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The Forging Table

THE FORGING TABLE | Genesis 37 (Ep. 776)

June 22, 2025 41m 49s Full transcript available
THE FORGING TABLE | Genesis 37 (Ep. 776)
0:00 / 41m 49s
In this episode, we dive deep into Genesis 37, exploring the story of Joseph and the betrayal by his brothers. Their jealousy leads to a series of disastrous decisions that set the stage for Joseph's journey into Egypt and the unfolding of God's plan.
Transcript
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0:00 [Music]
0:20 This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
0:23 I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.
0:27 Welcome back to the forging tale, sorry I got to mess up my own intro
0:29 here cause Zach, I think this is your 8th attempt in a row, but the timer is going.
0:35 You're the man, you're the man, land and leave it in baby, this is a monumental occurrence.
0:39 But let's get back into it, welcome back to the forging table.
0:43 The mission of Undaunted Life is equipping men to push back darkness with content that
0:46 forges spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
0:48 At the forging table, you'll see a group of regular guys forging spiritual resilience
0:51 by digging into God's word and we're welcoming all of you to come along with that journey
0:54 with us.
0:55 That's OG Ryan, then we also got OG Zach in the house and we got Russell in the house
0:58 guys, we're digging into Genesis 37 today, so we have covered a lot of ground over the
1:02 last several weeks, but now we're going to get into Joseph's dream, so we're going to
1:06 be spending a lot of time, focus on Joseph here.
1:09 So Ryan, you did such a good job last week reading all the most obscure names in the
1:14 history of the Old Testament.
1:16 And I wore my sorry Joby shirt just because I had a feeling you were going to make me
1:20 read that.
1:21 No, I would never set someone up to fail, no, like not at all.
1:25 So I didn't have to apologize to Joe.
1:27 And now it's just one big sorry, yeah, we haven't busted that shirt on a while.
1:30 We should have that.
1:31 Hey, walk through his church, wearing that shirt and people think it is absolutely hilarious.
1:34 They don't get the joke a lot.
1:35 Well, some of them get the joke, but some are just like, what's the sorry Joby thing?
1:37 They're like, where'd you get that shirt?
1:39 And I was like, there's like six of those in existence, and I think we sent one to his
1:43 wife as well.
1:44 All right.
1:45 Just do the first four versus just the first four first four.
1:47 Let's go.
1:48 All right.
1:49 Jacob lived in the land of his father's or journeys in the land of Canaan.
1:52 These are the generations of Jacob Joseph being 17 years old was pasturing the flock with
1:56 his brothers.
1:57 He was a boy with this.
1:58 He was a boy with the sons of Bila and Zilpha, his father's wives and Joseph brought a bad
2:03 report of them to their father.
2:06 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of any other of his sons because he was the
2:11 son of his old age and he made him a robe of many colors.
2:14 But when his brother saw that their father loved him more than all of all of his brothers,
2:19 they hated him and they could not speak peacefully to him.
2:22 Russell, do you want to act out robe of many colors?
2:24 Do you remember what you did?
2:27 No, you did.
2:28 All right.
2:29 It was nice.
2:30 I remember that every single time.
2:31 Well, yeah.
2:32 Let's go ahead and kick it off right here.
2:33 You know, some people are, you know, they make a lot of the robe of many colors.
2:36 Obviously, there's been a lot to discuss their, you know, why Joseph was kind of the preferred
2:44 son, Joseph kind of, you know, some people read it like, Hey, he was giving a bad report
2:48 to the father because he knew he was the favorite.
2:51 He kind of was like a tattle tale.
2:52 And so it's like kind of setting him up for failure.
2:53 Because other people are like, no, he was just incredibly righteous man.
2:56 And if people are not upholding righteousness, you know, you let your father know, like in
3:01 that day, it's like, it would have been incumbent upon him to share.
3:04 So whatever y'all want to hit on those first four verses.
3:06 If we go back, two weeks ago, Russell, you talked about how Jacob kind of set up his
3:12 line towards Esau and how he showed favoritism.
3:16 I think that favoritism is coming out more and more now that you talked about.
3:20 And then the brothers are actually seeing it and they're becoming really vengeful of
3:24 it.
3:25 And, and, and taking it out on Joseph, but I don't know if Joseph is, you, I think you,
3:30 you're the one that brought it up or Russell brought it up that there's like no bad thing
3:34 said about Joseph and like the 14 chapters that he's in.
3:37 But something makes me wonder if Joseph had any humility or he was just like just a matter
3:44 of fact, you know what I'm saying?
3:46 And so like that's, that's the thing you don't know if these brothers just automatically
3:49 hate him, which God uses that hate for his good, you know, because he has to set up something
3:54 in regards to what's going to happen in time.
3:56 But like you start to see that favoritism come out and you start seeing these brothers
4:00 getting more upset.
4:01 But then you will get into the dreams, but yeah, that's just kind of like what I took
4:04 from that first part.
4:05 Yeah.
4:06 Have y'all so I just want to bring this up here at the beginning of this so that we can
4:10 watch it as it as we go through it.
4:12 But there's so many, so much commentary on the idea that Joseph being a comparable of
4:18 a Christ figure in, I don't know how you phrase it, but there's so many contrast and
4:26 in so many things that are similar, I even saw that one person said that even the code
4:31 of many colors, there was some discrepancy on translators and that that same translation
4:37 could be a coat of no seams that basically like a no seam robe.
4:43 And that was actually the same description or a description that was given to Christ when
4:47 they robed him was a robe with no seams.
4:50 And so just these little things I just kind of want to look for as we go through the Joseph
4:54 story to relate those back.
4:57 And some of them will just jump out at us.
4:58 Well, Ryan, I think you've talked about before how you were really excited to get towards
5:02 the latter in a Genesis because you really like Joseph so much.
5:05 But I mean, my gosh, like sometimes I'll be embarrassed of myself by how much I lament
5:10 or complain or you know, circumstances don't go well, yeah, I remember, you know, Lucy K,
5:17 kind of a, you know, rough comedian, but back in the day, he had this joke to where people
5:20 would get mad on flights when their Wi-Fi wouldn't work.
5:23 He's like, it's sending a signal to space and sending it back down to your phone.
5:28 Can you give it a second?
5:30 And it's just kind of like how many people they've, they don't even realize it's like
5:34 you're, he's like, you're flying 500 miles per hour in the air, like you're, you're doing
5:39 it a few hours, what would take, you know, your forefathers, months of travel and half
5:44 the people died of dysentery to do something.
5:47 And you just read through Joseph's story, it's like, oh my gosh, things are so easy for us
5:51 and this dude just stayed the course, stayed the course and he kept experiencing injustice
5:56 after injustice.
5:57 My favorite part of the Joseph story is like, I think what Joseph says to his brothers
6:01 at the end and I know I'm probably giving away some stuff, but you guys should already
6:05 read this.
6:06 But, uh, spoiler alert.
6:07 What God meant for what you meant for evil, God meant for good.
6:10 Yeah.
6:11 You know, and like that, he might be the ultimate example of that other than Jesus.
6:14 Yeah.
6:15 And so like, well, what we meant for evil, which is our sin, God meant for good by sending
6:20 his son.
6:21 And then, you know, with, when it comes to Joseph, Joseph is set up to keep the Israelites
6:27 going because, you know, this nasty famine is going to come and hit.
6:31 And so God, God had him go through all of this just to set him up and, and he, you know,
6:39 I'm sure there's times that he lamented, you know, what he was going through, but he always
6:44 trusted God and what God had for him.
6:46 And so I just, Joseph's probably like one of my favorite characters in the Bible.
6:51 Um, it's just like he went through such a horrible time, but man just came out at the
6:57 end just praising God.
6:59 Yeah.
7:00 Incredible stuff.
7:01 Let's keep, uh, the story rolling, Zach, if you'll hit five through 11 now, Joseph had
7:08 a dream.
7:09 And when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.
7:12 He said to them, hear this dream that I have dreamed, behold, we were binding sheaves in
7:17 the field and behold, and behold, my chief arose and stood upright and behold, your sheaves
7:23 gathered around it and bowed down to my chief.
7:26 His brother said to him, are you indeed to reign over us or are you indeed to rule over
7:31 us so that they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words?
7:37 Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, behold, I have dreamed
7:40 another dream, behold the sun, the moon and 11 stars were bowing down to me.
7:46 But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father's rebuke, his father
7:49 rebuked him and said to him, what is this dream that you have dreamed?
7:53 Well, I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground
7:57 before you and his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.
8:02 Yeah.
8:03 So there's a lot of different ways people can take this.
8:06 First of all, bold move cotton.
8:07 They were so mad at your first dream.
8:09 You're like, Hey, I got another one for you and it's even better for me.
8:12 But it's just kind of like, okay, it depends on what tonality you read into the text is
8:16 going to be how you're going to take the meaning of this section.
8:19 And so if you take it as him being like kind of smarmy, like I had a dream you want to hear
8:23 it.
8:24 Yeah, y'all were all bowing down to me.
8:25 I was above all you.
8:26 So if you read that in the text, that'll be how it comes off or this guy just like literally
8:31 can't not say his dreams or this was part of the mission.
8:34 So it doesn't really matter if there was smart or not coming off of him as he was saying
8:38 it.
8:39 And I couldn't really get a consensus on commentators as to okay, he was in an unprovoked manner sharing
8:46 his dreams.
8:47 And it doesn't sound like he was saying it to be like, Hey, can y'all help me understand
8:51 this dream?
8:52 It was like, Hey, bros, bros gather around gather around.
8:54 Yeah.
8:55 Hey, you know how I'm on the favorite?
8:56 Hey, you like my coat?
8:57 By the way, y'all are all going to bow down.
8:58 And then it's like, Hey, double down.
9:01 You know, mom and dad also y'all are going to be bound down as well.
9:04 So again, it's kind of all over the place in the commentaries.
9:06 I don't know that it's a normal dream.
9:10 You know, like the ones that we have that I can never remember when I wake up.
9:13 I have a feeling this was like a trip and acid cannot forget about it feels very real
9:18 type dream.
9:19 So it's almost like he feels compelled to say something, which would explain some of
9:22 the behavior about, you know, hitting them with the second one.
9:25 It's even more how many times could you have had the dream?
9:29 You know, like maybe he's had it multiple times.
9:31 And we just don't know that because like, if you see like a lot with, with Pharaoh in
9:35 the end, like he's having this dream multiple times.
9:39 And so I like to think, I mean, this is just me thinking about it, but like, I mean, where
9:42 do they do in the evenings?
9:43 Don't they all get around and like talk to each other and, you know, like share, share
9:48 things and like maybe he was genuinely like saying, I'm having these dreams and these
9:52 are, this is, this is what it's showing me.
9:55 Like what does this mean?
9:56 And the brothers probably are like already jealous of him, but like his father who loves
10:01 him is like, come on, man, your dreams are kind of crazy.
10:03 Yeah.
10:04 Like your mom and I are going to bow down to you.
10:06 Like that's nuts.
10:07 And like his brothers are like, who does this guy think he is?
10:10 He thinks our own father is going to bow down to him, but honestly think he's just naive.
10:14 Yeah.
10:15 I want, I want to see like later on, we even see in his other interactions with people,
10:20 I believe with Potiphar's wife, like this is very like, he's not trying to be as confrontational
10:25 as he comes off at times, but he is just so black and white on what is good, what is
10:31 bad.
10:32 No, I'm not going to do this.
10:33 I know no one's around, but my God is around.
10:35 I can't sin in front of my God.
10:37 Like he has this idea that God is with him, God is watching over and that whatever needs
10:43 to happen, he just bluntly puts it out there.
10:45 It's almost like he's on the spectrum or something, you know, like he, he's one of those guys.
10:49 I don't know if y'all have ever met them, but one of those guys that they don't filter
10:53 what, what normal people filter out to try to make you feel good about the stuff.
10:58 They're just very matter of fact.
11:00 And this is the, this is what it is.
11:03 I need to tell you this.
11:04 And we also know that he's gifted in dreams, you know, later on, we see this being a continual
11:08 thing that he's gifted in dreams.
11:11 He's gifted in understanding dreams or knowing that they should at least be interpreted.
11:15 And so here we see the start of that.
11:18 And I think he's just a very unique character that the Bible is first introducing to us
11:23 here as this guy is different.
11:26 And he knows he's different.
11:27 His family knows he's different.
11:29 Even the people that don't like it, they still have to admit he's different.
11:32 When you said he was kind of spectrum, yeah, I literally had the thought that they're
11:35 all hanging around the campfire.
11:36 They're talking about how the day when they're cracking jokes and all that.
11:39 And then he just real serious goes, I had another dream and he just starts like describing
11:43 the dream and I was just kind of like, Joseph again, we were having fun.
11:48 Read the room and I'm like, bro, like that's not the time for this.
11:52 That actually is like way better.
11:53 I think I'm going to go with that.
11:54 Like maybe that was the interpretation, but that literally could be like the dreams that
11:56 you hear about today, like, like, because I listen or think through all the stories in
11:59 the Bible, when they point out dreams, they're always pretty impactful, memorable, or memorable.
12:06 What about the ones that are happening in the Middle East right now?
12:08 Yeah.
12:09 Right.
12:10 I mean, they feel more real than real to those.
12:11 It's not a normal dream, right?
12:14 So it just seems like this is something that's very impactful.
12:17 That's not going to go away that, but made such an impression that he feels convicted
12:21 that he needs to share it.
12:23 Oh, and gosh, I mean, Ryan, you want to talk about one of the best arguments for something
12:28 like Calvinism, the ultimate sovereignty of God of all that.
12:31 It's like, okay, people in countries where a missionary cannot get into without all kinds
12:37 of hoops that have to be jumped through, where Bibles cannot be sold or distributed, where
12:42 street preaching would end with the cutting off of your head and second type of situation.
12:48 And yet the gospel is exploding in these areas because Jesus, as with the Bill Khureshi,
12:54 is coming to these people and calling to them in their dreams and you're right, you know,
12:58 regardless of if you take any sleep aids or anything like that, sometimes, you know,
13:01 people make the comment like magnesium dreams or something like that.
13:03 Cause if you take magnesium right for bed, like sometimes the dreams can be so visceral
13:06 and real, but within 30 minutes of waking up, you, you have nothing, you have no recollection
13:11 of it whatsoever.
13:12 However, I think all of us have had dreams before that it is completely stuck in your
13:17 brain and it was more real than real while you were experiencing it a couple of months
13:20 ago on, we'll be now with the ask a pastor, I asked Joby a question at the end, I saved
13:25 the last question to kind of be kind of a weird deal.
13:28 But I said, Hey, you're 51 years old.
13:31 Let's say you wake up tomorrow in the last 30 years of your life was a dream.
13:35 So you're 21 years old, you wake up, you're back in your dorm room or whatever you're
13:38 doing when you're 21.
13:40 So you've not graduated college yet.
13:42 You've not gone to seminary.
13:43 You've not met your wife Gretchen.
13:44 So that's no eldest son, JP, no youngest daughter, Reagan, Capri, no, uh, beach church, no church
13:51 of 11 22, like no, nothing.
13:54 So you're back and you wake up and it's that what's the first thing you're going to do?
13:58 Like in their dreams where it'd be like, no, you're there the entire time you were experiencing
14:03 it the entire time and all of a sudden just poof, it's gone.
14:06 So yeah, this does feel like categorically different.
14:09 Like this is not like, Oh, I had a weird dream or had a bad dream or because a lot of times
14:12 in your dream it's not actual people, it's just amalgamations of men and women or children
14:17 or whatever that are just in your dream that are part of whatever the narrative of your
14:20 dream is.
14:21 And again, I don't really like getting into too much like dream, like, you know, these
14:24 books of people that are like, okay, if you have a dragon in your dream, it means this.
14:27 And if the color yellow shows up, then it means that like, but yeah, I mean, we see throughout
14:32 this and this is used throughout the Old Testament that these dreams are and dreams and visions
14:36 are absolutely pertinent to the overall narrative of scripture.
14:39 Does Joby experienced a peanut butter and jelly sandwich yet?
14:42 You know what?
14:43 He is not.
14:44 And I told, yeah, that's a good reminder because he's never eaten because I asked the question
14:48 I was like, okay, once one of these has got to go forever.
14:51 So you can only have one or the other forever.
14:53 I said PB and J or grilled cheese.
14:56 And Joby goes, well, I've never had a peanut butter and jelly.
14:58 And so he said, I'll just give her that and I literally was like, pause, hold up, wait
15:02 a minute.
15:03 What do you mean?
15:04 You've never had a peanut butter and jelly.
15:05 What do you mean?
15:06 What does that even mean?
15:07 How does that even happen?
15:08 I don't know, man.
15:09 Never really had me a peanut butter and jelly.
15:10 That's kind of how it sounds in my head.
15:11 At least when he talks.
15:12 That's not how he sounds like.
15:13 Hey, man.
15:14 I never had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
15:16 Man, I never had me no peanut butter and jelly.
15:19 I don't really know.
15:20 Peanut butter and jelly for a little baby, man.
15:22 He's kind of like Ricky Bobby and Roy D Mercer in my head, they just like a combination
15:26 of those two guys.
15:27 Come on, man.
15:28 How big a boy are you?
15:29 It's already had no peanut butter and jelly.
15:30 Yeah.
15:31 I should probably figure that out.
15:32 You know what I should do?
15:33 Before the...
15:34 Oh, I don't really know what I should do.
15:35 Okay.
15:36 I got an idea.
15:37 Yeah.
15:38 I don't know about it.
15:39 I think I got an idea.
15:40 So remind me after we're done here.
15:41 Anything else in this first section before we move on?
15:43 All right.
15:44 Joseph being sold to his brothers now, spoiler alert.
15:46 Whoops.
15:47 All right.
15:48 We're going to do...
15:49 He sold to his brothers or brothers.
15:50 By his brothers, by his brothers.
15:51 Sorry.
15:52 Words are important.
15:53 So Russell, let's go ahead and hit verses 12-24.
15:54 All right.
15:55 Now, his brothers had gone to graze their father's flocks near Shekelm and Israel said
16:01 to Joseph, "As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shekelm, come, I'm
16:06 going to send you to them, very well," he replied.
16:08 So he said to him, "Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks
16:12 and bring word back to me."
16:14 Then he sent him off of the Valley of Hebron.
16:17 When Joseph arrived at Shekelm, a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked
16:21 him, "What are you looking for?"
16:22 He replied, "I'm looking for my brothers.
16:25 Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?
16:28 They have moved on from here," the man answered.
16:30 I heard them say, "Let's go to Dothan."
16:34 So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.
16:37 But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.
16:42 You say, "Through 24."
16:45 Here comes that dreamer, they said to each other, "Come now, let's kill him and throw
16:49 him into one of these cisterns and say that a fierce animal devoured him.
16:54 Then we'll see what comes of his dreams."
16:56 When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands.
16:59 "Let's not take his life," he said.
17:01 "Don't shut any blood, throw him into the cistern, here in the wilderness, but don't
17:05 lay a hand on him."
17:06 Reuben said this, "Just rescue him from them and take him back to his father."
17:11 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the ornate robe
17:15 that he was wearing, and they took him and threw him into the cistern.
17:19 The cistern was empty and there was no water in it through 24.
17:26 Yes, just through 24.
17:27 Yeah, there you go.
17:28 That's it.
17:29 Let's get into this here because obviously we see some scheming that's coming through.
17:33 It's one thing, whenever you have incredibly strong negative feelings towards a person,
17:37 and then now we start seeing this conspiracy.
17:40 Again, when they're talking about, "Here comes this dreamer that is obviously dripping
17:44 with sarcasm."
17:45 So again, we have to look at context and see exactly what's going on here in the text.
17:49 Reuben said, "Hey, let's not take his life, let's actually see what we can do to profit
17:56 from this."
17:57 But yeah, they stripped him, they threw him in a pit, and again, you have to think, we
18:02 know the ending of this story, but if you're Joseph, he had to have known that his brothers
18:06 were not huge fans of his.
18:07 He had to have known, usually people are not completely aloof or unaware that people don't
18:11 know him unless he maybe was a little speck for me, perhaps he was aloof to it.
18:15 But I mean, you want to talk about the ultimate betrayal, I mean, these are your brothers.
18:18 We spent some time on a week or two ago talking about brothers and the relationship between
18:22 brothers and that bond that's there.
18:24 And even if you fight, and even if you get after it, ultimately you are for your brother.
18:28 But I mean, this goes back to Cain and Abel, and we obviously see this same type of thing
18:34 working out with jealousy turning into a murderous, violent rage by Joseph's brothers.
18:41 So keep going on that.
18:43 No, I mean, when it comes down to it, I mean, they're just mad, they're angry.
18:49 And then, you know, what we see with Ruben is Ruben actually shows them compassion towards
18:54 them.
18:55 From what I read in Moody, they don't know if it was really just compassion towards them
18:57 or just respect out of his father, respect for his father, because, you know, we talked
19:02 about within the last chapter, you know, of the, the ancestral relationship he had with
19:06 his mother-in-law, which probably led to his father being really upset with them.
19:12 But I mean, you think about it, man, like I've never won like, I've, I've been angry
19:16 at my brothers and I've never wanted to kill them, you know?
19:19 And so like the fact that these guys are like, are so jealous of who Joseph is that they
19:24 want to take his life is, it's kind of sad, you know, it's kind of sad that these, these
19:29 are the guys, but it just kind of shows how broken we all are, you know, it doesn't matter.
19:33 You know, Ruben, Ruben from here is, is, you know, showing some compassion and says, hey,
19:39 just throw him in the well, it's not spill his blood.
19:42 But then, you know, they're still trying to figure out after he's in the well, whether
19:45 they want to kill him or not and what they're going to go with and do with him next.
19:49 So it's just, I don't know.
19:51 It's just, it's a, it's a tough thing to look at.
19:55 I think Ruben doesn't really show or he does show that this family still doesn't have the
20:00 leadership that you would think it would, that Jacob really hasn't set up the structure
20:07 because even when Ruben doesn't want to do this, being the oldest son, so he's the oldest
20:11 son, he should have a great amount of authority over his other brothers.
20:14 But because of all the family dynamics, there is chaos.
20:17 Even when he doesn't want to do this, he has to basically talk them into this other idea,
20:23 throw him in the sister and he can't just go up to them and say, this is wrong, you're
20:26 not going to do it.
20:27 I'm the eldest, you fall in line.
20:30 Even though we're tired of this little punk, we're not going to do this.
20:33 He has to work this thing out to where he tries to scheme.
20:37 Again, he's his father's son and it doesn't work out.
20:40 Well, I think also too is that you have to look at the fact that Jacob didn't respect
20:45 him as the firstborn and he lost the blessing because of what he did.
20:49 So the brothers more than likely don't respect him, but then he decides to go and do it on
20:52 his own.
20:53 Like he doesn't do what you said he should have done, which is step up and say, no,
20:56 he's like throw him in the sister and he's going to go grab a rope and act like he saved
20:58 him.
20:59 This is kind of where you see Judah actually take a step as a leader in this group and we'll
21:04 see that in the coming chapter about, he basically says, hey, let's do this.
21:10 And we don't know if he's saying do this out of his own greed or if he's trying to help
21:14 Joseph out or not rather than spill a brother's blood.
21:17 But yeah, it's, you kind of see who starts taking lead and then you, we see that the
21:22 story shifts towards Judah's narrative for a little bit for a while.
21:26 Yeah.
21:27 I mean, there's questions about why would the father send the son and these conditions,
21:32 you know, knowing that the other ones don't like him and all that.
21:34 But I guess part of it just be providence, you know, in order for this story to unfold
21:38 with what's about to occur, you know, a lot of these things maybe are just God's providence
21:43 to try to answer some of the questions.
21:44 When you have to see, you know, coming up here with the end, sometimes you'll have parents
21:51 or things that happen and people will be like, how did no one know?
21:54 Like if there's a violent outburst by somebody or someone goes into a rage or something happens,
21:58 it's like, how did no one see the signs?
22:00 Like how did, how could a parent possibly have let this person go with this group of
22:03 kids knowing what blah blah blah and it's like, it's one of those hindsight is 2020 situations.
22:07 It's also one of those things where it's like, okay, you were not in the mind of that person.
22:12 That person was distracted.
22:13 Perhaps they thought, Hey, boys will be boys.
22:15 Yeah, of course they hate their brother.
22:16 Oh my gosh, I would kill him if I had the chance.
22:18 Like things that are said that I'm assuming are, you know, something that gone is a time
22:23 in memorial.
22:24 Like people constantly talk that way about people like, I just want to kill that guy and
22:27 they don't actually mean it.
22:28 They're just using hyperbolic language.
22:30 But again, we're going to get to the text here like he's going to lose a son for a long
22:34 period of time.
22:35 You know, there's been stories I heard about once we recently, I don't want to give too
22:39 much detail because I don't want to mess it up.
22:42 But there was a kid that was kidnapped from a particular house or whatever.
22:49 And I guess the everyone still stayed living on the street or whatever.
22:52 And like 22 years later at like 3 30 in the morning, the person came back to their, their
22:57 families door and like rang the doorbell, like 20 something years later, they had been
23:01 abducted.
23:02 They had gotten back and they basically just walked home, right?
23:04 Because they were abducted, it's up such an early age, they didn't know like, Oh, I got
23:07 to call the police.
23:08 I got to do this.
23:09 I got to fix this and that type of thing.
23:10 And it's just like, okay, like what do you even do in, in a situation like that?
23:15 It's just like, uh, it's a different level, like for these parents, because they thought,
23:19 they thought their kid was completely gone and now their kids at their door, but they
23:22 don't recognize them because they haven't seen them for a considerable period of time.
23:26 And so it's not going to be without its, you know, tremendous, uh, wide ranging consequences.
23:30 So let's actually, since we're, we're kind of falling into that, that discussion here.
23:34 Uh, Ryan, if you would like to go and finish this out, so let's just do 25 and read through
23:38 the indigence.
23:39 Can I just bring up one thing?
23:40 Yeah, please, please go.
23:41 Uh, is that back to the Jesus archetype is that they mocked him for his robe and tore
23:46 it off.
23:47 I mean, just to keep, keep an eye on those kind of little things because obviously the same
23:51 thing happened with Jesus.
23:52 Go ahead.
23:53 And there's also one interesting thing real quick on in verse 23, they stripped him of
23:56 his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore.
23:59 Like, they didn't just say they stripped him of his robe.
24:01 They kind of like, you know, like, no, no, no double stamp.
24:04 Remember when we said it was a robe of many colors, like it's like, they're reminding
24:08 the reader or they're lining the person like, Hey, this wasn't just a robe.
24:11 Remember like just not that long ago, we were talking about what the robe was.
24:14 Well, the strip room was a robe, but then they also threw him in the pit and like, you
24:18 know, after Jesus dies, where does he go?
24:20 What do they call hell?
24:21 The pit?
24:22 Yeah.
24:23 You know, and the pit's empty.
24:24 You know, the tomb is going to be empty.
24:25 So I mean, there's a lot of good, you know, Jesus archaea type in here is, I think the
24:29 word he is.
24:30 So there's a lot of good contrast.
24:31 You want to go ahead and get started?
24:32 Yeah.
24:33 Twenty five through the end.
24:34 Then they sat down to eat and looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from
24:38 Gilead with their camels bearing gum, balm and murr on their way to carry it down to Egypt.
24:45 Then Judah said to his brothers, what profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his
24:50 blood, come let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and let not our hand be upon him, for he is
24:55 our brother, our own flesh and his brothers listen to him.
24:59 The Midianite traders passed by and they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit and
25:04 sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver.
25:07 They took Joseph to Egypt.
25:09 When Reuben returned to the pit, he saw Joseph was not in the pit and he tore his clothes
25:13 and returned to his brothers and said, the boy is gone and I, where shall I go?
25:18 Then they took Joseph's robe and slaughtered a goat and dipped it the robe in blood.
25:22 And then they sent the robe of many colors and brought it to their father and said, this
25:26 is this we have found, please identify whether it is your son's robe or not.
25:31 And they identified it and said, it is my son's robe, excuse me, he identified it and identified
25:38 it and said, this is my son's robe.
25:40 If your animal has devoured him, Joseph is without a doubt torn to pieces.
25:45 When Jacob tore his garments and put sat cloth on his loins and mourned for his son
25:49 many days, all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to
25:53 be comforted and said, no, I shall go down to shill to my son morning.
25:58 Thus his father wet for him.
26:00 Meanwhile, the Midianites sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain
26:06 of the guard.
26:07 So obviously Potiphar is going to very much so, you know, feature in the life of Joseph
26:13 here shortly, but we have Judah saying, hey, like, come let us sell him.
26:19 And gosh, I'm in a road right there in the mouth.
26:21 It's very Judas-like that the same kind of idea.
26:25 And so I forget it was a couple of weeks back now, Zach, I may have been, you know, three
26:30 weeks ago, but we were talking about at what point, because I was making the point about
26:34 Preggesco and it's at what point do you lean on your own instincts, whether that be leadership
26:39 or management or business or entrepreneurial, like instincts to like do a thing?
26:44 Because if you're looking at the story of the gospels from a very, you know, pragmatic
26:49 point of view or a business point of view, like Judas was right, like, Hey, let's make
26:53 some money doing this.
26:54 Like, Oh my gosh, she just broke broke this and like that was a year's wages in that jar.
26:58 Like we could have sold that and fed the poor.
26:59 We could have done all these different things, obviously missing the point of what was even
27:03 being done in the moment.
27:04 But I don't know if this is just, you know, is that or Ryan, you already brought this
27:08 up to where it's just like, okay, we, we, we can only surmise what Judas motivation is
27:13 here.
27:14 Is he just thinking practically?
27:15 Is he thinking pragmatically?
27:16 Is he already thinking about guilt?
27:18 It's like, well, if we're going to lose our brother, we might as well get some coin out
27:20 of this entire thing, like, so it's just hard to kind of know what the motivation was there
27:25 for Judah.
27:26 The heart is desperately wicked, you know, who knows, I mean, that's what comes to mind
27:30 for me.
27:31 Yeah.
27:32 Right.
27:33 Because they sold them, you know, 20 shekels, that's roughly the cost of a slave at this
27:36 time in history.
27:37 And so, I mean, again, I don't really like, as long as we tell everyone, this is what
27:41 we're doing.
27:42 I'm okay with like, hey, what do you think this means?
27:45 Because it does, that, that doesn't really level in.
27:47 You should not ask yourself that much.
27:48 Hey, what does this scripture mean to me?
27:50 You know, that's, that's not really something because you can, you're basically starting
27:53 in the land of Isa Jesus.
27:54 That becomes a bit problematic, but here, um, I feel like Judah is just thinking pragmatically.
28:00 He's like, you know, what are we profiting here?
28:02 Yeah, we're getting rid of this nuisance, but we might as well get something extra.
28:05 Like the bonus is the money, because we're already going to be getting rid of them.
28:08 So who cares?
28:09 And, and I, and I agree with that.
28:10 I think it was, I think it was money motivated, but I also think like, if we think back, like,
28:15 how much do they know about their history?
28:17 How much do they know about can you enable?
28:19 Do you really want to spill your own brother's blood who's considered innocent, you know?
28:24 And so I think when it came, it gave him a way out.
28:27 It gave him a way to take leadership and like, you know, they're like, hey, we can split up
28:31 that money and we don't have to live with the guilt of our, of our brother of killing
28:37 our brother.
28:38 But I mean, their father, they're going to have to live with their father who's going
28:40 to mourn for many years until he sees his son and he doesn't even know he's ever going
28:45 to see his son again.
28:46 They don't know they're ever going to see their brother again, you know, and they have to
28:49 live with that.
28:50 And so, um, I just think that's just something, you know, they didn't even think about at
28:56 that point.
28:57 They're just thinking about how do we, you know, I think they're thinking, man, we pull
28:59 them out of this piece and go home until our father and we're going to get, you know, in
29:02 trouble again.
29:03 So.
29:04 Well, in psychologically speaking, I think we're wired to justify the decisions that we make
29:08 to rationalize them.
29:09 I mean, that's a legitimate thing.
29:12 So I'm sure, you know, they say that the path to hell is paid with good intentions.
29:15 And so they had just done something and now they're working to, to making themselves feel
29:19 better about it.
29:20 Have you ever found yourself to where like, to me, this is one of those stories where they
29:27 kind of thought something, what, what is it?
29:29 Uh, Mel Gibson, that actually said it the other day, it's, uh, your second thought and
29:34 your first action and the idea that like you have your first thought and then most of
29:39 the time we're pretty good about controlling that thought and submitting it to the spirit
29:43 or, you know, and controlling that, but then like that second thought, you're, you're accountable
29:48 for that one.
29:49 Like if you continue on that path, that second thought is yours and you're accountable to
29:53 it.
29:54 And that, that, uh, action that you take, you need to watch those because that, that's
29:59 where, and I feel like with them, somebody had that first thought, here's our brother.
30:03 Let's kill him and let's see what happens about those dreams.
30:05 And it's kind of like, ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, no, no, let's, let's really do it.
30:09 So that second thought got ahold of them to where somebody said something they shouldn't
30:12 have said.
30:13 They thought it first.
30:14 They shouldn't have said it.
30:15 They took action on it and then they find themselves continuing to take action towards
30:19 a wrong thing because they don't know how to get themselves out at the point that they
30:23 threw him in the cistern.
30:25 They were kind of in a, in a pickle because what do they do then?
30:29 They try to pull him out and then tell their dad, they were just joking.
30:32 I mean, the cisterns were not like something that you joked about being at the bottom
30:36 of, um, because he could have died just from, just from whatever that was, if it had water
30:42 and whatever.
30:43 And so like the idea that they just keep on making that next bad decision, thinking that
30:47 that's going to somehow dig themselves out and, and it never does.
30:51 It's like what Kyle said earlier where it's like, you know, sometimes people say what
30:55 they don't mean.
30:56 Like, oh man, I could kill that guy, you know, it doesn't mean you want to go and kill that
30:59 guy.
31:00 So one of the brothers let off some steam like, oh man, we should just kill Joseph.
31:03 And rather than like Ruben being like, come on man, that's crazy.
31:06 He's our brother.
31:07 Like you were saying someone's like, he goes, no, let's throw him in the, let's throw him
31:10 in the pit.
31:11 You know, it was just like, so one like stupid thought led to another stupid idea.
31:16 And they actually did it and now they're trying to figure out how to get out of this.
31:18 No, none of them thought back to be like, Hey, do you remember that story that our dad
31:21 told us about Abraham when you made a covenant God and then God said this weird thing about
31:25 your people will be strangers in a land, not their own and slaves for 40 like, yeah,
31:31 you think maybe this is how like we're going to sell our brother off to these people and
31:34 we know he's going to be out in this other land or whatever, but yeah, I remember watching
31:38 a documentary.
31:39 I mean, if you watch any modern true crime stuff, there's the diabolical people that plan
31:43 out every single aspect of the horrible abduction rape murder that they're going to
31:48 be doing.
31:49 We hear the like the serial killer things like I'm kind of weirdo.
31:51 I'm kind of like into the stories just like, because again, if I'm equipping men to push
31:54 back darkness, I kind of, you know, weighed in some of those dark pools of water to where
31:58 it's like, all right, that's, that's pretty darn dark.
32:00 But I remember this one story because it was, it was actually a redemptive story because
32:04 the guy I was on death row, he ended up becoming a Christian.
32:07 Like he was like teaching theology classes and Bible classes inside the prison and all
32:11 that.
32:12 And I think he was eventually executed.
32:13 But he abducted a woman from like a gas station and he raped her.
32:20 And I guess the plan was to rape her.
32:21 The plan never was to kill her.
32:24 But apparently things, you know, escalated during the situation and he's progressively
32:27 making these ideas.
32:28 Well, it's like, well, now what does she talk?
32:30 Okay.
32:31 Well, I got to, I got to shut her up.
32:32 Okay.
32:33 Well, I went a little bit too far with the violence.
32:34 Okay.
32:35 And then he ends up killing this woman.
32:36 And then he calls his buddy and, you know, picks him up in the car and she's got a, he's
32:40 got a dead person in the back of the car.
32:42 So now he's brought his buddy into it.
32:44 And his buddy's a little bit more of a low IQ guy, kind of a go along to get a long guy,
32:48 would basically, you know, do anything to help a guy.
32:50 And now all of a sudden they're trying to find a place to, to get rid of this body.
32:55 And it's just the continual escalation of the sin to where it started with, I want to
33:00 slay this, this lust, this sexual lust I have.
33:02 And then he sees someone that he could potentially do that with, but he doesn't want to mess
33:06 with the whole courtship process, right, thinking in, in the way a rapist would think.
33:11 And then it just completely unravels layer by layer by layer whenever you allow the sin
33:16 to kind of take over.
33:17 And there's so many stories about that that you see where the intention was never, this
33:20 was not part of the plan.
33:21 Like the brothers did not get together and think this entire thing through.
33:25 And you can kind of see from some of the messiness of it.
33:27 I mean, that's what a lot of detectives will look at when they're doing crime scene reports
33:30 and all that's like, this is frantic.
33:32 Like this is panic.
33:33 This is, you know, oh, they, they fought somebody and then they actually hit him too hard, beat
33:37 him to death.
33:38 They frantically dug a, you know, a shallow grave with their hands.
33:41 And then, you know, just tried to run and pretend like nothing had ever happened.
33:45 And it just doesn't really work out that way.
33:47 One thing that the Moody commentary pointed out here that thought was interesting is there's
33:51 a lot of results of this event by Joseph's brothers.
33:54 But the three main results that are kind of the redounding results that, you know, have
33:58 echoes throughout the rest of Genesis is number one, Joseph will live in slavery, right?
34:02 So that has a lot of, because when you get into Potiphar and Potiphar's wife and different
34:05 things, like they're, they're so much that has to do with the fact that he was enslaved
34:09 at the time.
34:10 Again, everyone thinks about, you know, African slave trade, chattel slavery, it wasn't exactly
34:13 like that in that time.
34:15 But, you know, this is a bad situation for Joseph Shirley.
34:18 So that's number one.
34:19 Number two, Jacob is going to grieve the loss of his son for over two decades.
34:24 Like again, where you could read this in an hour, but I mean, we're talking about like
34:28 22 years is him, my son is gone, like my favorite son is gone, right?
34:34 And then the third thing is Joseph's brothers will continue to live in guilt.
34:38 Because in the moment, you're just trying to think, okay, how could I just get to the
34:41 next thing?
34:42 Okay, we just got to do the next.
34:43 Okay, we got to cover this up now.
34:44 Okay.
34:45 Now let's just kill this goat, let's dip his thing in this goat.
34:47 So like, and then we'll be fine.
34:48 And you see that when these people do quote unquote get away with the crime, they're not
34:52 existing in a prison in terms of, you know, the literal physical location, but they're
34:57 kind of in a prison of their own mind because they're constantly looking over their shoulder.
35:00 I mean, you talk to these cold case detectives and, you know, we've talked to different people
35:05 on the show, you know, that have looked at some of these things.
35:08 Some of these times when these guys get caught, they are relieved because they've been walking
35:12 around for decades wondering is today of the day, right guys to get out of the mob or guys
35:16 get out of gangs.
35:17 They're like, it's today, the day that I get clapped is today, the day that, you know,
35:20 I'm going to have to pay for these decisions that I've made and then they get caught and
35:23 they get cuffed.
35:24 And it's just like, Oh, thank God, it's over.
35:27 I mean, the proverbs say they run when nobody's chasing them, I mean, yeah, I mean, that's
35:31 Jay Warner Wallace has told a lot of stories like that.
35:33 Yeah.
35:34 I thought it was crazy how like it just came back around to Jacob again and that he deceived
35:39 his father based upon Esau's cloak.
35:42 And then he was deceived by his own sons with a cloak, you know, and so it's just like,
35:47 man, it's just crazy how there's so much synergy around the sin in, you know, we look at Abraham
35:54 and Isaac and that they lied about their wives and then Jacob lying to his father and
36:00 dressing up as his brother using clothes.
36:02 And now his sons are using Joseph's clothes to deceive him.
36:07 And so it's just like man, Laban does it with his wife.
36:10 Yeah.
36:11 I mean, it's just like, yeah, it's just like, you think you went to the wrong page?
36:14 You're like, Oh, I've already read this.
36:16 Oh, this is happening.
36:17 It's still happening.
36:18 Yeah.
36:19 So I don't know.
36:20 I just thought it was crazy.
36:21 But like, no, I mean, when we look at it, like these guys are going to live in guilt for
36:24 the rest of their lives, there's a, I think I talked about there is a movie, uh, Abraham
36:29 that was done by TNT, like Richard Harris played Abraham and we were going over Abraham.
36:33 They actually did one with Joseph where like Ben Kingsley plays pot of fur.
36:37 And there's a scene where they, uh, the brothers take the cloak to the father and, um, they're,
36:43 they're sitting there lying and they see their father break down and like the brother,
36:47 like who's like the most mastermind, uh, uh, one of like the whole thing, Simeon, um, which
36:53 I don't know biblically that's correct, but like Simeon plays the role of the mastermind
36:57 of the angriest one at, uh, at Joseph and he runs out after that, after that scene just
37:04 sobbing because of the guilt that he had, you know, and, um, not to give away the rest
37:10 of the story, but like in the, in the end of that movie, uh, when Joseph sets and sets
37:15 them up, like he sits there and he goes, why do you have so much forgiveness for me?
37:18 You know, and it's just another thing to show how, you know, we've, we've been so
37:23 deceitful in our depravity towards God, but like he still shows that love for us.
37:29 And so like I had given away a lot of the story because there's so much of the story
37:32 left, but, but I mean like, yeah, just seeing these guys break down and live in the guilt
37:37 that they have and we lived in the guilt of our sin.
37:40 And because of Christ, we don't have to live in that guilt anymore.
37:42 We're forgiven.
37:43 Hey, men to that, well guys, or go ahead, Zach, well, uh, any, we covered ground pretty
37:50 quickly on this one, but we've gone long on a couple of last weeks.
37:53 But anything else as we wrap up Genesis 37, again, just getting into the narrative of
37:57 Joseph, anyone, anyone, anyone, anyone, all right guys, we'll just wrap it up there.
38:04 We appreciate you guys tuning in and listening in and make sure you are read through Genesis
38:08 39 for next week.
38:10 So read Genesis 38 and 39 to get ready for next week.
38:13 But before I let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost and adopted life
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Key quotes
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Kyle Thompson
Joseph's probably like one of my favorite characters in the Bible. He went through such a horrible time, but man just came out at the end just praising God.
Kyle Thompson
What God meant for what you meant for evil, God meant for good.
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