Faith Challenges: It Ain't All Comfort

"Sir, I am your slave. Please let me stay here in place of Benjamin and let him return home with his brothers. How can I face my father if Benjamin isn't with me? I couldn't bear to see my father in such sorrow." Genesis 44:33-34 These do not sound like the words of a man who had sold his bother into slavery. They do not match the character of one who had gone along with the attempt to kill Joseph, or at least get rid of him so their father might quit comparing them to Joseph. Reuben had been the one to intervene in the plan to kill Joseph. Judah had just gone along with the others. We might have expected Reuben, the eldest brother, to have assumed responsibility for Benjamin's safety, but it is Judah, instead, who steps up to the plate. Judah's words here mark a turning point. It is here that we see at last that a change has come over at least this one of the brothers since they last knowingly had contact with Joseph. Perhaps it was a sign like this that ...

Houston, we have a problem. Well, it's much broader than Houston. It cover the entire nation from backwoods, to downtown alleys, to media moguls, to the White House. We keep promoting, encouraging, and honoring men who abuse women. Sure, Roger Ailes was fired from FOX News as his sexual exploits became too great a burden to bear, but was released with a payout of $40 million, even as the victims of his crimes of sexual aggression were given much smaller amounts as indemnification for their suffering at his hands. Now Bill O'Reilly has been dismissed, but not for his sexual victimization of women. He is being dismissed because of financial issues over pressure from advertisers and subsequent loss of revenue for the media empire. Likely, there will once again be a payout for this latest in a string of high profile men at FOX who victimize women. We would expect this severance package to be greater than the $9 million O'Reilly has paid out to the victims of his abuse....

"This good news is about his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ! As a human, he was from the family of David. But the Holy Spirit proved that Jesus is the powerful Son of God, because he was raised from death." Romans 1:3-4 We are so accustomed to understanding Jesus as God in human flesh that we may overlook the importance of Paul's words. The mystery of the incarnation has become an assumed fact for so many of us. We quote Scriptures, sing hymns, and repeat messages pointing to God being present in Christ Jesus so often, we may forget that this was something novel, special, and completely unexpected in Paul's day. When Paul refers to Jesus as God in flesh, or when the gospel writers mention the same, it was to an audience who considered such unimaginable outside the fantastical myths of Roman and Greek deities. In those stories of gods taking human form, they were never really human. It was ever a charade—a temporary means to communicate with mortal humanity. God Almigh...

“So the king said to them, ‘No one could possibly handle this better than Joseph, since the Spirit of God is with him.’ Then the king told Joseph, ‘God is the one who has shown you these things. No one else is as wise as you are or knows as much as you do.’” Genesis 41:38-39 This has got to be the strangest part of Joseph’s story. Joseph was a foreigner. Joseph had come to Egypt as a slave. Joseph had been imprisoned under accusation of improper dealings with Potiphar’s wife. Joseph was still a prisoner. Foreigners with criminal records were the last to be considered for a position of power, much less when they were slaves. Now all this was being set aside and he was given the position of second in command of the largest world power of the day! This was a novel step, indeed. Sure, Pharaoh liked the idea of taxing all agricultural produce at a twenty-percent rate. Any excuse for that would help the coffers of Egypt immensely, even if Joseph’s interpretation were completely invalid...

"Even when we were God's enemies, he made peace with us, because his Son died for us. Yet something even greater than friendship is ours. Now that we are at peace with God, we will be saved by his Son's life. And in addition to everything else, we are happy because God sent our Lord Jesus Christ to make peace with us." Romans 5:10-11 God's way of dealing with enemies is not our standard procedure. We want merchant ships stocked with weapons with which to blow pirates out of the water. We look to security forces to kill rampaging gunmen, counting such personnel as heroes. Our idea of dealing with enemies is to destroy them in their bunkers with air strikes from afar. God's idea is to offer peace by dying on their behalf. Peace at the initiative of the offended is the message of the cross. Through the cross Jesus took the ultimate step to offer reconciliation to those acting to kill him and eliminate his call for love, grace, and reconciliation with God. Som...

"Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, 'Look what you've done! Now I'm in real trouble with the Canaanites and Perizzites who live around here. There aren't many of us, and if they attack, they'll kill everyone in my household.' They answered, 'Was it right to let our own sister be treated that way?'" Genesis 34:30-31 Jacob and Leah's daughter, Dinah, had been raped by a man who then decided he wanted her for his wife. Dinah's brothers, Simeon and Levi, were rightfully angry. They hatched a scheme to have all the men of the offending tribe circumcised in anticipation of the proposed wedding. Without their father's knowledge, while all the men were sore and incapacitated, the two brothers sneaked into the village and slaughtered all the men. The other brothers carried off the tribe's plunder, along with the herds of animals, the women, and the children. Eventually, word reached Jacob's ears, and too late, he confronted them. The br...

"The apostles thought it was all nonsense, and they would not believe. But Peter ran to the tomb. And when he stooped down and looked in, he saw only the burial clothes. The he returned, wondering what had happened." Luke 24:11-12 Luke confirms Marks account that the women fled the empty tomb in fear. They said nothing about an angel—at least not at first. Who would believe them, anyway? Perhaps only after meeting Jesus were they emboldened to speak to the Eleven. Obviously, they should not have expected anyone to believe them. They were merely women and so did not count for much in First Century Palestine. When they did say speak, they weren't even greeted by doubt. Their witness was brushed aside by all eleven apostles. After all, a self-respecting man would not give much credit to the drivel of a handful of hysterical females. They should have expected as much. They probably did. Even if Jesus had given women value and even called both Mary and Martha to sit at h...