Our reading challenge for the day is Genesis chapters 39-43. I'll hit a few highlights. You make comments too and fill in the gaps. What strikes you as specially significant?
A very long time ago - my - twenty-eight years ago, I spent a year at an undergraduate Bible college where I took an Old Testament course. When we were confronted with the narrative of Joseph the professor repeated again and again, "Cream always rises to the top." This view of Joseph influenced me fairly strongly. Yet when I have been reading the text of Genesis in recent years I have found that all the patriarchs are just like the rest of us. They are deeply flawed people. Joseph is no less flawed. He starts out as an arrogant young man, the kind of man his brothers would frankly like to sell to slave traders. When that happens, Joseph has several cycles of exaltation but he always rises to the occasion by showing a haughty spirit. See that happening in today's reading. There's a striking statement in Genesis 41:51. Joseph says that God has made him forget all his hardship and his father's house. He comes to that realization as he has become a priest to the Egyptian deities and has been instrumental in enslaving all of the people of Egypt to their government. Joseph then goes on to confront his brothers, dangling their hopes over his angry memories of the way they treated him in the past.
Cream may rise to the top. But it's the sinful nature that rises to the top in the children of Adam, even those who are being blessed by God.
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