This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.
Lesson 11: “Joseph, Master of Dreams”
COLLEEN TINKER
Problems With This lesson:
- Again, this lesson is human-centric and presents God as one who intervenes and helps Joseph.
- The lesson fails to mention that God reveals His covenant name, Yahweh, for the first time in the story of Joseph as a slave.
- The story of Joseph is really a revelation of God accomplishing His covenant promises to Abraham.
Adventism’s physicalism prevents them from discovering the core value of God at the heart of the biblical accounts. The lesson treats the story of Joseph as a succession of sordid and sorrowful stories, filled with betrayal and unfairness, with Joseph as the main victim.
Joseph, however, is not the hero of these chapters in Genesis. Rather, God reveals Himself as accomplishing His will against all apparent human odds.
To be sure, there were highly dysfunctional dynamics in Jacob’s family with 12 boys from four different mothers. Further, Jacob’s favoritism of Joseph was inflammatory—especially since Joseph didn’t hesitate to flaunt the evidence of his father’s doting by wearing his coat of many colors as he went to check on his siblings as they were watching the family flocks.
Nevertheless, God’s purposes cannot be thwarted, and as Joseph suffered humiliation and cruelty in being sold to slave traders and then purchased by Potiphar, God was establishing His means of blessing the nations and of making His own nation of people.
In chapter 39 in which we learn the stories of Joseph in Potiphar’s house and then of his being put in prison but exalted to be in charge of all the prisoners, we learn that “The Lord was with Joseph”. These are the first instances of the Lord revealing His personal identity in the book of Genesis. The name “Yahweh” (which underlies the English “LORD”) is God’s personal name and is closely connected to His name, “I AM”, which which He revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush.
Here were learn that God was not just present with Joseph but was the active “agent” in all that happened to him. While it looked as if he were the victim of people who intended to harm him, in reality God was preparing him and strengthening him for the job into which He eventually brought him: the ruler over Egypt who saved the nation as well as the surrounding areas when a devastating famine hit the land later.
Not only was God preparing Joseph for his leadership role in Egypt, but the LORD was preparing the way for the rest of Jacob’s family to enter Egypt—the place that God selected to shelter and nurture the twelve families that would become the great nation of Israel. God had chosen for Egypt to be the “womb of Israel”, and He brought Joseph into the land first, orchestrating his experiences and his leadership skills and his reputation as He prepared him to lead the nation under Pharaoh. Because Joseph was the leader in Egypt, he was able to arrange, ultimately, to bring his family there where they could flourish during a famine that killed many people.
At the same time, Joseph saved Egypt through his careful collection and sales of corn.
God, not Joseph, is the central figure of these stories, and Joseph happens to be the man through whom the LORD accomplished His purposes.
By letting us know that He is the active Agent in the events of Joseph’s life, God also reveals to us that He is the covenant God who is keeping His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and through Joseph He is bringing about the establishment of the nation of Israel who will inherit the land God promised Abraham.
The shallowness of this week’s lesson obscures the profound action of God in orchestrating history and His preparation of the nation who will bring the promised Seed through whom men will be saved. Adventism does not know how to deal with human sin in any way except moralism and example. Scripture, however, reveals the covenant-keeping God who brings about the events within human history that He planned in advance for the salvation and reconciliation of humanity. †
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