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The Place of Prudence in Providence

If you spend enough time reading the Bible over the course of years, and there’s different ways you can read the Bible. A lot of us, if we do read the Bible, a lot of us, we just leave the Bible on the shelf and let other people read it for us. But even if you’re reading it, it’s very easy to fall into the habit of just, I need a little bit of a nugget to get me through the day, some kind of encouragement, some kind of a pick-me-up.

Ideally, what we’re doing when we’re reading the Bible is we are listening to what God has to say. God has revealed himself through the scriptures. And so as we’re reading, we want to understand what the author who is inspired by the Holy Spirit is intending to communicate. If you do that over the course of time, there’s going to be certain places where you feel like there is tension.

And one of those tension points is between the principle of grace, of self-giving love, self-sacrificing love on the one hand, and the call on the other hand to wisdom, to prudence, to thinking decisions and actions through very carefully. Now these two things, wisdom, prudence, and self-giving, self-sacrificing love, they aren’t actually intention. They are not opposed to one another because they’re both expressions of God’s own character.

And one of my favorite classical doctrines of God in the history of Christianity is the doctrine of God’s simplicity. Not that God is easy to understand, but what that means is that God is not divided. God is one. And so his attributes, his characteristics are not fighting against one another. In the mind and heart of God, his justice and his love aren’t fighting a war. And it’s like, oh, is God’s justice going to win here or is his love? No, both are just ways that we describe how God is all of the time toward us as his creatures.

And so the same thing here, wisdom is not opposed to love, but sometimes it can feel that way, especially living this side of the fall. We face circumstances, we face times when it is hard to tell. Do I need to emphasize love here? Do I need to emphasize taking a risk? Or do I need to emphasize walking wisely, considering my steps?

The Proverbs say that the wise man looks and he sees the pit that’s coming, but the fool just stumbles right into the pit. Well, how do I know? Am I supposed to emphasize looking for the trap, looking for the pit, or am I supposed to emphasize I’m just going to trust the Lord and do the loving thing? It’s hard to know sometimes.

Let’s read our passage this morning. It’s Genesis chapter 30, verses 25 to 43. And if you do have a bulletin, the title is different than what I have in the bulletin. The title of this sermon probably more accurately would be the place of prudence in providence. The place of prudence in providence. Genesis chapter 30 beginning in verse 25 says this:

So there’s some weird stuff in here, but we’ll get to that. The first thing we should see in verses 25 to 33 is that prudence is necessary to protect your family. Verse 25 says, as soon as Rachel had born Joseph, Jacob goes to Laban and says, send me away, which means he has fulfilled his seven years of service to Laban.

So Joseph is the 11th son of Jacob, his 12th son. Benjamin won’t be born until he is returned to the promised land. So his last son born here in Paddan Aram is the son Joseph, which means that he has 11 sons and at least 12 children born in the space of seven years.

You think sometimes when you get later to the story of Joseph and you think of his older brothers, you think, wow, you know, this is a huge family. These guys are 15, 20 years older than him. They’re not. They’re all born together in a prett