"And Joseph stored up grain in great abundance, like
the sand of the sea, until he ceased to measure it, for it could not be
measured." Now that is a lot of
grain. It is, in fact, the very way
Joseph's father, Jacob, described God's promise to him regarding his
descendants. It is a phrase that appears
throughout the Old Testament. The
abundance of those years must have been amazing and that would also have made
the prophetic dream more difficult to imagine as well. Surely there was to be no end of the
abundance, no famine as Joseph had said, but these seven years of prosperity
were themselves indicators that his word was sure. Joseph's firstborn, Manasseh, is so called
because, “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house.”
Has he decided that even his
father ultimately abandoned him, perhaps sending him to see his brothers in the
full and certain knowledge that they would sell him into slavery. He had not come looking for him in all these
years. In that family, knowing the
deceitfulness, who could be trusted?
Ultimately, the famine hit, and it was, like the flood, a world-wide
famine (whatever the world means), and everyone has to come to Egypt to get
food, the food Joseph so wisely had stored up.
The great crowd that has gathered around Jesus isn't just
Galileeans, it is made up of people from the entire region, including Judeans
and Jerusalemites. They have come to
hear Him teach and to see what miraculous signs He will do. The word has spread and now the crowd is so
great that He can't be in the midst of them if He is to teach them all. There is a need to choose a few good men to
be His intimate disciples and so He goes up onto the mountain and calls the
twelve to Himself. Can you imagine
being chosen from among this multitude to be a disciple who would remain with
Jesus constantly, become His friend and He your mentor? You have been chosen by Him to do that very
thing. You, like Joseph, have been
chosen by the king, made a family member and given the rights of a child in the
house.
At some level the church at Corinth feels as if it has
outgrown Paul, their father in the faith.
He was the one who first brought them the Gospel but some others, whom
he will later refer to as "super-apostles" have come and won their
affections. These apparently claim to be
more than Paul, to have wisdom and knowledge that he lacks, and the Corinthians
have accepted their claims. I see this
in the charismatic/Pentecostal movement from time to time, that there are
teachers who have access to wisdom and insight that others lack. There is a rush to believe that someone knows
the "deep things" and, unfortunately, this is nothing more than
incipient Gnosticism based on texts that have been rejected by the church since
they were first put forward. Paul is
upset with them for going after these teachings and teachers. We never outgrow the Gospel. We can want more but we can't substitute
knowledge for truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment