JOSEPH PART 1 GEN 37

Genesis - Introduction to Salvation (especially the Exodus) Genesis answers the question - How did we Hebrews get to Egypt to be slaves? The story of the Exodus is how God saved His people out of slavery, and the following books are the story of how He established a people in the Promised Land. But God had been saving people a long time before the Exodus, and Genesis is that highly abbreviated story. Genesis serves as an introduction to the Exodus story, and has the background information of how mankind, especially the Hebrews/Israelites, relate to God. The first 11 chapters of Genesis are pre-history: Chapters 1-3: God creates everything, especially mankind. Mankind sins, so God punishes. Yet God provides a sacrifice. Chapters 4-6: Cain kills Abel. Cain's sons follow the ways of the world. Seth's sons follow God. In chapter 6, Seth's line and Cain's line mix. Genesis 6:5 (NIV) 5 The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. Genesis 8:21 (NIV) 21 The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. Chapter 7: God kills mankind, but provides a savior in Noah and the ark. This is a symbol of God's salvation through time. Man builds a tower at Babel and gets judged again (chapter 11). History as we know it starts in chapter 11, with disobedient Terah followed by his obedient son, Abram. God makes some MASSIVE promises to Abraham, and miraculously established many nations through him. But one was chosen: Jacob. Jacob was a dreamer, a bad younger brother, a momma's boy, a brat, and a romantic lover. God changed him and his name, to Israel. Jacob had two wives, two concubines, and 12 sons: the twelve tribes of Israel who would bring about the Christ. Genesis 37 (NIV) Joseph's Dreams 37 Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. 2 This is the account of Jacob's family line. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. 5 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. 6 He said to them, "Listen to this dream I had: 7 We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it." 8 His brothers said to him, "Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?" And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. 9 Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. "Listen," he said, "I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me." 10 When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, "What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?" 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.