Slices
Prepare
‘Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus’ (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Thank God for his provision for you in this past week.
Bible passage
25 Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, to put each man’s silver back in his sack, and to give them provisions for their journey. After this was done for them, 26 they loaded their grain on their donkeys and left.
27 At the place where they stopped for the night one of them opened his sack to get feed for his donkey, and he saw his silver in the mouth of his sack. 28 ‘My silver has been returned,’ he said to his brothers. ‘Here it is in my sack.’
Their hearts sank and they turned to each other trembling and said, ‘What is this that God has done to us?’
29 When they came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them. They said, 30 ‘The man who is lord over the land spoke harshly to us and treated us as though we were spying on the land. 31 But we said to him, “We are honest men; we are not spies. 32 We were twelve brothers, sons of one father. One is no more, and the youngest is now with our father in Canaan.”
33 ‘Then the man who is lord over the land said to us, “This is how I will know whether you are honest men: leave one of your brothers here with me, and take food for your starving households and go. 34 But bring your youngest brother to me so I will know that you are not spies but honest men. Then I will give your brother back to you, and you can trade in the land.”’
35 As they were emptying their sacks, there in each man’s sack was his pouch of silver! When they and their father saw the money pouches, they were frightened. 36 Their father Jacob said to them, ‘You have deprived me of my children. Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is against me!’
37 Then Reuben said to his father, ‘You may put both of my sons to death if I do not bring him back to you. Entrust him to my care, and I will bring him back.’
38 But Jacob said, ‘My son will not go down there with you; his brother is dead and he is the only one left. If harm comes to him on the journey you are taking, you will bring my grey head down to the grave in sorrow.’
Explore
His brothers have no idea what is happening, but as Joseph’s plan to be reunited with Benjamin (vs 20,34) unfolds, they are terrified (v 28). They can only see a bad outcome and conclude that they are being judged by God (vs 21,28).
On their returning home, Jacob is similarly despairing. He can see no good coming of releasing Benjamin to return to Egypt (v 38). Anyone who has experienced the pain of loss can surely sympathise with his dilemma and with his weighty conclusion: ‘Everything is against me!’ (v 36).
As readers, however, we are in a privileged position and can see what Jacob and his sons could not yet see. Yes, God is involved in their dilemma, but not to punish them. Rather he is using these bewildering events to bring about the restoration of the family and a dramatic reconciliation between Jacob and the sons he believed he had lost (v 36).
Like Jacob, we may be unable to discern God’s presence, much less his purpose, in our pain: but as he will discover, even in the darkest times, God is always at work.
Respond
‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?… No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.’ (Romans 8:35– 37). Do you know anyone experiencing hard times? How could you offer them Christ’s love?
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Leviticus 8,9; Acts 7
Pray for Scripture Union
Please pray that God will continue to provide the finances needed to support and grow the mission of SU in revealing Jesus to children and young people in England and Wales.
