Genesis 37:1-28
Flavitsky, Children of Jacob Sell Joseph (1855)
“Now Joseph,” the story continues, “was taken down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. And the Lord was with Joseph”. “And the Lord was with Joseph” — Who is this God that abides with slaves?
And then again we read what is truly the shocking thing about the Bible: “And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison where the king’s prisoners were confined…. and the Lord was with Joseph”. Who is this God who goes to prison?
What a sad, mixed-up Bible. And this is only Genesis! If it continues on like this, it’ll be trying to tell us that
● He was with the later Israelite slaves in Egypt, making bricks without straw,
● or that God was with the Israelite prisoners in Babylon’s deportation camps during the Exile;
● or that when old Herod was killing all the baby boys who might threaten his realm, God somehow got down into one of those cradles.
Then it’ll end up with some story about how God got onto the cross of some itinerant rabbi charged with blasphemy and sedition against the state.
What kind of a God is this who will take our evil and turn it into our redemption?
What kind of God is this that when we crucify the Son of Man, He will make that crucifixion our salvation?
James A. Sanders “Joseph Our Brother” in God Has A Story Too.
