Maybe you can relate to Job today. Maybe your health has just vanished, and pain has become a constant companion. Maybe you’re trapped in debt and feel like you’re out of options. Maybe you’re struggling with addictions and feel powerless to overcome them. Maybe your relationships are a wreck, and…

“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” Can Joseph possibly be right? He had been enslaved for thirteen years. He had been falsely accused and imprisoned for two years. Could God somehow have meant all those terrible things to happen to him? In a word, yes….

Why did God have to tell Jacob not to be afraid to go down to Egypt? After all, he was about to receive the greatest blessing he could imagine – to see his long-lost son Joseph again. So, why would he be afraid to experience something so joyful? Well, isn’t…

Why did Joseph continue to serve God? And why would he want to help his captors? By the time he appeared before Pharaoh, he had been held as a slave in Egypt for thirteen years. Worse yet, he had spent two of those years in prison, falsely accused of rape…

Have you ever gotten in trouble because you tried to do the right thing? Joseph certainly did. Far from remaining the bratty little tattletale that his brothers had sold into slavery, he seems to have been chastened by his experience, becoming a responsible, respected manager (39:4). Even though he was…

It’s hard to imagine a family more divided. Jacob didn’t seem to have learned anything from Isaac’s preference of his older brother Esau, as he repeated the same error by making Joseph his favorite (37:3). Jacob’s other eleven sons naturally resented Joseph, especially when their father lavished Joseph with special…

How should we respond when God has blessed us? The first time Jacob came to Bethel, God promised to be with him, to protect him on his journeys, and to bring him back to the land promised to him and to his descendants (28:15). And by the beginning of chapter…

Have you ever wrestled with God, crying out for justice, begging God to explain your grief or suffering? That seems to be the same sort of thing Jacob was doing in today’s passage. He was heading back to the land where his father and brother were living, but he had…

What a mess. Jacob had been a trickster all his life, and now he had met his match. He wanted to marry Rachel, the woman he loved (Genesis 29:18), but his father-in-law had tricked him into marrying Rachel’s sister Leah as well (Genesis 29:23-25). Oh, and Laban also got Jacob…

“Give me Isaac.” God might as well have said, “Give me all your hopes and dreams. Give me everything that is near and dear to you.” What kind of God would make such a test? What kind of God do we have? Maybe that’s not an academic question for you…