A Grandfather’s Blessing Joseph and Asenath have two sons. The oldest is Manasseh, and the younger is Ephraim. They are the grandsons of Jacob, later called Israel. When Israel is on his deathbed, Joseph comes to see his ailing father, bringing his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, with him. Hearing about Joseph’s arrival, Israel rallies […]
Influencing Your Spouse Pharaoh later gives the-now-freed Joseph a wife. Her name is Asenath, and she’s the daughter of the priest of On. The priest’s name is Potiphera. (Don’t confuse Potiphera with Potiphar.) This is likely a strategic move on Pharaoh’s part, hoping that Asenath will influence Joseph to accept Egyptian perspectives and beliefs. In […]
A Story of Immorality Joseph is an attractive man. Potiphar’s wife notices. She pursues Joseph. We don’t know her motivation. Does her husband ignore her? Is she bored? Perhaps she’s merely promiscuous. Yet her reasons don’t matter. She tries to seduce Joseph. Joseph resists. He explains why he won’t sleep with her, but she ignores […]
Don’t Hold on to Guilt Over What God Has Already Forgiven From the life of Jacob, we learn a lesson in how to receive God’s mercy. After Jacob dies, Joseph’s brothers come to him. They’re worried he’ll hold a grudge against them for what they did to him when he was a teenager. At that […]
At the Temple Anna and Simeon Bless Jesus Luke 2:39 They returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. (Luke 2:39) As we’ve covered, Mary and Joseph go to the temple in Jerusalem when Baby Jesus is eight days old. They do so to consecrate him to God as their first-born male and to […]
Discover the Power and Goodness of Almighty God One of the most intriguing—as well as comforting—phrases in Scripture is “but God.” It appears sixty times in the Bible. Genesis leads the way with eleven verses. Acts is a close second with nine. Here are some of the but God versus to consider: But God Raised […]
Baby Jesus in the Temple Luke 2:21–24 He was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived. (Luke 2:21) The shepherds arrived shortly after Jesus’s birth to see the child the angel had told them about. Our story picks up eight days later, when it’s time to circumcise him. We’re […]
Segregating the Two Sides of Christmas Is Christmas an important holiday to you? I suspect you’ll say, “yes.” And if you follow Jesus, you may say Christmas is the most important holiday because it celebrates his birth some 2,000 years ago. That’s when Jesus came to earth to live among us and die in our […]
When Christ Speaks, We Should Be Ready to Listen What Jesus says is important to us as his followers. The passages in the Bible that we need to pay the most attention to are the words of Jesus. Some Bibles even highlight Jesus’s words by putting them in red. We call these red-letter editions. People […]
How Engagement and Marriage Worked in the New Testament In Bible times, when a couple became engaged, the groom-to-be with go home and prepare a place for them to live by adding a room to his parents’ house. As soon as he finished the construction, he would go to his fiancée, the marriage ceremony would […]