Exchanging a dream for a nightmare

Loren Cunningham, founder of Youth with a Missions, at the Go4th conference made a shocking statement last night. He said:

Joseph exchanged the dream God put in him for a nightmare (Genesis 35-Exodus 1).

I’ve listened to many sermons about Joseph, but NEVER one that speaks negatively of him. So Loren’s statement was a real shock to my system.

Joseph’s status as the favourite son of his father provoked the jealousy of his siblings. Their anger against him burned even more when as a young man, he bragged about a dream God gave him that he would one day rule over his entire family (Genesis 37:5-11). They wanted to murder him but ended up selling him instead as a slave. Throughout the more than 20 years of slavery, he proved himself to be a god-fearing man.

The Lord raised Joseph to the position of prime minister, second only to the Pharoah of Egypt. Loren said that the real test for many of us is not suffering but success. It was at this point that Joseph lost it.

Here’s something I got out of someone’s blog:

Please bear with me for a minute while I digress to tackle a strange subject: Egyptian public policy during the Josephean administration. Joseph is, of course, Pharaoh’s viceroy during the fat years and the famine. To hear the author of Genesis tell it, he’s the best viceroy the Middle Kingdom had ever seen. But to a modern reader, Joseph is appalling.

Here’s what he does: During the seven fat years, he gathers grain from all over the country in warehouses. When the famine comes, he sells grain to the hungry Egyptians and to foreign buyers. This is all well and good. As the famine worsens, Egypt’s peasants return to Joseph to beg for help. So Joseph sells them more grain, collecting “all the money that was to be found in the land of Egypt … as payment for the rations.”

The people were still hungry. Joseph feeds them, but seizes all their horses, sheep, cattle, and donkeys as payment. The famine continues. The Egyptian people, having given all their money and livestock to Pharaoh, come back to Joseph once more.

This time, Joseph takes all their land in exchange for grain: “Thus the land passed over to Pharaoh.” Joseph explains the new deal to them: They will be sharecroppers, and will hand over one-fifth of their harvest every year to Pharaoh, keeping the balance for themselves. They reply, “We are grateful to my lord, and we shall be serfs to Pharaoh.”

Didn’t someone write a book on the biblical roots of capitalism and free enterprise? How did he handle this episode? Our hero Joseph abolishes private property, turns freeholders into serfs, and transforms a decentralized farm economy into a command-economy dictatorship. This is bad economics and worse public policy.

This is China, 1949. Joseph is Chairman Mao. (And, to speculate a little bit, perhaps this centralized dictatorship established by Joseph is what ultimately led to the Israelites enslavement in Egypt. Once you create a voracious state apparatus, it must be fed. Is it a surprise that slavery became part of its diet? In a less totalitarian state, perhaps slavery wouldn’t have been as necessary or as feasible.)

Loren said that God had given Abraham (Joseph’s great, great grandfather) a promise:

“I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.“
- Genesis 12:1-3

God’s desire for his people is that they be a blessing to the nations. Joseph blew it big time — he did not use that opportunity to bless the nations. He managed Pharoah’s kingdom and protected his family well. But he made the Egyptians and other nations into slaves instead of blessing them.

Joseph in doing so actually created his own (or rather his own people’s) nightmare and monster. He created a system of slavery in Egypt that eventually kept his own people as slaves for 18 generations (400 years!).

Why does this strike me so much?

My tagline for communications has been:

Giving voice to the vision

There is always so much to be done. I have been praying for a long time that God will raise up people with gifts in communication and the media. The door to make that happen, that is, teaching and passing on my skills, seems to be opening up.

Now I am seeing a new role I need to play as a media specialist.

Giving vision to the voice

What I mean by this is: I must develop the voices (or the people) and give vision to them so that they will do meaningful things with the skills they acquire.

… whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

P.S. Here’s an interesting side read about scientist Einstein.