Isaiah 41:13

For I am the LORD your God  who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.

From Background Notes [BN] for Oct 4th & 5th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

God is at work in Joseph’s life, while Joseph also does his work in the land of Egypt. Both are true. Neither is diminished. God is free and so are we. In God’s working, we work. In our working, He works.

Genesis 42:1-2

When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you just keep looking at each other?”  He continued, “I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us, so that we may live and not die.”

From Background Notes [BN] for Oct 4th & 5th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Firmly established in his new role, matured by nearly fifty years of life experience, Joseph must face once more the reality of his covenant family.

1 Peter 5:6

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.

From Background Notes [BN] for Sept 27th & 28th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

For Joseph, his exaltation took place at the time of God’s choosing, not unlike the instruction and promise found in Peter’s first letter

Genesis 41:15

Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I had a dream, and no one can interpret it. But I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.”

From Background Notes [BN] for Sept 27th & 28th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

No sooner is he finished giving explanations of the twin dreams than Joseph tells Pharaoh what he must do to prepare for the coming famine. There is no Middle Eastern fatalism for Joseph.

 

Genesis 40:8

“We both had dreams,” they answered, “but there is no one to interpret them.” Then Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”

From Background Notes [BN] for Sept 27th & 28th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

What the dreams in this chapter reveal about God is that He, not the empire and its dream handlers, truly knows and shares His knowledge with those he chooses. Here is mystery, both for the two men and for Joseph.

Genesis 41:1-2

When two full years had passed, Pharaoh had a dream: He was standing by the Nile, when out of the river there came up seven cows, sleek and fat, and they grazed among the reeds.

From Background Notes [BN] for Sept 27th & 28th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

While having a general sense of who the Pharaoh was in the time of Joseph, the fact remains that from an Israelite perspective, it really didn’t matter who he was. After all...

Genesis 3:2-3

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

From Background Notes [BN] for Sept 20th & 21st written by Pastor Bob Brown:

"You shall be as God, knowing Good and Evil." This is the word of the Serpent, the planter of doubt and the purveyor of falsehood.

Genesis 39:20

Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.

From Background Notes [BN] for Sept 20th & 21st written by Pastor Bob Brown:

And God was, apparently, not limited in the places where he could carry out that plan. Neither the pit of his brothers nor the servitude of the Ishmaelites could interfere with the purposes of God on his life.

Genesis 39:1

Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.

From Background Notes [BN] for Sept 20th & 21st written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Potiphar must have marveled at his Hebrew servant. Not only was Joseph successful, he brought blessing to the house and field of his master.

Genesis 15:13

Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there.

From Background Notes [BN] for Sept 13th & 14th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Even if we go to Egypt, still God’s word proves true! And so we shall surely come up out of Egypt “with great possessions.”

Genesis 37:29

When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes.

From Background Notes [BN] for Sept 13th & 14th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

The compensation did not help Reuben deal with the implications of what his brothers had done. They had insulted his authority as natural firstborn and acted in his absence and against his wishes.

Genesis 37:21

When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said.

From Background Notes [BN] for Sept 13th& 14th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Soon the brothers are not alone, and Reuben's plans, well-intentioned though they were, are now foiled by the arrival of Ishmaelites, distant relatives, descendents of Abraham's "other son".

Genesis 37:19

“Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other.

From Background Notes [BN] for Sept 13th & 14th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

No longer content to be angry or jealous or filled with hate, the brothers determine to make good on their ill will. This week’s text traces that determination to its penultimate conclusion. Once they allow the emotion to fill their hearts, it is difficult for them to imagine otherwise.

Genesis 37:5

Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more.

From Background Notes [BN] for Sept 6th & 7th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

For Joseph, the challenge is to sort out the dream in light of God’s call on his life. From this point forward his road is not smooth and a grounded awareness that God is with him will come slowly, painfully, and deliberately.

Genesis 37:4

When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

From Background Notes [BN] for Sept 6th & 7th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Many years ago, Alice Miller wrote a ground-breaking work on the struggles of childhood titled The Drama of the Gifted Child. The book examines the loss of the self that occurs in childhood and the subsequent process by which an adult can retrieve his or her true identity that was misplaced in earlier years.

Genesis 37:3

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him.

From Background Notes [BN] for Sept 6th & 7th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

The Joseph narrative is among the longest accounts in the Bible. In its entirety it unifies the story of Jacob's family, with Joseph as the pivotal character.  Filled with drama, intrigue, sibling rivalry, the life of Joseph also serves larger purposes by showing how God fulfilled his covenant plan made first to Abraham.

 

Genesis 37:2

This is the account of Jacob’s family line. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.

From Background Notes [BN] for Sept 6th & 7th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

So we say, “My father was not rich, and so the house we lived in was either rented or shabbily apportioned.”