OLD TESTAMENT TEXTS

The Old Testament texts explore the power of God in history.  Genesis 37 introduces the story of Joseph and Psalm 105 reviews Israel's entire history of salvation.

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-36 - "The Power of Oppression"
Setting.  The Old Testament lessons for the next two Sundays come from the story of Joseph. The story of Joseph in  Genesis 37-50 provides a hinge between the preceding ancestral stories of Abraham and Sarah-Hagar, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Rachel-Leah   Genesis 12-36), and Israel's subsequent slavery in Egypt (Exodus). The stories of Joseph, therefore, must be read with an eye on what has preceded and what is to follow—on the preceding theme of the ancestral promise and on the subsequent theme of the Egyptian oppression. The two lessons from the Jose…