This Sunday we continue journeying through the story, taking less of a leap than we did last week. Last week we were introduced to Abram (later Abraham), and this week we jump to the story of his great-grandsons, most notably Joseph. It’s a long story, probably the longest in all of the Scriptures (depending on how you define it), and it is rich! So rich that Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a famous Broadway musical based on it, and it follows the story from Genesis pretty closely. Though I can assure you Pharaoh did not look nor sound like Elvis. -Pastor Paul Baudhuin
SCRIPTURE: Genesis 37:1-8 (NRSVUE)
37 Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. 2 These are the descendants of Jacob.
Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives, and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children because he was the son of his old age, and he made him an ornamented robe.[a] 4 But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.
5 Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream that I dreamed. 7 There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.” 8 His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.