Then Joseph said to his brothers and to his fathers household, I will go up and speak to Pharaoh and will say to him, My brothers and my fathers household, who were living in the land of Canaan, have come to me. The men are shepherds; they tend livestock, and they have brought along their flocks and herds and everything they own. When Pharaoh calls you in and asks, What is your occupation? you should answer, Your servants have tended livestock from our boyhood on, just as our fathers did. Then you will be allowed to settle in the region of Goshen, for all shepherds are detestable to the Egyptians. (Genesis 46:31-34 NIV)

Summary: God develops godly men by first isolating them from their surrounding godless culture and then developing in them the qualities he desires. Only then does He send them back into the culture to transform it.

The success of the Abrahamic covenant relied on Abram’s descendants maintaining their racial identity. To your offspring I will give this land, God promised Abram (Genesis 12:7). This promise was repeated to Isaac and Jacob as well.

The covenant was threatened, however, by the descendants of Abraham intermarrying with the surrounding pagan culture. The story of Judah marrying a Canaanite woman in Genesis 38 is an illustration of this trend. Now the sons of Jacob found themselves in the land of Egypt, with its impressive culture of architecture, writing, religion, astronomy, and agronomy. It seemed that Jacobs descendants were doomed to be swallowed up by this culture, except for one important fact: the Egyptians were farmers and loved stability while the sons of Jacob were herdsmen and loved the freedom to roam. To the Egyptians, the sons of Jacob seemed like backwoodsmen. This reality would preserve the racial identity of the sons of Jacob.

Any Jew hearing this story, either as a slave in Egypt, or later as an inhabitant in the land of promise, would immediately recognize the significance of the fact that Egyptians detested them because they were herders. They would know that this simple reality kept the twelve sons of Jacob and their descendants from intermarrying with the surrounding Egyptians and solidified them as a racial sub grouping in the Ancient Near East. Over a period of four hundred years, the Lord succeeded in isolating and incubating them until they were ready to be birthed as a racial and national entity.

Application: What does the text mean for us in our context?

Syncretism has always been an issue for Christians in every age and culture. Our contemporary situation is no exception. Surrounded by a technologically advanced society, Christians find themselves in an increasingly skeptical age. As one observing believer has put it, “We no longer have home field advantage.”

The temptation for us is to accommodate our culture by modifying or ignoring our beliefs and, instead, assimilate our surrounding culture into our lifestyle. This process is difficult to detect and reverse by believers because it happens gradually over generations.

But God has a plan for reversing syncretism. Our Lord counteracts syncretism by isolating believers from their surrounding environment, building truth into them, and then releasing them into the world to proclaim that truth and lead His people to a higher spiritual plane. It is not a comfortable process, to be sure. Our Lord has to take believers out of their comfort zone, put them under stress, and instruct them. Then, and only then, are they ready to return to society and do the work God has called them to do.

Teach: How do we communicate these truths in a way that our audience understands them, remembers them and responds to them appropriately?

God’s retreats aren’t always fun, but they are necessary. Every Christian man you speak to knows what it is like be taken into the woods by God. He knows first hand the feeling of isolation from his culture that comes from his belief in the living God. Remind your men that God uses this feeling of isolation to teach important truths about Himself and His plan for them and for the world. Challenge them to take what they are learning and revel in being different from the world by living it wholeheartedly and unabashedly.

Discussion Questions

1. How did Joseph insist that his brothers emphasize their nomadic roots to Pharaoh?
2. How had Josephs brothers begun to intermarry with their surrounding culture in the land of Canaan? (See Genesis 38.)
3. How did the fact that, in Egypt, the sons of Jacob were detestable to the Egyptians because they were shepherds affect their development as a race?
4. In what ways did God isolate the following men before he put them into service? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah, John the Baptist, Jesus, the disciples, Paul
5. In what ways has God set you apart from our surrounding culture?
6. What was your response when He did?