May 2024

Ask anyone to name a set of twins from the Bible, and they’ll almost always point to Jacob and Esau. Every time. Seriously, try it. But did you know there was a second set of twins in the book of Genesis? And that their stories are remarkably similar? If you remember from Genesis 25:22-26, Jacob […]

The whole story in Genesis 38 is one big, confusing, sinful mess. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about Judah, Tamar, Onan, Er, or basically anyone else, the entirety of the chapter is filled with immorality. It’s interesting then, that in the middle of all of this sin, Judah, who slept with (what he thought

One of the things I love about Scripture is that it takes great pains to acknowledge the sins of Its major characters. Peter denied Jesus. David committed adultery. Noah got drunk. Thomas doubted. These all give me great comfort when I think about my own lack of righteousness from time to time. In some cases

The narrative in Genesis 38 shifts away from Joseph to talk about one of his nephews: Onan. Little is known about this character, apart from his association with certain sexual practices (known as Onanism). In fact, the Bible doesn’t really mention much about any of them, with the exception of Perez and Zerah, who is

Mankind has a tricky relationship with grief. On the one hand, anyone who has experienced a deep sense of grief understands that it’s a feeling you never want to have ever again. Whether it’s loss, failure, betrayal, or something else that causes us pain, we will do just about anything to avoid it in the

It’s been a while since we talked about Ishmael. The last time we saw him, he was with his half-brother Isaac burying their father Abraham in the cave of Machpelah (Genesis 25:9). A few generations have passed since that time, and now we have Isaac’s descendants conspiring to sell one of their brothers — Joseph

There are so many allusions to Christ from the story of Joseph that it would take a team of religious scholars to analyze them all (and they have). To save space, I’ll just mention a few of them here: Those are all worth digging into on your own time, but the salvation of Joseph begins

Jacob, more than anyone else in his family, knew the importance of dreams. He wasn’t too far removed from his father’s house when he had a dream in an area that would eventually be known as Bethel (Genesis 28). His grandfather Abraham had a night vision where he made a direct covenant with God concerning

One of my earliest Bible class memories is making a “coat of many colors” craft. I would assume a lot of people reading this have similar memories of their own childhood. It’s a fun story to tell with children, but in reality, the moment Joseph put that coat on, he might as well have painted

With the story of Jacob and Esau firmly in the rear view mirror, the Bible’s attention now turns towards the next great patriarch: Joseph. We remember Joseph because of all the great moments. His coat of many colors. The interpretations of various dreams. Saving his family — and millions of people — from starvation during