After all the shady cats we have dealt with so far in Genesis, Joseph is a welcome breath of fresh air. Joseph is a hero, he is exemplary, we can learn many moral lessons from him, but do not turn this text into a breadless sandwich.
Imagine trying to eat a breadless sandwich. It’s so messy if makes a Carl’s Jr. commercial look polite. How do we make this text breadless? We turn it into a fable, and when we do, it gets messy. Sadly I wonder how much daily Bible reading is nothing more than going to the text to glean a few moral maxims and life principles. Our daily Bread ironically becomes breadless. Simply, many go to the Bible just to know what to do. Surely the Bible contains commands, and we should desire to obey and follow God, but when you read the Bible seeking only law, you lose the Bread of life. When this story is read as a fable the meaning is no more than, “Keep your clothes on, and if you lose them, lose them running away from sex and not toward it.” What I am proposing is not that we make less of the text but more.
So where is the bread? Look at the phrase repeated twice for emphasis at the beginning and the end, “The LORD was with Joseph” (Genesis 39:2, 3, 21, 23). These are the loaves that hold the meat of this sandwich together making it edible. We have seen this kind of language before in Genesis at “Jacob’s Ladder” (Genesis 28:13-15). What is the context there? It is God renewing with Jacob the covenant made with Abraham and Isaac. God is sovereignly orchestrating the events of the Patriarch’s lives in faithfulness to His covenant.
Now we see Joseph as only a hero, but God as the hero. God is not blessing Joseph because of his moral superiority, but in faithfulness to his covenant with Abraham. John Sailhammer put it this way, “This is not a story of the success of Joseph; rather it is a story of God’s faithfulness to his promises.”
Here is the Bread of Life. It is not about what we do, it is about what He has done, is doing, and will do. The Bible is a story more about God’s action throughout history than how we are to act. Our acting is and effect of His action in Christ. The Bible becomes breadless when we read it void of its redemptive story. Let me close with an example from Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 30:11-13 God tells His people,
For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.
What? The law is not too hard for you? This sounds nothing like Paul. Are Paul and Moses in opposition? Not at all. Why is it that the law is not too hard for them? Because it is in their hearts. How did it get there?
And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. – Deuteronomy 30:6
Put the law in its proper context, God’s redemption of a people onto Himself. They were not redeemed because they kept the law. They received the law because they were redeemed. Put the Bread back on the sandwich and know life instead of death.
No Other Boast 