Joseph and His Brothers

Most of us know the story: Joseph was the favored son of Jacob. Jacob's love, his wife Rachel, only had two sons, Joseph and Benjamin, although he had twelve sons altogether, and Benjamin was still pretty young. So, already the older brothers are jealous, because Jacob's favoritism is obvious, but then Joseph starts spouting off about dreams that he has had (the sun and moon and eleven stars bowed down to me). The dreams were actually prophesies about the family showing obeisance to Joseph because he made it possible for them to survive the upcoming famine, but, at the time, they just seemed to be boastings of a boy who thought way too much of himself.
One day, the brothers found themselves alone with Joseph, and their father was way out of sight, and some of the brothers started scheming to kill Joseph. Reuben intervened, not because he was less jealous of Joseph than the others, but because he had some idea of what it would do to their father if something happened to Joseph (the beloved son). He talked them into putting Joseph into a pit, while he tried to think of a way to rescue Joseph. In the meantime, some merchants came by, and some of the other brothers decided to sell Joseph as a slave; that way, they got rid of him, and picked up a little extra cash, too. They took his coat, smeared blood on it, and showed it to Jacob. Jacob believed that his most beloved son had been killed by a wild animal, and mourned his loss. I think that the brothers had second thoughts, then, as Ruben had expected, but it was too late. They didn't even know where their brother was.
Years later, after going through a lot of stuff, Joseph is called in to interpret a dream for Pharaoh. The dream is, of course, prophecy about the famine. Joseph tells Pharaoh that he needs to pick a man of wisdom to collect a portion of the crop yield for the next seven years, so that it can be stored and used during the seven years of famine. Pharaoh figures that Joseph was the only man wise enough to interpret the dream, so he's the perfect choice to oversee the collection and distribution of food for the next fourteen years. The famine turns out to be considerably more widespread than just Egypt, but Jacob and his sons hear that there is food in Egypt. The ten oldest sons go down to Egypt with money to buy food. Joseph gives them food, but he toys with them a little. I think part of him wants to punish them for what they did to him, but, mostly, I think he wants to know if they have developed some moral fiber in the years since he last saw them.
One thing that is very clear, as you read the story: Even after all he has been through, Joseph still loves his brothers. He isn't sure how they feel about him, but they seem to have written him off as dead. Of course, they've been pretending that he is dead with their father for years, so maybe this is just force of habit. Possibly they are afraid that word will get back to their father; perhaps Reuben doesn't know what really happened to Joseph, even now. As Joseph pushes and prods his brothers, trying to find out what kind of men they really are, now, it becomes increasingly difficult for him to keep up the pretense. He has to walk away, weep, wash his face, and come back. He sets Benjamin up, the only other son of Joseph's late mother, and waits to see what the other brothers will do. The brothers could easily have walked away; Oh well, Dad's second favorite son is gone, too. They stayed, and they pleaded for Benjamin. This time, Reuben wasn't the only one who thought about what the loss would mean to their father. Eventually, Joseph broke down and revealed himself to his brothers, and told them to go get Jacob, and return, and live in Egypt, and he will take care of them.
Interestingly enough, Joseph’s mother had already died by the time all this happened, and there is no mention of Leah dying, or migrating to Egypt. The prophecy was that Joseph’s parents and brothers should show him obeisance, so, in the absence of his mother, I am assuming that his father’s other wife was represented by the moon in Joseph’s dream. Apparently Leah did make the trip, even though it isn’t specifically mentioned.
In any case, family is important. We won’t always agree with, or even understand, some of the things that our relatives do, but they are still family. We should love and respect our families, even when we have to disagree with them. Jesus made it clear that we shouldn’t let even our closest relatives keep us from living the life of a Christian, but we should still care for them.

UPDATE: It was pointed out to me that I inadvertantly wrote Joseph twice where I should have written Jacob. That has been corrected. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused.

What Does It Mean to Be Reprobate?

What does it mean to be reprobate? American Heritage Dictionary gives two definitions (as an adjective): 1. Morally unprincipled; shameless. 2. Rejected by God and without hope of salvation. To be honest, there isn’t a lot of difference between the two. If one is morally unprincipled and shameless, than one stands a very good chance of being rejected by God and left with no hope of salvation. If one is rejected by God, then one has no basis for moral principles, and so will become morally unprincipled and shameless. Please notice that there is a definite difference between being reprobate and being an atheist. If you’ve been paying attention, then you know that many atheists do have moral principles, which simply proves that, although they have rejected God, God has not rejected them (at least not yet). The term reprobate is used three times in the New Testament: Romans 1:28, 2 Timothy 3:8, and Titus 1:16.
Some examples from Scripture: the parable of the prodigal son has been brought up, but I don’t think that qualifies. The father never gave up hope that his son would return, and when the son did return, the father ran out to meet him. Clearly, the parable illustrates the relationship that God (the Father) has with us (His children). Many times we will slip away from the will of God, but He is patient with us. He will usually deal with us, and try to get us to return (in the parable, the father had nothing to do with the son’s misfortune, but sometimes God does prevent us from prospering when we seek our own will instead of His; but sometimes He just let’s us do what we want, and let us learn the hard way that material things never bring lasting satisfaction). Personally, I don’t think that the prodigal son represents a reprobate spirit—the Father did not reject him, even though he rejected the Father.
Esau is, perhaps, a better example. He sold his birthright for a bowl of stew. At the time, he had convinced himself that he was starving to death, so what good was his birthright? Some have said that Jacob took advantage of him (because Jacob knew that Esau wasn’t dying), but I think that Jacob did what God led him to do, but that’s a subject for another blog (this would get really long if I tried to get into that now). My main point here is that Esau found no space of repentance, though he sought it carefully. Of course, in Esau’s case, he wasn’t looking for salvation (he was looking for his inheritance, as the older son, but inheritance doesn’t always go to the older son—but our inheritance, as Christians, from our Father, is salvation), it’s just that when he realized what he had given up for a little bit of food, he tried to get his birthright back, even though he didn’t have anything that Jacob wanted nearly as bad as Esau had wanted those beans at the time. It is clear, however, that even though Esau’s state wasn’t really the state of a reprobate man, that the Scripture uses Esau’s situation as a warning to those who might become reprobate: God forgives (and He wants to forgive), but there are no guarantees that you will be able to find forgiveness if you just walk away. I have known far too many people that convinced themselves that they could do whatever they wanted, because God would forgive them, and ended up so far out there that they didn’t even want to be forgiven anymore.
The Pharaoh that refused to let the Israelites go (Ramesses II?) has been brought up. To be honest, I’m not sure that he qualifies, either, because, it seems to me, that you have to have been saved before you can be reprobate. Certainly Pharaoh had a reprobate attitude, and it even talks about God hardening his heart, which would suggest that God wasn’t trying to save Pharaoh, so that would indicate that God had rejected Pharaoh. There is some indication that Pharaoh knew who the true God was, but that he refused to bend his will to God’s, so maybe he really was reprobate. I guess it’s open to debate.