Genesis 41: I Knew This Convict Once Who Was Good at Dreams...

My Summary
Pharaoh has some crazy dreams, and nobody in his court can interpret them. The butler remembers Joseph and tells Pharaoh about him. Pharaoh brings out Joseph and Joseph tells him that there are going to be 7 good years followed by 7 years of famine. Joseph suggests putting someone in charge of saving up food from the good years to last through the famine. Pharaoh does that and more. He puts Joseph in charge of the whole kingdom, second only to Pharaoh. He also gives Joseph an Egyptian wife, through whom Joseph has two sons. When the famine comes, Joseph uses the food he saved to feed Egypt and many come from surrounding nations to find food.

Random Historical Things
1. The Egyptian magicians had a school where they wrote "dream books." When they needed to interpret a dream, they would match things in the dream to things in the books and come up with their interpretation.

2. Joseph was 30 when he was made prime minister of Egypt. Since he was 17 when his brothers sold him into slavery, we can see that he has been in Egypt 13 years! We do not know exactly how that time was split between Potiphar's house and prison, but we know at least two years of it was spent in prison.

And So What We Have Learned Applies to Our Lives Today...
1. God uses Christians to bless nations. Egypt was not God's elect nation, however, just in their interaction with godly Joseph, their nation is blessed. We do not want to lose sight of the fact that the reason Egypt was blessed was to provide food for Israel and his family. Primarily God was watching out for His chosen people. However, In keeping with the promises to Abraham, Egypt also was to enjoy the blessing of provision because of their involvement with Joseph. We as Christians can be a blesssing to those around us and to our nation. For example, God blessed America through the faith of the founding fathers, even though not everyone in America was a Christian.

2. Joseph again shows the courage to share his faith in God. Pharaoh was considered a deity in Egypt, but Joseph immediately claims that only God knows the answer. Then he proceeds to tell Pharaoh that God is going to determine the future of Egypt, not Pharaoh. We should never be afraid to share our belief that God is sovereign over all and use every circumstance as an opportunity to make His greatness known!

3. It is interesting that Joseph reveals the dreams not as what God knows will happen, but what God will cause to happen. God is not just peering into the future, He is the author of the future. He knows what will happend because He will cause it to happen. No matter how rough things get, do not doubt God's power over the future!