“I fear God.” What
did Joseph mean by that statement and what did his brothers think he meant by
it. When Abram and Sarai sojourned in
Gerar in Genesis 20 they deceived the people there by saying she was his
sister. God came to the king of Gerar,
Abimelech, in a dream and revealed the truth.
When he returned Sarai to Abram he asked why he had done this
thing. Abram’s answer was that he thought
that there was no fear of God in this place.
Where there is fear of God, there is a check on behavior, where there is
not, people can believe that anything goes.
That isn’t to say there is no morality without God, only to say that
there is no fear of ultimate accountability so somewhat less incentive to
control behavior. These words from
Joseph would have given them some level of confidence in his promises, but did
they know he was speaking of the same God they knew? The brothers re-visit their actions towards
Joseph long ago and consider the truth, we are guilty. Joseph was the first to believe in the axiom,
“Trust, but verify.” He continues to
test them even after he hears their discussion about what they did to him. Wise man if you ask me.
When Jesus ends this parable He ends with the same words He
speaks at the end of each letter to the churches in the book of Revelation, it
is an important parable. What do we do
about improving the soil in our hearts?
The work is partly ours but also partly His and He does it through life
experiences and the Holy Spirit. We all
start with stony ground due to sin but His work prepares us to receive the
truth about Jesus and then we have some responsibility to cooperate with Him to
further prepare the ground through spiritual disciplines and cooperating with
the ongoing work of the Spirit in convicting us of sin. What is the state of the ground in your
heart? Are you willing to hear
correction and also loving praise from Him?
Paul re-iterates that the way we deal with sin in the body
of Christ is different from the way we deal with sinful people outside the
body. There should be a difference
between the church and the world and it should be clear to all that this is the
difference. The answer to “Who am I to
judge?” is based on the simple distinction between whether or not they are a
brother. He follows up that admonition
with yet another, there should then be no lawsuits between believers because we
are to judge ourselves. When was the
last time we thought to involve the church in disputes between believers? If we are part of the same body we might
think about it but what if we belong to different churches? Perhaps we need to think seriously about some
type of Christian mediation services so that we could live out this injunction. In the wilderness this is exactly what Moses
was doing until Jethro convinced him to appoint others to help with the work
and it is also why the disciples appointed deacons in Acts 6.
No comments:
Post a Comment