All posts in Sunday Recap

Joseph was Daddy’s favorite. He got the special coat that made him look like royalty. He didn’t have to work in the field like his brothers, but he did get to supervise them. He was set to inherit the lion’s share of Daddy’s estate, and was the envy of his 11 brothers. Life was good and life was simple for Joseph. Until God called him.

Joseph had two dreams, both declaring that his brothers and parents would one day bow down to him. Joseph was obviously a little cocky, and shared the dreams with a little bit of a smug and superior attitude. This was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back with his brothers. The envy in their hearts had already been festering for years. The ultimate expression of envy is murder, and sure enough that is exactly what they conspired to do.

Reuben intervened and convinced them to just toss him in a pit. (Gee, thanks Reuben.) Then, seeing opportunity knocking for them, the boys sold Joseph to slave traders on their way to Egypt. They tore his coat and covered it in goat’s blood to convince their poor father that Joseph had been maimed and killed by a wild animal. So while Joseph rode the dusty caravan to Egypt as a betrayed Hebrew slave, his father lay weeping in sackcloth and ashes mourning his death.

There’s no point in me retelling the entire story here. You can read it yourself in the last half of the book of Genesis.

But. the next few years of Joseph’s life went something like this:

Read more…

One thing that is common to all mankind is suffering and disappointment. Perhaps all of us have suffered varying degrees of heartache, but certainly all of us have known what it is like to be downtrodden, disappointed. So the question for the Christian is not if suffering and disappointment will come, but rather how will we respond when it inevitably knocks on our door. There’s no promise in scripture that once we get saved, the suffering stops and life turns into a series of Full House episodes.

I don’t think most of our churches really make room for allowing people to express any emotion other than exuberant excitement about God, church and life in general. When we are having to walk through a difficult time, we don’t give ourselves or those around us permission to admit it. We throw on our Perma-Grin like just another clothing accessory and flash it any time someone asks how we are doing. I’ve known people that were experiencing terrible tragedy and insisted that they were “doing just fine”. Nevermind that no one bought it. They still insisted.

I think we have to first recognize that suffering and tragedy are a central theme in the Bible. We don’t have to look any farther than Jesus to figure that out. When we ignore this fact, then we don’t know how to help each other. We end up giving each other pat answers and trite religious expressions that not only offer no comfort whatsoever but really make things worse.

Read more…

We are in the next to last week of our series on Colossians. We took a look at Colossians 3:1-11 this time.

In a nutshell, Paul is telling the Colossians (and us) that if Christ really is supreme in all things and we are “raised with Him”, then the way we live our lives will reflect that truth. He begins by telling us to “set our minds on things above”. I know in my own life, my current perspective has often determined how I “see” a particular situation.

Read more…