Genesis 47:13–26
The Bible4Jesus.com Podcast
About this episode
We want a God who is always gentle, always affirming, and never severe. We want a gospel that is all comfort and no challenge, all grace and no demand. But the God of the Bible is not a tame God, and His mercies are often harsh. His providence is not a soft pillow, but a sharp chisel. He uses famines, hardships, and crises to accomplish His sovereign purposes. And in the story of Joseph, we see this principle on a grand, geo-political scale. But the salvation He provided was not a modern welfare program. It was a salvation that came with a cost, a salvation that fundamentally reordered an entire society. Our democratic, egalitarian, and often socialistic assumptions recoil at what unfolds here. Joseph, a man of God, appears to be presiding over the systematic impoverishment and enslavement of an entire nation.