Day 30

Joseph in Pharaoh’s Court

from the reading plan


Genesis 41:1-57, Genesis 42:1-38, 2 Corinthian 3:5, 1 Timothy 1:16


Reading through the Bible is sometimes like watching an episode of Stranger Things. When I witness the story of characters like Joseph unfold, it feels like I’m being teleported into an alternate world. For example, in Genesis 41, Joseph was in prison for something completely out of his control. His entire narrative feels like the upside down—when you would expect his life to improve, it only seems to get worse.

So when Joseph comes to interact with Pharaoh, I’m left wondering what will happen next. Will something good or bad happen to Joseph? At this point, if I were Joseph, I’d be tempted to stop doing things God’s way and start doing them my way. After all, Joseph had shared or interpreted dreams throughout his story, often with mixed results from a human standpoint. If Joseph didn’t interpret Pharaoh’s dream correctly, he could end up like the chief baker (Genesis 41:12–13).

But the upside-down nature of this narrative is highlighted by Joseph’s response to Pharaoh’s request to interpret his dreams. Joseph chose the unexpected response, “I can’t do it.” Here, the narrator shifts our focus from the horizontal to the vertical: “It is God who will give Pharaoh a favorable answer” (v.16).

The takeaway for us is that our lives are to be lived in the upside-down kingdom of trusting God. God is the hero of Joseph’s story. Joseph didn’t know the beginning from the end, but God did. And at the end of chapter 41, an even more unexpected response is given—Joseph says, “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction” (Genesis 41:52). Fruitful in the midst of affliction? That is incredibly upside down.

But if we consider our Savior and His life, being fruitful in the midst of affliction is actually a major part of the upside-down kingdom of God. Joseph could have saved himself by taking all the credit for interpreting the dreams, but instead he saw his life as a story being written by God. This explains how the New Testament views the life of the believer when it says, “It is not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God” (2Corinthians 3:5).

If we walk away from Joseph’s story thinking God is merely a cosmic dream-giver who guarantees our prosperity, we’ve missed something. Joseph’s story is a shadow of the greater story lived by Jesus—the one who went the lowest, stood before those who could end his life, went even lower than Joseph to death itself, and then, by God’s good plan of redemption, was raised and seated at the right hand of God—not just Pharaoh—to administer hope and life to a famished world. Our role is to live in Jesus, following Him in the upside-down kingdom, allowing God to use all aspects of our lives, especially our afflictions, as instruments for displaying the saving work of Jesus and the goodness and power of God to the onlooking world (1Timothy 1:16).

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