Joseph, Captive to King

The following is a character study, one of several, that I did for Firm Foundation Foursquare Church in Boonville, MO.

Joseph – Captive to King
Joseph was the favorite of the twelve sons and he knew it. His father doted on him and in a lesser way, on his brother Benjamin. They were, after all, the sons of his favorite wife and she had died in childbirth with Benjamin. They were all Jacob had left of Rachel and he didn’t let anyone forget it.

He even made Joseph a special coat, one unlike anything the other brothers had. Joseph liked that. He liked being the favorite son, the fortunate son, the top of the heap.

And it made his situation worse when he would have dreams about being the chief sheaf of wheat to whom all the other sheaves of wheat bowed down to. Or the star the sun, moon and other stars bowed down to.

He liked those dreams. On the other hand, his brothers hated them. They hated that “Master-Dreamer.” Jacob, his father, just thought they were funny.

But then it all backfired. His brothers had gotten a bellyful of all of his posturing, his pretending to be the king of the sons and sold him into slavery. His life was over and his father thought he had died. He was now a slave and was sold to a man in Egypt named Potiphar.

His grief faded. He soon grew to be used to his new country and did well.

But after a false allegation of rape by the wife of his owner he was put in prison. There he used the one ability that no one had ever appreciated – his ability to interpret dreams – to good use. This brought him to the attention of the Pharoah who also had a dream he could not understand.

The dream was that Egypt would have a famine and the Pharoah needed to store up grain during the next seven years, which would be good years, for the seven after that, which would be famine years. Pharoah realized the value of this young man and made him second in command in the kingdom of Egypt.

The famine years affected Joseph’s family back in Palestine. His father sent his sons to Egypt, not knowing Joseph would be there to meet them.

The arrival of his brothers affected Joseph in a way he never dreamed possible. It made him want his family once more. After he had told them who he was, he sent for his father, Jacob, to come and live with him there in Egypt. The Pharoah was glad to see Joseph’s family and gave them a good place to live.

Joseph was a spoiled brat who became transformed to a strong leader through adversity. His move from the favorite son of a rich man to a slave humbled him. His refusal to give into temptation offered by the wife of his owner gave him courage, even though it put him in jail. And his allowing God to work through him in his interpretation of dreams made him a man of God.

His was a riches to rags to riches story that shows God working in a person’s life to his ultimate good even in the middle of extreme adversity.

Lot – Righteous in the Middle of Evil

The following is a character study, one of several, that I did for Firm Foundation Foursquare Church in Boonville, MO.


Lot –Righteous in the Middle of Evil

He looked out across the plain toward Sodom and Gomorrah and watched as columns of smoke rose from the cities like smoke from a furnace. But God had listened to Abraham’s request and kept Lot safe, removing him from the disaster that engulfed the cities on the plain. (Genesis 19:28-30)

Imagine being the only good man in your whole city. Everybody is bad. Everybody has turned from God. Everybody is evil and sinful and full of debauchery.

It seemed like such a good place when you first came. Abraham, your uncle, gave you the choice of where to go and your chose Sodom. It was a beautiful place, a place you could make a home in.

You stayed because you thought that you might make some difference. Maybe some day you could break through the barriers and bring the knowledge of God.

But you know now that you never will. And worse of all, you see your family corrupted by the ever-present evil, your daughters have married men that are no good and are rapidly becoming that way themselves. Your influence on them, while still strong, is waning. Even your wife is succumbing to the pervasive evil.

You don’t know what to do. You are at an impasse. On the one hand, Sodom is your home. Everything you have is here. On the other hand, it has ceased to be your home. Nothing you are is in common with what they are.

Then two men come to your door and you invite them in, just as you were taught to do. The men of the city find out they are here and want them to come out so they can destroy them with their perversions. You even find yourself offering your daughters to them, much to your shame, but for whatever reason, they want the two men.

What do you do? You can leave everything behind. All you have worked for and achieved you can just leave. Or you can stay and die with these people you don’t even like, these people you have grown to loathe.

The two visitors, men you are beginning to suspect are more than just men, pull you in just in time before the men of Sodom hurt you and break into your home. The men of Sodom are blinded and the two men tell you to leave. Take nothing with you except your wife and two daughters and leave the city. Don’t even look back. Just go.

You run. And your daughters and wife protest but they run with you. The Lord agrees that you can go to a small village nearby, but when you reach it, your wife looks back and turns into a pillar of salt.

In grief you stay there with your daughters. They are angry at leaving all their friends and their husbands and you are in grief over not only the loss of your home, but your wife.

And then to top it all off, your daughters, who are convinced that they are some of the few people left in the world decide to get you drunk and get pregnant by you.

Yet you retain your trust in God. All you know and love is gone, but you remain faithful to God.

Moses, the Law Giver

The following is a character study, one of several, that I did for Firm Foundation Foursquare Church in Boonville, MO.

Moses – The Lawgiver

There has never been another prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. The Lord sent him to perform all the miraculous signs and wonders in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, and all his servants, and his entire land. With mighty power, Moses performed terrifying acts in the sight of all Israel. (Deuteronomy 34:10-12)

He never wanted to be a leader. He was content to be a shepherd in the desert, taking care of sheep until one day he died. But then he came into contact with God.

At the age of forty, Moses had tried leadership. As a Hebrew raised by Egyptian royalty, he had tried to take charge over his people from a preferred viewpoint: that of being royalty himself. He killed a man who was abusing one of his people. But it backfired when he realized that his people didn’t like him nor want him to help them.

And he ran, fearing retribution. He ran until he had lost himself. He married, had children, worked for his father-in-law, completely submerged his desire for prominence and leadership.

But one day forty years later he found the bush that was burning without being consumed. And the voice of God came from the bush telling him that he was to be a leader after all.

He tried everything he could to tell God that he wasn’t cut out, that he didn’t want to, that he was not equipped. Finally he said, just get someone else to do it.

It didn’t work and he found himself as the leader of a reluctant group of people. Not only that, but he found himself against the Egyptian royalty he had been raised with, who remembered him.

After ten demonstrations of God’s power to the Egyptians, each stronger than the last, and a miracle still talked about – the parting of the Red Sea – he led his people out of bondage to – somewhere. He knew it was the Promised Land, but exactly where, he didn’t know.

The people he was leading griped from the beginning. They wanted to leave, yet they wanted to stay. Bad as it was, it was home and they knew what was there. And at every opportunity they complained. They complained because there was no water, no food, boring food, lack of variety. They complained that he thought he was better than they. They complained about everything.

They were also afraid of him. At Mount Sinai when God gave them the law, they were so afraid that they sent Moses to talk to God for them. While he was gone, they tried to reduce God to a golden calf. He punished them by grinding it up and making the assembly drink it in water.

Their fear was compounded when he came back shining from having seen God. They demanded he put a sack on his head to cover up what they did not have: the radiance of the glory of God’s presence.

When finally they reached the Promised Land after two years of travel,  they rebelled again claiming that they were not strong enough to take the land. God punished them by making them wander for 38 more years, until everyone that had rebelled were dead.

But because he had disobeyed God in an unfortunate bit of anger, he could not enter the Promised Land himself. He stood on the mountain overlooking it and died. After all this work, his assistant, Joshua, took the people into the Promised Land.

A reluctant leader who became, as Deuteronomy says, the greatest man who ever lived, the Lawgiver.

Elijah, Prophet of Fire

The following is a character study, one of several, that I did for Firm Foundation Foursquare Church in Boonville, MO.




Elijah, Prophet of Fire

The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops. (James 5:16-18)

Elijah was a man who was so full of power and the Spirit of God that he was taken up in a chariot of fire rather than suffer death. He was one of only two people recorded in the entire history of the Bible who never died.

He was an odd man, one full of contradictions. He was full of the power of God, capable of bringing on great miracles by his faith, yet he was one who was profoundly depressed. He saw the people of God unite behind him, yet he felt he was alone. He was capable of great courage and strength of will, yet was afraid at the death threat of a corrupt queen.

What would make him so great? His strength of will was strong, his presence was powerful. He evoked fear in the king just by walking into the room. They could see the power of God in his life. But what made him so powerful that God wouldn’t even let him die?

It was his faith. He never doubted that God was with him. He may have been afraid at times, even felt in danger of his life, but he always knew God was with him.

He never had any doubt that God would answer his requests. He never entertained the idea that God was not there. He just accepted it. And he also accepted the fact that God was working through him.

You first see him in 1 Kings 17 when he pronounces a drought on the land of Israel. For a time, God fed him himself by having ravens bring him food. God even sends him to a woman who is on the edge of starvation. He demands that she feed him and then blesses her with unlimited food in the middle of the drought. Then he brings her son back from the dead.

After a miracle in which he calls down fire from heaven and personally causes the destruction of most of the pagan priests in Israel, he asks God for the rain back. And it comes.

He runs for his life after Queen Jezebel threatens him. He tells God that he is the only one left in all Israel who is righteous and has to be reassured by God that it is not true. He chooses a prophetic successor. He becomes the nemesis of two corrupt kings.

His life only takes up eight chapters in the entire Bible, yet his name is synonymous with all of the prophets. It was he, along with Moses, who appeared to Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew 17. It is he who is spoken of as the greatest prophet. He is not really spoken of much in the rest of the Bible except that the Messiah would be announced by one with his spirit. The Old Testament ends with his name and his preaching.

He never wrote any books that we know of. He left no family that we know of. What he had was his faith. It was so strong that he accomplished mighty things in his life, great enough to earn him a place among the men of great faith. And great enough to cause God to take him rather than let him die.

And James says that he is like us and that we could be like him.