Most church folks are familiar with Joseph’s words to his brothers, “You meant it for evil against me, but God meant it for good…” (Genesis 50:20). He said this after Jacob’s death and his discovery that his brothers all feared that he was going to take revenge on them for their evil acts against him.
The brothers of Joseph should have known his thoughts on the matter without him having to tell them. When Joseph revealed himself to his brothers the first thing he told them was, “Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life,” (Genesis 45:5). Then, to emphasize the point, he repeated, “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors,” (Genesis 45:7). Then, he put a big exclamation point by emphatically stating, “So it was not you who sent me here, but God,” (Genesis 45:8).
“You sold me…God sent me…” Joseph believed both in personal responsibility and human agency and God’s sovereignty. He didn’t try to explain how those two things harmonize and work together. But neither did David, Paul, Peter, or anyone else who participated in the recording of God’s Word. It just is. It just does.
It is easier to be philosophical than it is to be practical about these truths. We quite readily turn them into ideas for debate and division, mere academics, and we are apprehensive about believing these things in ways that affect the way we live. For Joseph, the sovereignty of God was not just an intellectual exercise, theology he debated with the cupbearer and baker in an Egyptian prison. What Joseph believed about human responsibility and God’s sovereignty had massive implications for him personally, and more broadly the history of the Hebrew people.
Joseph leaned hard into, put the emphasis on, and underlined the “God meant it for good,” part. He didn’t deny the “You sold me…You meant it for evil,” part. He said it out loud. But the “God sent me…God meant it for good,” part was what shaped his attitude and actions toward his brothers. On a very personal level, believing “God sent me…God meant it for good,” saved Joseph from a spirit of bitterness, hopelessness, and hatred. It allowed Joseph to love rather than hate his brothers, despite their evil acts. Joseph’s brothers’ lives were spared as well. The fact that Joseph leaned into “God sent me…God meant it for good,” mattered for Joseph. It mattered for his brothers. It mattered for their descendants for centuries to come.
It matters for you and me as well.
Out of the Miry Blog 