Reading: Genesis 40

In the darkness of a prison various threads from different lives come together to form an amazing tapestry, revealing to our human eyes God’s wonderful providence. First God leads events so that Joseph, a man from a family in another country, is put into this Egyptian jail. Second, the palace butler and baker offend Pharaoh; they are put in the same jail. Third, God sends these two men a dream. God gives Joseph the ability to interpret these dreams and the interpretation comes true on the third day. By pulling these threads together the Lord elevates Joseph in the mind of the butler. This, as we will see later, leads the butler to remember Joseph when Pharaoh has a dream, and Joseph’s elevation to the second highest position in Egypt.

 

The Lord could have quickly and directly delivered Joseph from prison. But He, in wisdom, chose to lead Joseph around by winding paths. God does this to test Joseph’s patience. Furthermore, God reveals, by His way of deliverance, that He has wonderful methods of working, hidden from our view. God teaches us not to measure, by our own standards, the ways in which He leads us. Instead He teaches us to be turned this way and that way by His hand, until He has completed his wise and perfect works.

 

Key text: Gen 40:2,3. “And Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief butler and the chief baker. So he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison, the place where Joseph was confined.”

 

Question: What comfort do you receive from this chapter?