Plays On Word Radio
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Plays On Word Radio
Ep 194: Family Dysfunction Into Redemption - Joseph In Genesis 37 (Part 1)
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"Today on Plays on Word Radio, we take a look at the text behind the Genesis 'JOE' play – Genesis 37-50. Have you ever examined the Word behind Plays on Word?"
Joseph’s story opens as a continuous Genesis mini-series, and we slow down to see why his life becomes one of the clearest Old Testament pictures pointing to Jesus. We trace how favoritism, status, and dreams ignite hatred in a broken family while God’s sovereignty quietly sets the direction of everything.
• Why Joseph stands out as one of the only figures besides Jesus with no sin recorded in the text
• The Genesis “these are the generations of” structure and why Joseph appears immediately under Jacob’s heading
• Jacob’s long, messy family timeline leading into Genesis 37
• How favoritism fuels dysfunction and multiplies resentment
• Why the “robe of many colors” likely signals authority and privilege more than color
• Joseph’s dreams as a flashpoint for rejection and jealousy
• Typology connecting Joseph’s rejection to Jesus being hated for His words
• The Revelation 12 connection some scholars see in the sun, moon, and stars imagery
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Full message at Calvary Chapel Southport
Local opportunities to see Genesis 'JOE' in North Carolina:
Genesis 'JOE' @ Beaufort County Community College hosted by Calvary Chapel Inner Banks (IBX)
Genesis 'JOE' @ Calvary Chapel Southport
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Bible Hat Opener And Big Question
SPEAKER_00Lord, you know. You're now listening to play is the best. Put on your Bible hat. Two people, excluding Jesus, that the Bible does not describe having any sin. Not that they were sinless like Jesus, but the Bible doesn't mention their sin at all. You know who the other person is? Daniel. There's some similarities we're gonna see. Both of these guys interpret dreams for kings. Both were elevated to extremely high positions in the government. We're gonna see the greatest picture of Jesus in the Old Testament. One of the greatest, if not the greatest, picture in typology.
SPEAKER_02Today on Place on Word Radio, we take a look at the text behind the Genesis joke play. Genesis chapters 37 through 15. Have you ever examined the word behind Place on Word?
SPEAKER_01Hello and welcome to Place on Word Radio, where we discuss, analyze, work, and play on the Word of
Why Teaching Genesis Feels New
SPEAKER_01God. Thank you for joining us on this excursion today. Let's join Pastor Teddy, also known as Fred David Kenny Jr., the founder of Plays on Word Theater, as he does a deep dive into the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00Amen, amen. Thank you very much, Katie Kenny and Josh Taylor, for that fantastic introduction. My name is Fred David Kenny Jr. and welcome to Plays on Word Radio. Yeah. Everyone listening, all of you, streaming all around the globe right now. We are in our Genesis Joe season. And this is really cool for me. And I'm praying it will be cool for you guys. The reason it's cool for me is because this is the first time I, as the pastor at Calvary Chapel Southport, am taking our fellowship, our congregation, through the book of Genesis, and it just so happens that we are in Genesis 37, and we're in the section that deals with the story of Joseph. So the content of the Genesis Joe play I'm teaching on to the congregation on Sunday mornings. And this is the I mean I've taught on the uh chapters before, but I've never gone verse by verse, chapter by chapter, through this segment. Well uh let me see. It's been a long time since I've done it. I mean a long time since I've done it. And I don't even know if I've done every I mean I did I've I've done many messages from parts of this story. Sometimes when we go to do the Genesis Joe play, there have been other churches that were in that section of Genesis either about to do it or they're finishing it up and they ask us to come out and do the play. And I think of when we were at our church, our dear brother Dave Goki's church in in Wisconsin. Is it a few years ago now? It might be a few years ago. Yikes. Man, time is flying. I don't get it. When we went out to Wak Wisconsin to Wapaka, uh let me let me say it right first of all. Wapaca. Wopaka. Yeah, there we go. I sound like I'm I don't know where I've been. When we went out there to do Genesis Joe, they also had us bring the we did the Genesis Joe play on Saturday night, and then we did we brought a message on Sunday morning, and I continued in Genesis and I taught from Genesis there. And it's really cool because you're able in a situation like that, I'm able to go a little deeper in certain areas instead of just keeping the flow of the story happening. I'm able to satisfy my O C D A D D T E D D Y. Issues. My my brother Ben, he uh he affectionately uh diagnosed me with uh T D D. It's a special form of ADD, H D, the high definition version. It's a s it's a special dispensation of that. So yeah. Thanks a lot, Ben. Uh I'm pretty sure he's not listening to this right now, but one day he will be and he'll go, oh so anyway, that's a whole nother story. But yeah, we uh you know getting a chance to teach through Genesis is is really cool for me. It's actually enhancing uh how I plan on doing the play. As I'm as I was teaching Sunday morning last week, or actually this week, I should say. Yeah, Sunday's the first day of the week. And uh when we did it this this past Sunday, I was man, I was just the Bible's just amazing, man. You can just you can go through a passage you have read backwards, forwards, upside down, everything else a million times. And it still can minister to your soul and speak to you. And it did that to me. And this is one of the reasons why I love the word of God. And I love talking to old saints who are who have been walking with the Lord for a long time. I just love talking to them and just and just getting their perspective because you know it's like someone who's uh who loves eating, I don't know, take your favorite type of food. If you're not, you know, if if you like eating steak, you know, talking to somebody who's been eating steak for a long time, you know, just and has had all of just good steaks, bad steaks, everything else. I'm getting hungry talking about this. I'm off the rails. But I love talking to uh seasoned seni uh seniors that have been walking with the Lord for a long time and been in the Word for a long time, they have insight. They understand the many different flavors. Yeah, yeah. They've had different different cuts. I'm still back in the food analogy, but for those of you that are our dear brothers and sisters that are vegetarians or vegans, uh please forgive me for veering off into that. We do have those folks that are listening. I was even vegan at one point in my life, so yeah. Now I just a little hat tip to you, that's all. Anyway,
Jacob’s Backstory And Family Fallout
SPEAKER_00we taught on Genesis 37 this past Sunday at my church. Not like I own a church, just a church that I'm stewarding or shepherding, or I'm under-shepherding under Christ. And I wanted to should just share, you know, take you guys on this ride a little bit, and maybe I'll throw some commentary on this preacher man. We are going through the book of Genesis right now, and we this is like a soap opera and a half. We are going to be in chapter 37. Before we get there, I wanted to back up just a little bit. I gave timestamp on what was happening so far. Genesis 29. We we saw Jacob when he was about 77. He went away from Laban. He ran away from his brother who wanted to kill him. He went up to Syria area and he worked for his mother's brother, his uncle, Laban, for seven years. And then he was given two wives. He was tricked by Laban. And the next seven years he worked. So he worked 14 years total. And in the middle seven years, he had a bunch of kids, 11 of them. Then when Joseph was born, he was like, I want to get out of here, man. I want to leave. And Laban was like, No, man, why don't you stay a little bit longer? Come on, man. Everything's blessed because of you, blah, blah, blah. And and and so Jacob made a deal with him. He would take all the spotty and streaked animals, and the Lord exponentially increased. So that that last six years there is when the Lord increased the wealth of Jacob exponentially. He had maidservants and everything. He had like male servants, maid servants. He had property, everything. So, well, not property. He had property in the in as far as the animals. And then when he leaves, after 20 years, he leaves. That's when Laban chases him, catches up to him. He wrestles with the Lord, and the Lord changes his name from Jacob to Israel, and then he meets up with Esau, and then starts this like 11-year-ish type of section where he goes to Suckoth right in that area, and then Shechem, and then finally he goes down to Hebron. Benjamin is born early on in this, the last son of Jacob, and Rachel dies giving birth. That's Joseph's mom. So Joseph saw his mom die right there and was buried on the road to Bethlehem, right there, outside of Bethlehem. And they made their way to Hebron. And in this period of time also, Dinah, their sister, is sexually assaulted, let's say, by a guy named Shechem within that period of time. So now we're at Genesis 37, and just what's happening, Isaac is back in Hebron area, and he's 168, Jacob's 108, Joseph is 17. And in this story, this is the longest, most detailed, continuous biography in Genesis out of anybody. The characters are the characters up to this point are driven by like episodes. We get episodes of Abraham's life. But this is like a continuous, one continuous uh mini-series that just goes on and on without commercial break.
Joseph And Daniel Without Recorded Sin
SPEAKER_00And Joseph is one of two people, put on your Bible hats, two people, excluding Jesus, that the Bible does not describe having any sin. Not that they were sinless like Jesus, but the Bible doesn't mention their sin at all. You know who the other person is? Daniel. And are there some similarities between these two? Yeah. There's gonna be there's some there's some similarities. We're gonna see some interesting similarities. Both, both of these guys interpret dreams for kings. Both were elevated to extremely high positions in the government. Both of them. Like arguably the most powerful Jewish guys. Mordecai also later on, but but Mordecai's he's he's got his own thing going on. We're gonna see the greatest picture of Jesus in the Old Testament. One of the greatest, if not the greatest, picture in typology. We're gonna see that coming up. We're gonna see the absolute sovereignty of God coming up. We're gonna, we're, I mean, it's on full display, the sovereignty over all events and everything. Uh, we're gonna see evil intentions and actions turned into a blessing. We're gonna see a type and shadow of God's grace toward guilty sinners. That's coming up in this whole section. So this is like the this is like the the trailer or the preview right before the show starts. You know what I mean? You ever you ever you ever go through like not, I don't know if Netflix does it, but Amazon. You're scrolling through, and then this next thing you know, they just start showing you the trailer, and next thing you're like, oh, let's watch this. You're caught. Well, this is the trailer part, okay? Not that I watch any of that stuff, right? Okay. We're gonna see an innocent, righteous man suffer injustice. We're gonna see the foreshadowing of one way to be saved by God through the man of God, and much, much more. So stay tuned. Let's get into this. Actually, before we do, Heavenly Father, I just want to pray over this message. Please get me out of your way. I pray your word goes forth in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, let's start this. In
Genesis 37 Starts And Toledot Clue
SPEAKER_00chapter 37, verse 1. Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being 17 years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Billah and Zilpah, his father's wives. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now, this right away, these are the generations of dot dot dot. That right there, the entire book of Genesis is built on 10 of these, and this is the tenth one. So this is the type of stuff I'm talking about where we can drill down and do teaching. I can't do that during the play. How would that sound? You know, Joseph is telling his story. The book of Genesis isn't even penned yet in the in Joseph's time. So these are the things I love that I can do while I'm teaching. Back to the story. It started out the generations of the heavens and the earth, then it went to generations of Adam, then Noah, all the way down. Last chapter we saw, these are the generations of Esau, right? And it gave his offspring. And now we're getting into the it's for of Jacob. And this is the last one. It's interesting though. Let me go back to the text here. Interesting. To start off with Joseph, though, like all the other ones that list genealogy, start off with that person that it's named after. This is the generations of Jacob. Joseph, it starts off with Joseph. That's interesting in itself. Then Billah and Zilpah, he was out shepherding. He's a shepherd. He's out with Billah and Zilpah, his father's wives, but we know that Billah and Zilpah were the maidservants to Leah and Rachel. Billah was Rachel's servant girl, and Zilpah was Leah's. And Billah, incidentally, was the one that Reuben, the oldest brother, did things he shouldn't do. Yep. Yeah. Reuben actually just say it. Went and laid down with Billah. Okay.
Household Chaos And A Bad Report
SPEAKER_00That caused all kinds of dysfunction in that family. Like major dysfunction. You've got four moms, a bunch of kids, and now the oldest. This is hard to talk about. And the the sons that Billa had were were Dan and Aftali. So Dan and Oftali were not happy at all. Nope. Not happy, especially with their oldest brother, what he did. I mean, it's it makes Jerry Springer look like easy, easy rated G stuff. So he brought a bad report. Notice he told his dad he brought a bad report to the father. Now, obviously they were doing something wrong. And this story, as it moves through, it just keeps moving from generation to degeneration. It just keeps getting worse, worse. So let's continue. Verse
Favoritism And The Robe’s Real Meaning
SPEAKER_003. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he was a son of his old age, and he made him a robe of many colors. Verse 4. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him. Where do I start? This is this just right there is worthy of like a whole series. Notice though, that's one thing we always want to notice. Anything that sticks out, it's it says, Israel loved Joseph. So there he's using the term, the name Israel for Jacob, and they're interchanged throughout scripture, uh, in Genesis particularly, but other places in scripture. Israel and Jacob, same person. Joseph loved Jacob loved Joseph more, and favoritism, as if this family needed any more reason to be dysfunctional. Favoritism is a devastating family dynamic. I don't know if any of you have suffered that or been the recipient of the, you know, being the favored. But either way, it's not right. God is not happy with it. And this problem was baked in, it was baked into Jacob's DNA from his parents. Baked into, like Jacob, his his mom and his dad, Isaac and Rebecca. Isaac loved Esau, his son. It didn't hate Jacob, but he loved Esau more because Esau was rough and rugged, a man's man, always out there and you know, ready to kill animals and whatever else. Jacob was a homebody. He liked to read books and get, you know, stay on the internet or whatever. You know what I mean? So, but he didn't like to go out much. And Rebecca loved Jacob more than Esau. So there's already baked cooked into this, there's favoritism baked in. So now he's he gets married and he shows favoritism. What a mess. And we see it, we see the ripple effect of it throughout his family. He loved Rachel more than he loved Leah. He didn't said he didn't even love Leah. In fact, a bunch of translations say he hated Leah. He probably hated what she represented because he was bamboozled by his uncle. Bamboozled. I gotta stop using these high theological terms, I'm telling you. Laban. You know, he woke up in the morning like, all right, I got a wife. Wait, wait, what? How did you get here? And she's like, I've been here all night. Wait, what? He was not happy. And so there was resentment from day one. The kids knew it. He no doubt spent most of his time with Rachel. Doesn't say that, but I mean, all things being equal, he's not hanging out with Leah to hang out. He loved Rachel. You're gonna hang out, you're gonna gravitate to the one you love. So this shows this has disastrous effects in the family. And with all these kids, the kids knew it and the kids could tell. So then it says the son of his old age. Now that's interesting by itself, because Benjamin is really the one that he had when he was his oldest. His last son is Benjamin. But Joseph is described as, you know, he loved him more because of his he's the son of his old age. Dr. Constable, one of the commentators, he said, it really means wise son or son of wisdom. So just plug that into this messed up family dynamic for a second, or the brothers. And if Jacob even said this, you know, said this in joking, or said this to a visitor or a friend or whatever, yeah, he's this he's the son of my old age. He's my he's my wise son, or he's my wisdom. That wouldn't go over well. Then it says, robe of many colors. And I'm sure you all have seen this. I put up a slide of Joseph in the Technicolor Dreamcoat. Right. The play. Joseph in the amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, right? Now, big deal has been made over the colors of the coat, you know, and but many years ago I asked, well, what's the significance of the coat? Well, I mean, is it the colors? Is it what is it? Well, this one guy he said, this was a coat reaching to the hands and to the feet worn by persons not much occupied with manual labor, according to the general opinion. It was, we conceive, variegated either by the loom or the needle, and is therefore well rendered a motley coat. And so this guy and many others see that the point is that it's it's got longer sleeves. Building on that, this other guy, Griffith Thomas, he points out it was a mark of distinction that carried its own meaning, for it implied that exemption from labor, which was the peculiar privilege of the heir or prince of the Eastern clan. So, yeah, having the long sleeves and this specific robe that was made really set him apart as a like, I don't want to say the ruler, but the man in charge, the favored one, the one that's not supposed to really be getting his hands dirty. He had a different garment than his brothers doing the same work, but he was he was supervising. So what is this is this phrase used anywhere else? Was this word and this phrase used? Yeah, it's used in a couple different places in 2 Samuel describing David's daughter. It says, now she was wearing a long robe with sleeves, for thus the virgin daughters of the king dressed. So his servant put her out and bolted the door after her. That's a that's a terrible episode in itself. But the point is where this phrase is used, it has nothing to do with color, it's a distinction. The garment is is a is a distinctive garment of authority, rulership, favoritism, you could say. Bottom line is the robe was a constant reminder to the brothers that they were not like Joe. Constant reminder. And verse 4, when the brothers saw that their father loved them more than all his other brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to they absolutely hated him. You see how they they could have ended up hating him anyway, but the father's actions did not help or alleviate the situation, but aggravate the situation and made it worse. Verse
Dreams Spark Hatred And Jesus Parallels
SPEAKER_00number five. Now Joseph had a dream. Now we're getting into it. Here we go. And when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. I wish I could have seen the DVD on this. Verse six He said to them, Hear this dream that I've dreamed. Verse 7 Behold, we were binding sheaves. In the field, and behold, my sheaf rose up and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf. The fact that he said this to them. He's a young guy. The older you get, usually the wiser you get. You learn to you learn what not to say. I'm still learning now, but there are times when what when God basically tells me, don't say that. And when I listen, it's a blessing. When I don't, it's disaster. And he probably just told them. And it's the first dream in Genesis where God doesn't speak or appear. Something to take a note of. Like all the other dreams. He appeared to Jacob. You know, and God appeared to him. He appeared to uh Elimelech. He appeared to Laban in a dream. He he went to Joe and he spoke. Probably wasn't the smartest thing for him to do, but that's okay. We're gonna see some more stuff open up here. Verse 8. His brother said to him, now they get this right away. They're like, are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us? So they hated him even more for his dream. This is absolutely, they're not even maxed out yet, but they're at redlining on the tachometer of hatred. They're like, man, we're right there. We can't stand this guy because of his dream. Now they understood this was at least the possible scenario in Joseph's mind. They were they were thinking, but notice this is something to take notice of. And we're gonna see a lot of uh typology and a lot of Christology type things going on in here. They rejected him and his rulership and his uh rejected him and his dream and his words. Put a pin in that just for a second. Why was Joseph hated? Because of the words he said to them. Why was Jesus hated? Because of the words that he said to them. There's a typology here. He went to his brothers. In John, in the Gospel of John, switching over to Jesus, this phrase, he came unto his own, and his own received him not, is in play here, and it's being typified. Specifically in this instance, what's going on here? He went to his brothers, and because of his words, they hated him even more, and they rejected him. Listen to what Jesus says in John chapter 8, chapter 8 of this book. It's really small, so I'll read it. This is G this is one of my favorite chapters in the whole Bible. Anyway, Jesus, he really ties these religious leaders into pretzels, man. He just says, I know that you're offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me. Why? Because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my father, and you do what you have heard from your father. They answer him, Abraham's our father. Jesus said to them, If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did. But now you seek to kill me. A man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works of your father. They said to him, We're not born of sexual immorality. A little dig at Jesus right there. They were trying to dig at him because the whole virgin birth thing, no doubt, was something that people discussed and never really forgot about. We're not, we're not born of sexual immorality. It can't be a dig of Jesus, though, because it wasn't sexual immorality, but that's where they're coming from. We have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love me, for I came from God and I'm here. I came not on my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? Here's the key right here. It's because you cannot bear to hear my word. Now, a similar thing has happened right here, going back to Joseph and his brothers. They hated him because of the word that he said, the words he said. Verse 9, look
Second Dream Revelation Link And Wrap
SPEAKER_00at this. Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, Behold, I dreamed another dream. He didn't learn, I guess. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me. But when he told it to his fathers, father and his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, What is this dream you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come and bow ourselves to the ground before you? And his brothers were jealous of him. But his father kept the mind, kept it, kept the saying in mind. Now, a lot of uh not a lot, but some Bible scholars have actually looked at this section and this dream in particular and noticed a correlation or a relationship to Revelation. He's talking in his dream, he said, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars. And in Revelation 12, John says, A great sign appeared in heaven, and a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon, under her feet, and her head with a crown of 12 stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs and agony of giving birth. Another sign appeared in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns. On his head were seven diadems. Those were crowns. Verse 4. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast him to the earth, and the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth. So what so that when she bore her child he might devour it. Verse 5, she gave birth to a male child, one who was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness where she shall she has a place prepared by God in which she is to be nourished for twelve hundred and sixty days. Now, some people have interpreted this differently. Some people have interpreted the woman being Mary. Most of Bible scholars, most of the conservative Bible scholars, recognize that it is Israel is the woman giving birth to the Messiah, the Messiah, the male child, Christ, the child here. But there's a there's a correlation back to this dream. Back to this dream of Joseph. In verse 10. But when he told his father and his brothers, his father rebuked him, and his Jacob doesn't like the meaning of the dream. And now this is the thing, though. Check this out. This is something to take notice of. Jacob interprets the dream correctly. Like in fact, all the family, these guys, the whole family, they all interpret the dreams properly. The brothers interpreted. Who said you're gonna reign over us? Are you indeed to rule us? They had the correct interpretation. They got it. Amen. Hey, we are gonna continue with this next week. But until next week, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you. Give you peace.
SPEAKER_01This program was made possible by the Plays on Word family of supporters. To find out more, check out our website at playsonword.org.
