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Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. To all my fellow pastors, I've got a question for you. Does your city know that your church exists? Listen, I get it. You're preaching, you're leading, you're discipling, you're doing ministry. We are in the same boat. And let's be honest, social media and marketing, not your strong suit. Not mine either. And that's probably the last thing on your mind. And that's why we chose to partner with Church Candy Marketing for our church Plant the garden. We out here, y'all. They help churches get more actual guests walking through the doors on Sunday without your eye having to stress over ads or algorithms or trying to crack the social media code. Right now, Church Candy is helping nearly 400 churches reach their communities with simple invite ads. And it works. It's super effective. I can tell you from firsthand experience. So if you're tired of being your city's best kept secret, how about you do this? Go to churchcandy.com Manny and book a free consultation book a discovery call. Their team will break it all down and show you how to start seeing new faces at your church this Sunday. I'm in the trenches with you trying to grow the church. And how about we just start a whole campaign? No more empty churches. So let's partner with Church Candy and get our churches full. The glory of Jesus. Let's go. It's day 93. We've got Genesis chapters 37, 38, 39, 40. We got four chapters of Genesis. If you have not done the reading, it's actually a great time. Pause this audio. Stop the video. Go do the reading. Honestly, our trek through Genesis has been tons and tons of narrative. And so it's like, it's easy content to really consume. And so go do the reading. You'll get the most out of this episode if you actually get the reading done. So I know I have given you this context over and over and over again, but it's really, really, really important because Genesis, chapter 3:15, really is like the conflict that drives the plot of the entire book of Genesis. If you can think about, you know, what, what is the question that Genesis is going to attempt to answer? Okay. It's a question that Makes someone watch a TV series or read a book, they're trying to figure out how the plot is going to get resolved. They want an answer to that question. So don't judge me. For anyone who's ever watched Game of Thrones, right, the driving question is, who's going to sit on the Iron Throne? Okay? Like, is it going to be Stannis Baratheon? Is it going to be Daenerys Targaryen? Is it going to be Jon Snow? Like, who? Who is it going to be? Is it going to be a Lannister? Okay, who's going to sit on the Iron Throne? And that question drives the narrative. It drives the plot. So the driving question of Genesis is, who is the seed of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent? How will humanity get revenge on this beast, on this crafty serpent that tricked humanity and usurped humanity's authority? Okay? So that's the driving question. Who will be the child? Who will be the seed? Who will be the offspring of the woman? And so at every generation, that question presents itself again. With Cain and Abel, that question's right there at the forefront. With Ishmael and Isaac, that question is right there at the forefront. With Jacob and Esau, that question is right there at the forefront. Who will rescue us from this cycle that we're stuck in? Who will be the leader, the anointed one, the Messiah? Who will be the chosen one? And you can even feel that in pop culture, that question. I just watched Dune 2 and then Dune, and it's like, there's a messiah figure, right? If you watch the Matrix, there's a messiah figure just baked within the fabric of our soul. The stories that people tell are messiah stories. Who will be the chosen leader to rescue humanity? This is like a driving question that humans have. It's why we create movies like Star Wars. It's why we create movies like Dune. That's why we create stories that have this messiah motif baked in the story, because we're wired to want to ask that question. And so the question at the forefront of Genesis is, is it Jacob or is it Esau? Is it Ishmael? Or is it Isaac? Is it Cain? Is it Abel? Who is it Reuben? Simeon and Levi have been disqualified. Okay, Judah's next. But Rachel had had a. Had a son, and Rachel was Jacob's favored wife. Is it going to be Joseph? Who's it going to be? Okay? And that question drives the narrative. So as we pointed out in. In multiple episodes so far, there's always a seed of the Woman who retains their humanity. And then there's a seed of the beast who is typically described in an animalistic way. So Cain acts like an animal. Ishmael is described as an animal. Esau and Jacob both described as animals. And then God has to turn Jacob into a human. Well, here we have Genesis chapter 37, verse 33. Genesis chapter 37, verse 33. And the Bible is using imagery and symbols to continue to ask that same question. Jacob recognized the ornate robe that he had given to to Joseph. Verse 32. They, the brothers have sold their brother into slavery. They got Joseph's robe. They slaughtered a goat, dipped the robe in blood. They took the ornate robe back to their father and they said, we found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son's robe. Not our brother, but your son. These are Leah's sons talking about Rachel's son son. And they are not referring to him as their brother. They're referring to him as their father's son. Jacob recognized it and said, it is my son's robe. Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces. Oh, he's so right and so wrong. He's right in that animals have devoured Joseph, but he's wrong because the animals are not wolves or any animals that you can actually find in the animal kingdom. The animals that have torn Joseph to pieces are actually his own brothers. Because the narrative is pitting one boy who's a Christ type, a Christ figure, to the other boys who act, whose jealousy overtake them, whose rage overtakes them, who can't control their impulses. Animals don't control impulses. Animals don't have self control. Animals act on instinct. That's how animals behave in the world. And so the text is showing us these boys that have sold their brother into slavery have done this based on instinct and impulse. And they have used their cunning to, and their trickery to be a. To be predators when it comes to their relationship with their brother. I'm gonna give you even more context. Okay, so that's like what's happening in the book of Genesis. That's the context of now another generation of siblings. And what's gonna be going on with those siblings? Let me give you a little bit more context. Well, here's a nerdy nugget. The group of people that they sell Joseph to as they sell him into slavery are Ishmaelites. So that's a big, huge clue, right? Ishmael was a donkey of a man. So Ishmael is the seed of the serpent. So now we have the offspring of the offspring of the serpent doing business with a new generation of the offspring of the serpent. Next kind of big contextual idea is that Joseph gets sold into slavery, starts working for a man by the name of Potiphar. Potiphar's wife wants to make sexual advances towards Joseph and Joseph decides to keep his integrity. This means that Joseph is winds up in prison. But Joseph would rather suffer for doing the right thing than to take the easy way out. Now let's give context for that, because who is Joseph's father? Well, Joseph's father is a man by the name of Jacob, whose very name has meant deceiver. Whose Joseph's brothers. Joseph's brothers are a bunch of deceivers. Okay? The exact same way that Jacob deceived his father into getting a birthright from Esau. That is exactly what is happening to Jacob now. His sons are tricking him, began doing something to abuse or damage their brother. History is literally just repeating itself. However, in the middle of a bunch of brothers who lack integrity, a father who's lacked integrity, Joseph has integrity. Let's keep backing it up a little bit. It's like I see the drone shot just getting wider and wider and wider. Okay, let's, let's keep going. Well, Jacob is not the first liar in his family. No, actually his father Isaac lied about whether or not his wife was actually his sister. And interestingly enough, Isaac learned that behavior from his father Abraham, who lied about his wife being his sister. So Abraham told a lie, Isaac repeated that lie. By the time you get to generation number three, Jacob's identity has become that of a liar. Jacob then lies to his father Isaac to deceive or to rob his brother of something. And now you have Jacob, who has 12 sons and four of those boys have ended up now lying to him to do something wicked to their brother. And in the midst of brothers who lie, a father who lies, a grandfather who lies, and a great grandfather who's lied, Joseph decides to have integrity. And man, if that's not a lesson that so often we ask such short sighted decisions, short sighted questions. Like we ask this question, is it okay for Christians to drink alcohol? Instead we should ask the question, would drinking alcohol keep me stuck in a dynamic of family dysfunction? Drinking alcohol, not a matter of whether it's a sin or not a sin. It could very well not be a sin for, you know, John, but be unwise and therefore sinful for Andrew. Okay, If Andrew's father struggled with alcoholism and his grandfather struggled with alcoholism and his great grandfather struggled with alcoholism. Andrew should avoid alcohol. Okay. And so often we try to compare what I should do as a person to what you should do as a person when what we don't know is you don't know who that person's brothers are, you don't know who that person's siblings are, you don't know who that person's sisters are, you don't know who that person's uncles are, you don't know who their aunts are, you don't know who their father is, you don't know who their grandfather is. The worst thing you could do is just start comparing your your life to somebody else's life. Just because you're both Christians does not mean you have the fame, the same family of origin, or the same tendencies towards not being, being in sin, but staying stuck. I don't want to stay stuck in a generational curse or generational cycle. And I would rather say, you know what, that's not sinful. But for me and my family, it's not wise to based on the things that my family has the proclivity to struggle with. That's just context. Joseph's decision to have integrity is not just a personal decision. It is him redeeming the trajectory of his entire family and every single person connected to him. Bible nerds. I have an announcement. My brand new book Crushing Chaos releases May of 2025 in pre orders are officially open. When I began to learn Genesis in its proper context, I learned that the creation account is not primarily about God creating something out of nothing, but rather God bringing divine order to the chaos of the cosmos. That one nugget was a game changer for me because I've been preaching to all the kids in my youth group that peace was a solution for their anxiety. But really, God's solution to chaos is never peace, but rather order. Peace isn't something that you stumble into. It's something that you intentionally step into and that starts with aligning your life with God's order. I think that this book is a game changer. It's nerdy, it's practical, it provides a very contextual understanding of the book of Genesis. And if you grab a copy, you'll learn why there's a huge dragon on the COVID Head to the link in the show notes to pre order or head to crushing chaos.com to see the really dope trailer that we made for this book. I think it's time for you to crush the chaos in your life. And that starts with grabbing a copy of this book. Now, back to the podcast. Okay, now let's get into a nerdy nugget. The whole situation with Judah and Tamar may seem like an interruption, but the reality is that it's not. Because what the text is trying to answer is, all right, Reuben is disqualified, Simeon is disqualified, Levi is disqualified, which now means we're going to get a story of how Judah is disqualified. And if you come to this story without knowledge of an ancient culture and ancient cultural values, then the story really doesn't make a lot of sense. Because in the story, a modern person is probably the most repulsed by a prostitution, a lot of things. But in the ancient world, you're not repulsed by the things that someone in the modern world is repulsed by. So let's actually put on our ancient lens and, like, look at this story. So here's what happens. Judah has three sons. Son number one is named er. Er. Son number two is named Onan. Son number three is named Shelah. Judah marries his first son, er, to a girl by the name of Tamar. The Bible says that er is wicked, that he is wicked and God judges him. God kills him. The right thing to do now is heir has now left a widow. And in an ancient world, a woman without sons or a husband or a father is just relegated to a life of poverty. And so the right thing to do is provide a kinsman redeemer is going to be a huge theme in the book of Ruth. A kinsman redeemer, the next person in line who's a closest kin or closest relative of er has to take Tamar to be their wife. So Onan is now given Tamar. This is a righteous thing to do in the ancient world. So I want to give everyone an ancient framework. In the ancient world, you always have to serve the most vulnerable people in society. And at the top of the chart for who's the most vulnerable in society would be the dead. The dead can't defend themselves. The dead can't do anything for themselves. So if your brother heir has died and he died without sons, that means that he died without children. You, as his brother, it is your responsibility to do for your dead brother what your brother cannot do for himself. So Onan is supposed to produce heirs for his brother. They would not be his children, they would be his dead brother's children and therefore Tamar's children. And the goal would be to give her sons so that her financial future could be secured. But Onan want to pull out. Pull out. Game strong. Ok, pull out. Game strong with my man Onan. Okay? The Bible says that Onan, instead of inseminating Tamar, he pulls out at the moment of ejaculation and spills his seed onto the ground. He does this intentionally. God is not happy about this. Onan's dead. So now Judah has two dead sons. And whenever a woman has had multiple husbands die in the ancient world, ancient audiences would really assume that there's some witchcraft involved. So now Judah does not want to give this woman to the next boy. Remember, he's got three sons. And based on what's the right thing to do, she's obligated to now get married to the youngest boy, Shella. And Judah's not having it. He's lost two sons. So Tamar does what the only thing that she can do, she pretends to be a prostitute. Judah hires her as a prostitute. Judah now has sex with her, and she gets pregnant with Judah's children. And she was smart enough to get Judah's signet ring and Judah's staff. So Judah can't lie and say that these are not his children or that he did not have sex with this woman. And Judah's words are this. She's more righteous than me. And in this scenario, you may think, oh, my God, that's gross. I can't believe she had sex with her father in law. But actually, that's thinking like a modern person. She's actually in the right. There's no point where Tamar is doing anything that's wrong. Actually, she's. She's using the power that she does have. She tricks Judah into doing the right thing. However, this whole story proves that Judah is not fit to lead the people of Israel. Now Judah's gonna have a moment, a comeback moment. He's gonna redeem himself. We'll see this later on in the story because he does redeem himself. The tribe of Judah is going to be the tribe that gets selected as the tribe that Jesus comes through as the Messiah. Instead of Jesus coming through the firstborn son, which is Reuben, it skips Reuben, and then it skips Simeon and Levi, and it's gonna skip Judah. But Judah redeems himself by the end of the story. We talked about Joseph in context with his brothers. We've talked about Joseph's integrity in context of his family. I gave you some nerdy nuggets around Levirate marriage or what it means to be a kinsman redeemer in the ancient world so that you could see the story of Judah and Tamar not as a random interruption, but actually this story Completely fits the narrative. And then last, I'm going to give you a timeless truth, like all always. And the timeless truth for today comes out of Genesis, chapter 39, verse 20. Genesis, chapter 39, verse 20 to 22. We're back with Joseph, and he's in prison because he decided to keep his integrity and do the right thing. And here's what the Bible says. It says Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him. He showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did. Man, I want the kind of favor that can be successful even in the middle of life's toughest sin scenarios. I think that a lot of times I've heard a lot of leaders that say, you know, man, if I had that budget, I'd be successful, or if I had that youth ministry facility, I. I'd be successful. And a lot of people think that they need ideal circumstances in order to be fruitful or successful. But the reality is that a great leader can turn a prison into a place that is flourishing and thriving. That's actually the mark of great leaders, that they don't have to win with the best gear, the best camera equipment. Great leaders know how to take, like, the worst teams and the worst people with the most problems and limited resources and win even when odds are stacked against them. Joseph, not only does he have character that doesn't fall into temptation to sin, but he also has the character that doesn't fall into the temptation to complain or become a victim in the middle of this hard circumstance. Little does he know that the very person who is going to be responsible for getting him out of prison is actually watching him. Which means this so timeless truth for the day, that in the toughest scenarios of life, you never know who's watching you. And you've got to walk through trials knowing that even the trial is being witnessed by people around you. And they are gonna see something about God based on how we walk through trials. All right, That's Genesis, chapter 37, 40. Tomorrow is day 94. We're gonna keep our trek through Genesis. We're gonna keep talking about Joseph's story. I can't wait to meet with you again. If you're on a streak, keep it going. If you're not on a streak, today's a great day to start. How about you add tomorrow on as a win after you just scored today, you guys got to do a score again tomorrow and you get streak going. I'm so proud of you. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department Podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram @thebible department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.