Week 13: Living with Providence and Forgiveness

The story’s finished, so this week we step back and look at all fourteen chapters at once, from a coat to a coffin. God isn’t named once in Genesis 37. By Genesis 50 His name is on Joseph’s lips five times, and God never once spoke to him. Somewhere in those ninety-three years a man learned to see God’s hand where nobody else could and to say so. He started in a prison cell, and by the end he could say it to the brothers who sold him: You planned evil against me; God planned it for good. We’ll trace how long that sentence took him to learn. We’ll also see what providence doesn’t promise: it won’t call evil good, it won’t shorten the wait, and it won’t hand everyone an explanation. Then we’ll ask what forgiveness built in this family, and where Stephen and Jesus carried it. Joseph forgave once he could see what God had done. Stephen and Jesus forgave before the ending was in sight.