Readers Guide: “The Word for Today” Tuesday, September 25, 2012 Read – Genesis 37 & 38 The last saga in the long story of Genesis is about Joseph – the favorite son of Jacob – born to Rachel who was also his favorite. Once again the story tells a tale of less than appropriate behavior on the part of God’s chosen people. The story of Joseph is the longest continuous story in the book of Genesis. It’s the kind of story we really ought to read at one sitting – so if you have the time just read the whole story from beginning to end. The story starts with a couple of dreams that Joseph just can’t help telling his older brothers about. As the story begins Joseph is seventeen – that ought to tell us something – we were once seventeen too and we know some other seventeen year olds. Joseph is the hero of the story but we need to see the down-side of Joseph before we can appreciate the up-side. The dreams will end up coming true in the story – but getting there is quite a journey. This is another story of dysfunction – Joseph’s brothers threaten to kill him and finally sell him into slavery – a fate that may have been worse than being killed. They will have to live with their crime for many years and that too will come to rest as the story ends. The story is interrupted by another of those strange stories that place God’s people in a less than favorable light. Judah ends up getting his daughter-in-law pregnant. Not the kind of story we’d expect to hear or that we would really want any of our family to emulate. Why tell stories like this? Because they tell the truth about the creatures God made. And just maybe this story gives us a little time for the Joseph story to develop. After all Joseph had just been sold into slavery and it takes awhile for that story to unfold.