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blogging, faith, humor, Joseph, life, opinion, responsibility, victim blaming
I have this pet peeve. Not really a peeve, but it’s far more fun then my other pet peeves.
Nearly every time I ever hear the tale of Joseph, somebody says, Joseph should have kept his mouth shut. Joseph shouldn’t have been bragging. Joseph’s father shouldn’t have been playing favorites. Who did Joseph think he was, walking around in that coat of many colors? Joseph shouldn’t have been so uppity. Joseph should have kept his dreams to himself.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing that people talk about it. One of the wonderful things about the bible is that it enables us to feel these things, to relate to the stories, to incorporate them into our own lives. So if you think of Joseph as that whiny little brother, daddy’s favorite, wearing his fancy coat, always telling his brothers they’ll bow down to him someday, I’m not judging. Maybe God is revealing something to you there that He wants you to understand.
Today I caught about two minutes of Max Lucado speaking about Joseph. Sure enough he said, “Joseph should have kept his dreams to himself.” It actually doesn’t say that in the bible! It is not written. Just saying. Max went on to say something about Joseph having a dysfunctional family, and how his father was playing favorites.
I can’t really yell at Max Lucado, but I so wanted to say, “Now hold up here!” Even if Joseph truly had a dysfunctional family that doesn’t mean Joseph should have changed, anticipated their negative responses, and adapted his own behavior to accommodate their dysfunction. If Joseph had been all passive and meek, that may not have helped at all! For all we know, his brothers may have killed him outright instead of throwing him in a pit.
Joseph is not the bad guy here. Joseph is actually doing exactly what we would hope a normal, healthy kid is going to do, share his dreams, talk about what God has been teaching him. A normal, healthy family response, requiring a bit of humility I’m sure, would have been to say, “What a wonderful dream, Joseph! I’m excited, I might get to be the brother of someone important!”
I know, I know, few families are always humble, loving, full of grace towards one another, possessing no rivalries, I’m just saying they should be. That should be the ideal. So, if you are tempted to throw one of your family members in a pit or have them sold into slavery or something, that is not ideal. Just saying.
It’s kind of interesting to me, this concept of Joseph as the brother who should have kept his mouth shut and Joseph’s dad as the father failure of the year is a fairly recent, modern translation. Why did Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery? Well, because he was obnoxious, the family was dysfunctional, dad played favorites, there were a lot of wives…..
Excuses, explanations, more excuses, bad childhoods, dysfunction…..next thing you know we’re going to have Joseph’s brothers in therapy because it’s not really their fault, they’re just good guys with some unresolved emotional issues, communication problems…..maybe they just need some more job training? If they had money maybe they wouldn’t have been so tempted to sell their own little brother……
I’m not really yelling at Max Lucado here, he’s just a good target today because while watching his handling of the Joseph story I discovered why this always starts to get on my nerves. We’re erasing sin, as if it doesn’t exist, as if even our own envy is someone else’s fault, as if Joseph’s brothers couldn’t possibly have just been jerks. Yes, jerks! They wanted what they wanted and they didn’t care about anything else. Especially not Joseph’s feelings! Who is completely responsible for what happened? The jerks who threw Joseph into the pit and then sold him into slavery.
People can be jerks. Just jerks, that simple. Most of us can on some level. There really are no excuses. There can be forgiveness and redemption however, but we’ll never get there if we insist on constantly blaming everything and everyone but ourselves.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
Nice words, thanks for sharing about Joseph. 🙂
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Go ahead and sock it to Max😘
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Amen! I agree with you that we need to stop blaming the victim. If they had only done this or not done that then nothing would have happened. The story of Joseph has been an inspiration for me as well as others in the Bible.and I have heard people blame him calling him spoiled and a brat which I never agreed with and if he had not shared his dream then they would not have known when it happened that it had been from God. Great work.
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Great post. I like it. Of course maybe I like it because I finally found someone who shares my views.
I have òften wondered why and how so many criticize Joseph at this stage of his life, and later say he is
an example of the life of Jesus Christ.
God’s Continuing Blessings.
George
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; – )
“Elijah should have kept his mouth shut.”
“Nathan should have kept his mouth shut.”
“Jeremiah should have kept his mouth shut.”
Zechariah had his mouth shut.
“Mary should have kept her mouth shut.”
“Elizabeth should have kept her mouth shut.”
“Jesus should have kept His mouth shut.”
“Stephen should have kept his mouth shut.”
“Paul should have kept his mouth shut.”
Except for the Zechariah bit, what dysfunctional “father” says all these “shut ups”?
Oh! Right. : – (
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I suppose this comes from the belief that the only reason people sin is because somebody provoked them. Joseph’s brothers would never have envied him if he had just…..done things differently. As if Joseph could have changed being a favored son; this was imposed upon him by the weaknesses of his father.
During a class discussion I led a group of teens tried to hash out original sin. They didn’t like the idea that people are born with a tendency to sin, so they came up with society makes people into sinners. When asked what is society, well, it’s other people. What makes other people (society) sin against the individual? Other people sinned against them. Who started it? Society. And around it went. The idea that people are afflicted with perverse desires without outside influence was not admissible.
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“The idea that people are afflicted with perverse desires without outside influence was not admissible.”
That’s kind of chilling, but I’ve talked to people too and it seems to be pretty prevalent. I say “chilling” because the implications are pretty awful.
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Good post! Blaming the victim does not get us out of the sin. Joseph’s brothers certainly knew that.
The truth is generally inconsiderate of someone. Satan wants to God. Lot of us would like to be God. But the position is already taken.
Why was Jacob’s family so dysfunctional? I expect the problem was too many wives. Nevertheless, there is rarely a good excuse for selling someone into slavery.
Was Joseph without blame? The Biblical text does not actually say. All we can do is read between the lines. That is, we can conjecture.
Dysfunctional family or not, Joseph’s brothers did not seem to detest or distrust each other, just Joseph. Did they hate Benjamin, that other favored son. Doesn’t see to be the case. Consider what one of them was willing to sacrifice for Benjamin.
So why was Joseph hated? My guess is that he was full of himself. Instead of being embarrassed by his father’s favoritism, he relished it and lorded it over his brothers.
You recall Joseph forgave his brothers. After they sold him, I expect Joseph spent years trying to understand why his brothers had hated him so much. When Joseph forgave his brothers, perhaps he also forgave himself.
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“My guess is that he was full of himself. Instead of being embarrassed by his father’s favoritism, he relished it and lorded it over his brothers.”
LOL! Now see Tom,that’s exactly the kind of thing I’m complaining about.
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@insanitybytes22
True.
Blaming the victim is not a defense. It is not even a good explanation. We are each responsible for our own behavior.We are suppose to conquer evil with good.
Still, as human beings we interact, and what the Bible often portrays is that interaction. In this case we mostly speculate, wondering to what extent Joseph behave gracelessly before he wised up.
As a child of our Father in heaven, Joseph received a considerable amount of chastisement. You don’t suppose there wasn’t any reason for it, do you?
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It’s interesting Tom, I don’t see chastisement anywhere in Joseph’s story. Many people do, so you are not alone there. But that too has become a modern conjecture, as if bad things happened to Joseph so God must have been punishing him. We’ve become a bit like Job’s friends in that sense. If there is any suffering in your life it must be because you’ve done something bad. In truth over and over we read, “But the Lord was with Joseph, and shewed him mercy, and gave him favour.” The Lord was with him. The Lord prospered Him.
There is no mention at all of chastisement.
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Because we are usually taught to see what Joseph did as overcoming adversity — as perseverance — we don’t think of it as chastening. Yet Joseph was a son of the Most High. Like any son or daughter of God, he had to persevere through the chastening of the Lord (Hebrews 12:3-11).
What did Joseph endure? Why was he hated by his own brothers. Why did they sell him as a slave? Did God allow Joseph to be thrown in prison for no good reason? Was Joseph forgotten by a man who promised to remember him just to suit God’s timeline?
Joseph suffered. Was that chastening or simply random? Not random? Then what had Joseph done that caused the Lord to rebuke him? Was there nothing? Was Joseph sinless?
Joseph himself said God arranged for him to be sold into slavery. I think he understood that involved more than just getting into Egypt.
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“Then what had Joseph done that caused the Lord to rebuke him?”
Well, the question is, was the Lord rebuking him or was he highly favored and being set into a position of authority as God told him in his dream? Often when we suffer we will assume it is some kind of rebuke or discipline and yet that wasn’t true in Job’s case.I don’t think it was true in Joseph’s either. Joseph suffered because of other people’s sin,not because God was chastising him.
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I don’t know. We do suffer from the sins of others. Still, only Jesus was sinless.
Romans 8:28 is beyond me. How does God make that work? It is a puzzle I cannot solve.
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You are on track, blaming the victim doesn’t help anything or anyone. However, could Joseph have shared his dream in an arrogant kind of way? We don’t know. When I find Doc Brown’s DeLorean I’m going to use it to go back then to see HOW he shared the dream…blessings IB
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Ha! A DeLorean I love it. The thing is, even if Joseph had been arrogant, it’s still not an excuse the throw him in a pit and sell him into slavery.
Myself, I should very much like to throw a few people in a pit,but God has never told me, go for it. That’s totally justified 🙂
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“next thing you know we’re going to have Joseph’s brothers in therapy because it’s not really their fault, they’re just good guys with some unresolved emotional issues, communication problems…..maybe they just need some more job training?”
Ha…that one cracked me up. 🙂
Our modern conjectures reveal a lot of powerless thinking. After all, we can’t be expected to do the right thing when other people aren’t, right? It’s their fault! Actually,it sounds a lot like Adam…
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“Actually,it sounds a lot like Adam…”
Ha! Very funny, because I was just sitting here on my hands trying to resist the urge to rant about Adam and how little things have changed….
If I do it, at least I can now blame it on you. 🙂
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Actually, Mel has a point. The only question is whether the brothers will be going to a Christian therapist or non-Christian… For that matter, after listening over the years to all the explanations of the Bible, I might need to go to a therapist….
Yes IB, you caught me on a rant day. Bwaaaa ha haaa…I pity the fools who mess with me today!
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Yeah, but it’s my wife’s fault… 😊
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Ok, here is my humble opinion. Joseph evidently was a God fearing young man. Had he NOT told his dream, then the brothers could have come back and said, “You lucky guy. You sure came out on top of this deal.” By having shared his dream BEFOREHAND he was actually speaking God’s will in to existence. Later on, when the brothers saw him in Egypt, they recalled the dream and KNEW that God’s hand was all over this and that Joseph had absolutely nothing to do with it coming to fulfillment.
The story of Joseph is simply a “Saved by grace through faith and not of ourselves,” message. It is a “For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works that He has BEFORE ORDAINED THAT WE SHOULD WALK IN THEM,” type message. It is a, “Lord, I will trust you not matter what,” type message and a “I will stand and when I have done all, continue to stand,” type message.
In other words, “QUIT MAKING THIS DIFFICULT PEOPLE!!” See, your pet peeve caused me to raise my voice. 🙂
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Amen, Patrick! I really like your interpretation. That’s kind of how I see it too. This is a lesson in trust and perseverance and destiny.
It’s kind off funny and tragic if you think about it. Joseph basically says, “here is God’s will for me, let Him be glorified” and people start going,”Joseph is so full of himself, Joseph is so arrogant, Joseph should be thrown into a pit…”
But we modern people actually know the story and how it ended! Joseph persevered and God’s will came into existence. Victory, just as God said it would happen. Joseph is like the only one in the whole story who stays faithful,who doesn’t outright sin and drop the ball.
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Okay, IB. I’ll buy it that Joseph was innocent of ill intent when he was young. I have even heard it postured that Joseph was a type of Jesus Christ because of hate toward him, unjust imprisonment, all those noble things. Now here is where I have had my problem toward Joseph. I can’t see anything good about how he treated his brothers after they came to him and before he revealed himself to them. Why trap them? Why threaten? Could he possibly have been getting a bit of revenge? Was it just a way to see his daddy and little brother? I think not. If he had revealed himself up front, don’t you think the evidence of prophesy would have been seen? Don’t you think they would quickly have said they wanted to go get daddy and little brother? I can’t help thinking he was getting his pound of flesh. Just how anxious was he to forgive? Just saying. I’ve never heard anyone discuss this particular issue regarding Joseph?
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LOL! No matter how hard I try to plead for poor Joseph,this idea that he is full of himself persists.
He is not Christ, I’m sure he had many sins. Just the same the bible tells us he was a good man, Godly, and He had the Lord’s favor. “The Lord was with him. The Lord prospered him.”
So God sees Him as good,the bible tells us he is good,and yet we don’t believe it. I wonder if there is something modern, ingrained in us that insists on fairness, equality?
Romans 9:18 comes to mind, “Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.”
I was once mad about that one for a while. I did not think God should be playing favorites. I was quite prepared to tell God who He should a have mercy on and who He should not,who should have His favor and who was completely unworthy. 🙂
Interesting you mention how eager was Joseph to forgive. The bible doesn’t really say. We should forgive too, I don’t mean to imply we shouldn’t,but I also wonder if that isn’t a modern cultural thing? I often hear how Christians must forgive and be tolerant without any mention of the wrongness of the sins we are supposed to be forgiving? So in the modern world there is often this idea that we must tolerate everything and the only real sin is to be unforgiving and intolerant.
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I enjoyed this slant on possible victimization and alternative perspectives. Many comments already posted made very good points. May I challenge consideration of ‘the rest of the story’?
I used to listen regularly to radio commentator Paul Harvey’ show “The Rest of the Story”, where he filled in the blanks popular reports usually left in ellipsis. Relative to Joseph’s family, a history of dysfunction can be traced back to Abraham who had three wives, subsequently three families.
Although Isaac was his 1st born, his mother Sarah was 90 when she became pregnant. By anyone’s observation, that was no ‘normal’ conception. Of course, spiritually it was a ‘shadow’ of the miraculous birth of Christ, but literally it was a tad on the dysfunctional side.
Isaac and Rebecca had two sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau was firstborn and Jacob became known by oral tradition as a ‘deceiver’ or ‘supplanter’ because he conspired with his mother to steal his brother’s birthright. Jacob became Joseph’s father.
Jacob had twelve sons and at least one daughter, by his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and by their handmaidens Bilhah and Zilpah – THAT family could serve as the poster-child for DYSFUNCTIONAL! But according to scripture, lack of wealth was NOT the issue – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were exceedingly wealthy men.
So, perhaps the brothers were a pack of spoiled brats. Likely, it was envy – NOT over the technicolored coat, but Joe’s charisma (because, who else could wear such a gaudy garment?), and extroverted contentment that led them to kick him to the curb.
In regards to the ‘blame game’ – SIN is NOT the issue. The glory of God is!
God’s ways are NOT as man’s ways – Isa. 55:8,9. His are so much ‘higher’ (loftier? Superior? Better?) – The purpose of most narratives included in scripture is to teach a moral. Often however, the point is beyond the comprehension merely employed by the natural mind. Many, like Joseph’s story, remind me of what Jesus shared when asked why the blind man was born that way in John 9:3.
““Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him”, and Jesus (God Incarnate) healed him, and he miraculously received sight and gave testimony glorifying God. Yes, circumstances have reasons (cause and effect), but rarely do we rightly perceive the underlying purpose from a godly perspective.
I agree with your conclusion, “we’ll never get there if we insist on constantly blaming everything and everyone but ourselves.” Ultimately though, removing ‘blame’ from the equation might help us ‘get there’ by means of ‘spiritual short-cut’.
I don’t mean to ‘blame’ anyone or create a needless fervor over dogma. The inference that ‘spiritual short-cuts’ actually exist – and worse – may be more prudent, needs to be properly discerned. God controls (He is Omnipotent). Through predestination (His Omniscience) He directs PERFECTLY past, present, and future. He grants forgiveness, favor and redemption (Grace), all independent of any issue of blame.
Yes, we are ALL accountable, which means responsible – but where ALL are liable, ALL are to blame. But it is for the glory of GOD, NOT for the ‘justice’ of prosecution. The glory of God is in redemption, the reversal of consequences – regardless of blame.
This is what Jesus revealed regarding maladies, wrong doing, and all manner of suffering. “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” – Jer. 29:11. That is God’s reason for everything! With such an understanding, blame God – Who took it to the cross.
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IB – this is Not to argue your point in reply to Citizen Tom above, “In truth over and over we read, “But the Lord was with Joseph, and shewed him mercy, and gave him favor. The Lord was with him. The Lord prospered Him. There is no mention at all of chastisement”, but to add another viewpoint.
Regarding the prophesied coming of Messiah, Isaiah proclaimed, “he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed” – Isa. 53:5.
Building on the fact that God’s ways are NOT ours, whenever God ‘chastises’ it is for a purely altruistic reason. Even God Himself modeled the need for chastisement by humbling Himself in the form of a man, and willful surrender to crucifixion. Nails did not hold Him to the Cross, godly manifestation of chastisement perfected did.
So much that we perceive as unnecessary, to be avoided at all cost, is much more necessary – from God’s perspective. Eternal life comes ONLY through DEATH. Natural life comes ONLY through the pain of childbirth. Life itself, on THIS side of heaven, is a constant ‘chastisement’ for ALL of us.
Although people tend to think of chastisement as a form of punishment for some inequity, righteously imposed, it is a severe criticism; a rebuke or strong reprimand – ALWAYS with the intention of CORRECTION, ultimately resulting in PERFECTION.
“And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him. For whom the Lord loves He chastises. He scourges every son whom He receives” – Heb. 12:5,6.
The chastisement of the Lord on Joseph was Not for any wrong doing by Joseph, just as Christ was chastised for OUR sin. Joseph served as a ‘shadow’ of Christ, but in his own life – demonstrated how the very power of God can be manifest in and through a submitted human vessel. Like a coin – the other side reveals a different picture. Both equally representative of the SAME coin, just different.
Mercy and favor often come from God in the form of chastisement. The greater, the more glorious! Peace!
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Joseph is a “type” of Christ.
Betrayed by his brothers he forgives them and feeds them.
The Bible is really about the coming of Jesus.
Many of the characters are types of Jesus and the characters who played a role in his Passion.
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