This section of the life of Joseph lists the extent of Joseph’s activities as the shrewd manager of Pharaoh’s empire. What it shows is that Egypt owed everything to the ingeniousness of Joseph. While such a famine could have been the ruin of the nation, Joseph turned it to Pharaoh’s advantage. In the end all the people of Egypt were, in effect, bond-slaves of Pharaoh, and happy about it! Joseph had increased Pharaoh’s power to unprecedented heights. Pharaoh had made a good choice by putting Joseph in charge. He was blessed as a result just as the household of Potiphar was blessed when Joseph served there. When you install a child of Abraham in your midst you install a generator of blessing. In a similar way, this is what Jesus says about us, who are, by faith in Christ, also the children of Abraham and heirs of the blessing. He said that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16). Jesus’ expectation was that wherever we go we will bring blessing just as Joseph brought blessing into Potiphar’s house, the prison and ultimately to Egypt and the surrounding nations. In most cases this will occur not so much in one big and grandiose way but in a consistent series of small ways. As I have said before, God’s plan for the world does not unfold through momentous achievements so much as through a consistent series of small acts of love and faith.
Think about how you can ‘flavour’ your places of activity with blessing.
Read Genesis 47:13-31
