Joseph and Big Brother

By Cal Cook

While reading the scriptures for today I couldn’t help but think bad of Joseph for buying the peoples livestock and then land in exchange for grain.

Genesis 47:21 and Joseph reduced the people to servitude, from one end of Egypt to the other. 

Now to be fair some of the texts say, and he moved the people into the cities, yet I wonder why someone would sell cattle and sheep and goats for grain. I guess if you had a lot of livestock and there was no grass for them to eat you’d need the grain to feed the ones you keep…but wouldn’t you eat some as well? Maybe it was a slow gradual decline just summarized in one statement, but it sure seems as if the people were more than willing to not only sell all of their possession but even their own freedom just for the hope of the government taking care of them!

There seems to be a natural tendency for people to do all sorts of things for a promise of security. I guess that’s what allows governments to get bigger and bigger as people look to them for more and more things. Today in England people are rioting in the streets, not for freedom but demanding that the government take care of them! What a strange thing to be demanding? Elsewhere in the world where people have lived under harsh dictatorships they are rioting for freedom…unrest just seems to be in the air…

I do believe that God has hard wired us to long for something more from this life than what we see. I quote it often but only because it is so poignant:

Ecclesiastes 3:11  Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.

So we have a God given longing for something more…even if we can’t see it. We long for the Peaceable Kingdom even when we don’t believe it exists! We naturally expect that when given enough resources and authority governments ought to be able to take care of the people…yet that fails to recognize another truth…the selfishness of man. We are naturally selfish! Even when we know we should take care of others we take care of ourselves first, our friends second and if there is anything left we might help others. That selfishness coupled with a desire for something more makes our wants way larger than our needs…so we try and fill the wants before we get to anyone else’s needs.

I struggle personally with this. The Lord has blessed our family with more than we need. We give more than 10% of our gross income away…yet we still have plenty. Sure I would like a Harley and a new flat screen TV, but I in no way need them! There are always more wants, just as there are always people who have real needs…how much is enough? I find it interesting that Joseph demanded 1/5^th or 20% of from the Egyptian people after they had sold themselves into slavery to Pharaoh. On one hand it sounds pretty generous for slaves…yet on the other hand God only demands a tithe or 10%! Even more than that God says he desires a cheerful giver…not someone who gives only because they feel they have to!

Now we have to be careful here because I am mixing apples and oranges. Governments are not God or His Church. Governments demand their portion and if you don’t obey they will take it from you and or imprison you…God may command…but we have the freedom to obey or not! When governments take from us and then provide even benevolent things, that we would support, we do not receive the blessing for those things…because we have not given willingly! We have not loved our neighbor…we have only been used by others…even if we are used willingly…

Joseph provides us with many Godly principles that we should incorporate in our own lives. Things like faithfulness and standing for what is right even in the face of injustice. Forgiveness, honesty, integrity…are just a few of the things we could name but there are many, many more. Yet what does he teach us about governments…does his life have a lesson for us there as well?