(Genesis) Genesis 37 Introduction — J. Vernon McGee

Genesis 37 Centers on Joseph

Now, today, friends, we come to the 37th chapter of the book of Genesis, and when we do, we resume the story of the Lion of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and now we come to the fourth one, Joseph. And from here all the way through, the book of Genesis will be centered upon Joseph.

Now, it is true we are dealing with the family of Jacob, and that's what's resumed in this chapter, but the story of Joseph is begun here. And somebody might say, well, there's more attention given here to Joseph than to Abraham or Isaac, or to anything else, certainly more of this than is even given to the first eleven chapters in Genesis.

Joseph's Virtuous Life and Christlike Parallels

How do you explain that? Well, I think there are several reasons. I would suggest two. One is, the life of Joseph is a good and honorable life. We're told in Scripture, finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Now, God wants us to have this that is good and virtuous and great before us. And Joseph's life is just that. Then there's a second reason here, and this is a great reason. Nowhere in the New Testament is Joseph given to us as a type of Christ, yet no one is more like Christ in his person and experiences than Joseph.

All of this cannot be accidental. Now, we're going to see that as we go through his life, and I think that I've got listed in a book somewhere, in fact, the matter is it's in our book on Genesis, at least twenty some odd parallels, and there's more than twenty.

I suspect there must be around thirty, and we'll mention that later on when we get farther into his story. But now you'll recall that last time we almost got a laugh, and there's a lot of laughs in the Bible, by the way.

It depicts human life, and there's a lot of humor. God has a sense of humor. And we met all the dukes and kings and all the royalty in the family of Esau, and where in the world did they come from? Well, they took these titles, and men have been going for titles and that sort of thing from that day to this.

Titles, Offices, and the Person Who Holds Them

Every now and then I get a letter from some brother, I always feel like he's way out in left field, that rebukes me for having a doctor's degree. Well, I earned mine. I don't mind having it, but I'll be honest with you.

I sweat blood and tears to get the degrees that I have hanging in my study, but I wouldn't give you five cents for them if I didn't have them. The thing is that it's what they represent, and titles today are quite meaningless, really.

They are. And it's not the office, it's the individual that makes it. A great many people say they respect the office of president, but not the president. Well, God have mercy on America if we've come to that, because it's the person who makes the office, and we don't have a man in there that makes it in a way that we can respect him, and frankly, it's been difficult for the past two decades, maybe a little longer than that, in fact three decades, to have men in the office that you can respect.

And the office has certainly suffered, but the man makes the office. So these fellows all had to get them a title, and if you belonged to the family of Esau, you'd need a title because of the type of folk that they really were.

Bethlehem, Rachel, and Benjamin in Genesis 35

We're going to pick up now the family of Jacob again, and there were several things that we did not call attention to that were in this chapter 35. One is this place of Bethlehem, first time it's mentioned, and here's where Rachel died, and we sing, O little town of Bethlehem.

Well, if Jacob was here to sing it with us, I can assure you several things. One thing is he'd never think of a birth there, he'd think of a death. He'd think of beautiful Rachel died there. Then after that, he would remember this is where Benjamin was born.

You see, Benjamin was born in the same place that Jesus was born. That brings this place of Bethlehem now onto the page of Scripture. And the amazing thing is not that Bethlehem was picked as the birthplace of the Messiah.

The thing that's amazing is that how could it ever have been fulfilled? And that's the wonder of it all. We didn't call any attention to the sin of Reuben that's mentioned here because that'll come before us again, and we need to keep that in mind.

Returning to Jacob's Family and Joseph's Story

And we recognize now that we have left the family of Esau, now we are going to follow on through in the family of Jacob. That is the one, and Joseph now becomes all prominent here before us, and we're going to follow his story.

So let's pick up now chapter 37, and this is the method of the Spirit of God, that when the rejected line is given, then he returns to take the line that's going to lead to Christ, and that story is resumed.

And so we have here this story of Jacob.