Joseph and Jesus

Acts 7:9-11

And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household. Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food.

N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone (Part One)

Joseph was rejected by his brothers, but God used him to become the ruler of all Pharaoh’s household, and indeed of the whole land of Egypt. When his brothers needed food, the man they had to go to was the man they had been jealous of and so had rejected. Fortunately for them, he was gracious to them and gave them what they needed.

One of the great arts of Christian theology is to know how to tell the story: the story of the Old Testament, the story of Jesus as both the climax of the Old Testament and the foundation of all that was to come (not, in other words, a random collection of useful preaching material with some extraordinary and “saving” events tacked on the end), and the story of the church from the first days until now. . . . Sometimes a story is the only way of telling the truth (110).