This year I switched from using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible reading to the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net”.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 39-41.

    This passage reminds us that false accusations of rape, or attempted rape, are nothing new, just as the story of Dinah tells us that rape is nothing new. Potiphar’s wife tried repeatedly to seduce Joseph, finally. when she was unsuccessful she accused him of attempted rape. Once again, I see Joseph’s naiveté. It never occurred to him that she would do such a thing. If it had, he would have been careful not to be alone with her in the house. There is a lesson here to take note of. Be careful about being alone with someone of the opposite sex who is not your spouse. The temptation to do wrong will be great and if your are not tempted they may make false accusations against you to which you have no defense.

    While Joseph was in prison he, once more, made the best of a bad situation. As a result, he rose to a position of relative privilege. It is worth noting that Joseph did not rise to any of his positions of privilege because of favoritism. Rather, he rose to such positions because he remained faithful to God. While he was in prison two of his fellow prisoners had prophetic dreams. One of those dreams was good, one was terrible. We do not know why the cup-bearer received the good outcome and the baker the terrible one. The point of the story was that the interpretation Joseph offered for dreams was the one God gave him, not one which would please his audience. We need to be the same way.

    When Joseph gave Pharaoh the interpretation which God had given him for Pharaoh’s dreams, he also gave Pharaoh a plan to deal with the coming famine. In giving Pharaoh that plan, Joseph did not in any way suggest that he should be put in charge of executing it. Pharaoh wisely chose to put Joseph in charge. One of the reasons that made that wise was because Joseph did not present himself as the person to be put in charge. Joseph did not present his plan as a vehicle for advancing himself. He presented it as the best way to deal with the coming disaster.