What is the significance of the Joseph story.
What is the significance of the Joseph story.
Who was Joseph?
A surefire way to counter a false narrative is with the truth.
But what is the truth? And in a valley of many truths, which truth is truth enough to dispell a lie?
Jesus is the truth of God, but besides His person, we have numerous prophetic accounts that give some aspects of God’s being and personality. These are truths too. Yet, the truth that we must hold on to; by which we must view every other truth is Jesus. An interesting phenomenon which instructs us that when a false narrative about a story God allowed into the Bible is peddled, the wise thing to do is to look at the story more carefully.
Not just to counter the narrative, but to understand its significance asides the narrative. Armed with this knowledge, we can counter the peddler of the falsity with the significance of the story.
The reason why using a story’s significance is a more excellent way is because it follows the reason that the bible has an overarching narrative; the salvation story. In the old testament, we see a kaleidoscope of varying aspects of the lives and times of Israel, God’s chosen people. Many of these stories are factual, but they are told from the historian’s perspective. However, because we know that God’s providence has allowed for the story to be there so that we are instructed in righteousness, we can find the balance by examining the significance of the story to
1.) God’s salvation plan
2.) The people of Israel
3.) The people of Israel who believed in God’s salvation plan
When we do this, the essence of the story is preserved and there is little room for endless arguments.
Having said all of these things, what then is the significance of Joseph's story and how does it instruct us today?
An interesting thing happened in the story of Joseph. I wonder why it is often overlooked. Perhaps it is our very human, very understandable need for happy endings that make us stop paying attention to the story before we get to this point, but I digress.
Joseph’s wisdom saved the Egyptians from famine, but it also made the Pharoah very rich. He exchanged money for the grain.
But the money soon ran out. And after that, he exchanged livestock. Soon, these ran out as well. And then, he exchanged land. And through the famine, he bought all the lands for Pharoah and effected a tribute system that mandated one fifth of the grains harvested on the lands which originally belonged to the people; which he bought with grain; then leased back to them for farming; to be paid back to the Pharaoh.
Interesting isn’t it?
Joseph, the super hero of Kingdom Influence looks a lot like the capitalist hegemons whose influence on the world we bemoan today, doesn’t he?
Truth is we are not Joseph.
Hear me out.
As Christians, we cannot pretend that we are not graced beyond the natural. Or that we do not have a spirit of excellence in us. We cannot also pretend that to the extent that it leads to our preservation; in line with God’s sovereign plan; we would not find ourselves in positions where our God-given wisdom would be useful in effecting systems geared towards preserving the earth. It is not God’s prefered will that needless suffering persists.
Truth is in a sense, this is an amoral aspect to our being. We can do, therefore, we do. Simple
Like Joseph, we could be much better than everyone else if we do everything as unto the Lord, that is a given. But this is hardly a trophy to be brandished in and of itself. It only becomes one when it is paired with another significant part of Joseph’s story.
Joseph’s wisdom preserved his brothers from the famine.
Judah, whose lineage would produce the Messiah was only a brother of Joseph’s at the time of his influence. But he was smackdab in the center of God’s divine plan. More so than Joseph could ever be.
God’s divine plan is now in full effect. Jesus has already died for sins. But can we be Joseph’s and truly ‘influence’ people into accepting the gospel?
Well, we would never know. The instruction was to preach. And preach we must. Trying to measure people’s response to the gospel as a KPI for the effectiveness of ‘kingdom influence’ is a meaningless exercise in itself. Even if a million christians were influential, the gospel would still need to be preached.
The significance of Joseph’s story is that we must steward our gifts well regardless of where we find ourselves. And we must recognise that God is still actively involved in the affairs of men, to the end that men come to know him. And as such, doing our jobs well and doing our best for the kingdoms of this world might just be us adding another building block to the unfolding of God’s agenda. Which is that all men come to know Him and be saved.
There is enough precedence for this in scriptures. It is not in the grand pictures like we have in our heads of big cathedrals, but in the more personal aspects of life; like a government official hearing the gospel from the mouth of one of his aides.
Joseph was a key figure in the old testament because his influence served to preserve the people of Israel through a season of drought. And for this reason, the Messiah’s lineage was not wiped out. God used Joseph this way.
There’s nothing wrong with Christians wanting to create systems to ensure that righteous people and righteous ethics are preserved, cue the kingdom influence trope, but this is not the significance of the Joseph story.
Why we are not Joseph is because we have the mind of Jesus. Which is that when we also get to the crossroads that Joseph faced in positions of influence; if God wills that we occupy them; and we would have to choose between systems, structures and people. We would also have to choose between seeming ‘smart’ through the lens of the world and doing the right thing by putting people and our godly ethics first.
In truth, Joseph didn’t fornicate. But I don’t know if selling grain that the people worked for back to them in a time of famine is the best thing he could have done. It’s not like the money could buy more grain at the time the famine persisted. And then he had them sell their lands and give one-fifth of their crops as tributes to the Pharoah every year whilst the land still belonged to the Pharaoh. It is true that people paid tributes then, but why take advantage of a famine to effect a tribute system? It’s giving Solomon tbvvh.
We do not have to be Joseph. There are many others who were in Joseph’s position who did things differently. For one, we don’t see Nehemiah rigging a tribute system to Babylon in Israel.
If we allow the Holy Spirit influence us as He should, we definitely can make better choices.
If we are excellent, we would find ourselves in the courts of kings. When we are there, we must remember why. If we manage to keep our convictions in an environment of contradictions, I think that’s kingdom influence enough. Let the Lord take it up from there. Whether we should shoot for these positions is a matter of intent, which we must leave for God to judge.
Armed by history, we can project, prospect and presume. But the truth is we’d never know.
Armed with the word, we can pray and we can focus on our primary purpose; which is to establish Christ in the hearts of people by preaching the gospel.
I am open to dissent and perspectives concerning this. Looking forward to hearing from you😊.
