Genesis 37

Bible Gateway link Chapter 37

This story has always wound me up since I was a child. I have two brothers, and we fought, and yes there was a favorite, but I have never been able to wrap my head around the jealousy that the brothers had for Joseph. As for how they planned to get rid of him? Pick one, first they plan to kill him, then they seem quite content to let him starve in a hole (so Ruben was supposed to come back and get him, and that is a WHOLE different story) , but the plan settled on was to sell him. I do not know which is worse, to have so little regard for human life that killing someone is nothing more than an after thought, or to actually demean life so much that you can put a price tag on it…..to be able to say that a life created by God is equivalent to the worth of something made by man. Both are very troubling, both are hard to understand. Jealousy is a nasty emotion. It brings out the worst in the best person, and I would even go as far as to say that Jealousy is the most useless, selfish, ungodly emotion that we have because it covers so many different situations, and tends to be the first bitter root to spring forth. It has to be one of the favorite tools of the evil one. Once some one becomes consumed with jealousy, the end can never be a positive one, as we see here with Joseph. Of course God has a great plan for Joseph, but even his dreams must have brought little comfort as he was being loaded up into the slave wagon.



Often it is the ones like Joseph who are singled out. We are talking about children of Jacob, you know they knew God, there is little doubt that Jacob had extolled in painful detail all that had happened with their family, all the Lord had promised and how the Lord had protected them. It is not as if Joseph was doing anything other than what he was taught. HE simply did what his Father expected of him, and as a result, his Father loved him very much. We see just how much easier it is to take the wide road in this chapter. The brothers could have easily put forth the effort and followed the example, they could have possibly excelled beyond Joseph….but they did not. Instead they grouped together and plotted to get rid of the one who excels, so that the bar would be lowered. No matter the pain that would be inflicted on their family no matter the cost to their souls, they happily trade their honor, integrity, and their moral beliefs, all to satisfy their jealousy. This is what we must guard against, not jus tin our families, but in our Church community, and our world. A large group of people will always look for the easy way out, the quickest path to the easy way is to lower the bar. Instead we must challenge and encourage each other to rise to the challenge, not slump to the meet the masses.

Peace,
Brian