The Attitude That Taints Our Witness...

In the story of Joseph and his brothers we see two areas in their lives that created constant conflict. The brother’s jealousy and Joseph’s naive confidence. The brothers hated Joseph because their father Jacob loved him more than all the other brothers. Joseph, on the other hand had integrity, but his confidence in his father’s favoritism, caused him to tattle on his brothers’ behavior. Joseph also loved to tell his brothers about his dreams. Over time this caused even more tension, culminating in his brothers selling him as a slave to Potiphar, an Egyptian. The two main points to this story are jealousy unrestrained always breeds evil behavior, and naive confidence can insight dissension among family and friends. The first needs no explanation. Jealousy is called the “green-eyed monster” for a reason. The second is addressed here. If Joseph could’ve seen his irritating behavior and changed his approach, none of this would’ve happened. We as Christians have a tendency to adopt the “I’m better off than you are” attitude. It shows in our behavior. This attitude taints the effectiveness of our witness. It retards the spreading of the Good News. Humility is what God desires from us. When we know our place, and chose to honor and serve others, humility seems to find its place in our lives and allows us to be a more effective witness. When you put God first, humility usually follows because you take a backseat and allow God to be in control. This of course doesn’t control God, it just allows you to be more of a willing participant than an opposer of His will. When He is in control, His will gets done, and we benefit. When we don’t care who gets the credit, things always work out better than if we seek the glory for ourselves.

4 But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them. They couldn’t say a kind word to him. Genesis 37:4

8 His brothers responded, “So you think you will be our king, do you? Do you actually think you will reign over us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them. Genesis 37:8

10 This time he told the dream to his father as well as to his brothers, but his father scolded him. “What kind of dream is that?” he asked. “Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow to the ground before you?” 11 But while his brothers were jealous of Joseph, his father wondered what the dreams meant. Genesis 37:10-11

26 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain by killing our brother? His blood would just give us a guilty conscience. 27 Instead of hurting him, let’s sell him to those Ishmaelite traders. After all, he is our brother–our own flesh and blood!” And his brothers agreed. 28 So when the Ishmaelites, who were Midianite traders, came by, Joseph’s brothers pulled him out of the cistern and sold him to them for twenty pieces of silver. And the traders took him to Egypt. Genesis 37:26-28