potiphar and tell him of his wife’s demands, but somehow I don’t think that a slave making accusations against the mistress of the house would be well received, regardless of how true.  He could run away from Potiphar’s house and from his slavery in general but where would he run?  Egypt was a notoriously difficult place to escape from as it is surrounded by deserts with only a limited number of ways in and out of the country.  And if you are Joseph, it has become pretty clear that this is where you are supposed to be; for whatever reason Joseph is exactly where God wants him to be.  Joseph’s only real option is to stay the course, keep doing what is expected of him by his master and say ‘No’ every time he runs into his master’s wife.  It is hard to see anything else happening but this train wreck of Joseph being run to ground by Potiphar’s wife.

And it happens.  The men of the house are absent; it doesn’t take an overly active imagination to think that they might have been sent out of the house by their mistress.  She ambushes Joseph, getting close enough to him to physically grab him and make her demand.  And Joseph runs; no ifs ands or buts about it, Joseph flat runs.  He shakes off his robe, leaving it in her hands and runs outside.  You can almost see her face as it dawn’s on her that this slave, this Hebrew isn’t playing ‘hard to get’ but is actually going to defy her and refuse her favors.

Did integrity demand this disaster?  Is it possible that Joseph had another way out that still allowed him retain his integrity?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that integrity must be tested in order for it to be real.  Joseph’s great-grandfather Abraham was pushed to the limit when he was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac and as he raised the knife in obedience, an angel intervened (Genesis 22:10-14).  Maybe that was what was going through Joseph’s mind as he followed this ‘train wreck’ out to the end, maybe he though that God would somehow intervene and make it all right.  God knew what was in both Abraham and Joseph’s hearts as they faced the tests that He had put before them; I think that He wanted them to know what was in their hearts as well, so the pressure came and the truth was revealed.

Just like Joseph, you and I are going to have our integrity tested.  The test may not be as dramatic as Joseph’s nor as intense, but nonetheless, we will be tested and the truth of who we are revealed.  The Holy Spirit already knows our hearts and the test we will be given will not be beyond us.  And He will not be satisfied until our integrity holds, until we stand the pressure and pass the test.  All in order that the integrity might be real, that we might know the truth about ourselves and that we would know Him who is building that integrity within us.

Questions:

1. What do you see in these verses?  What are the concepts and ideas that strike you as important?
2. What do you think that God is trying to do in this situation?  Why is Joseph being put under this kind of pressure?
3. What do you think Joseph’s options were?  Do any of those options leave his integrity complete and intact?
4. What is integrity?  How would we recognize integrity as compromised or intact?
5. Where are you under pressure today?  What is your reaction to that situation and the demands being made of you?
6. Do you see that situation as one where the Holy Spirit is at work, both within you and within the situation as a whole?  Why or why not?
7. What is the truth you see being revealed?

Please post your observations, comments, and questions as we study the life and character of Joseph and what it was that allowed him to finish so well.

The thing that has always struck me about these verses is how Joseph is talking about what his master Potiphar has done and his conclusion points to God.  The one thing that is obvious is that Joseph considered both to be the same; to betray Potiphar was to betray God.  There was no ‘small’ breech of trust for Joseph; to intentionally betray his master in a small thing was an intentional betrayal which violated the whole of the integrity of his relationship with God.

The justification for this faithfulness has nothing to do with Potiphar or his wife.  On the one hand, Potiphar had seen and recognized Joseph’s talents and rewarded him with the absolute trust of everything he owned.  On the other, his wife is tempting Joseph to throw it all away for this ‘little’ thing of going to bed with her.  How easily we fall into the trap of pointing at the flaws in those around us as justification for our failures; ‘if only she hadn’t tempted me, everything would have turned out just fine…’, but that is most definitely not Joseph’s position.  The wickedness and sin are hinged on his behavior, on what he chooses to do, and not on that of his master’s wife.

The last thing I see here is that Joseph’s decision was one that was not made in this moment.  This decision to deny his master’s wife was already made when she confronted him.  We have no idea how long Joseph has been in Potiphar’s house at this time and neither do we know whether or not Joseph anticipated this proposition, but there is no hesitancy in Joseph’s denial.  He does not flirt or debate or string it out but immediately calls the thing for what it is.  He already knows which way he is going to go, which means that he has already hammered this out as to what is right and what is wrong.  Again, we have no idea what that hammering looked like, but it seems pretty obvious that Joseph already had the ‘No’ in hand when he is confronted with the opportunity to take his master’s wife to bed.

Joseph saw all of his decisions and actions as falling under the sovereignty of God; there were no ‘small’ decisions if they negatively impacted the integrity of his relationship with God.  In the days that lie ahead for Joseph, that integrity is going to be tested, he is going to have multiple opportunities to compromise, to deny the sovereignty of God and blame Him for all the troubles and misfortunes that he is about to face.  But, when Joseph sees God as the One whom he is serving in all of these things, his integrity is sound.  He may not like what is happening, he may not want to remain where he is, he may even complain about where he is, but he is not going to betray God, even in a ‘little’ thing, in order to improve his position on his own.  Joseph understands that integrity is a whole, that to deny the sovereignty of God in the little things is to deny Him in the large as well and that is not something he is willing to do.

Questions:

1. What do you see in these verses?  What are the concepts and ideas that strike you as important?
2. What do you think might have been Joseph’s duties as the head of Potiphar’s house?  What do you think a routine day in the life of Joseph might have looked like?  If you had a ‘Joseph’ today, what would a typical day look like for him?
3. Why do you think that Joseph might have come to his master’s wife’s attention?  Why do you think that she would show any interest at all in Joseph?  What do you think that this might imply about her relationship with Potiphar?
4. What does Joseph say to his master’s wife (vv.8-9)?  How does each point that he makes in response relate to himself, to Potiphar and to God?
5. Where are you today?  What is the place that God has brought you to?  Do you see yourself in a good place or a bad place?  Why?
6. What do you see as the relationship between your choices, God’s Plan and where you are today?  Who do you see as ultimately responsible for your integrity?  For the ultimate outcome of your life?

Please post your observations, comments, and questions as we study the life and character of Joseph and what it was that allowed him to finish so well.