Vision (11.28.25): Joseph: A Man of Virtue and Diligence

 

Image: Joseph sold into slavery by his brethren, floor tile, Gloucester Cathedral, England.

Note: Devotional based on last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 47.

“And Joseph nourished his father, and his brethren, and all his father’s household…” (Genesis 47:12).

We are right to suggest that there are whispers (types) of the experience of Christ in the life of Joseph, though we would also admit that this connection is not explicitly drawn within the NT itself, unlike the connections that are made with other OT types (cf. Jonah as a type of Christ in Matt 12:40).

The historical Joseph of Genesis is not mentioned directly in the NT Gospels, although our Lord’s legal father, Joseph of Nazareth, the husband of Mary, was named after him, as was Joseph of Arimathea, the man who took Christ’s lifeless body down from the cross.

The historical Joseph of Genesis is mentioned in only two places in the NT: First, in Stephen’s speech before his martyrdom (cf. Acts 7:12-15), and second, in the “faith chapter” of Hebrews 11 (cf. Heb 11:21-22). In both of these, the main emphasis is on Joseph’s providential role in preserving his family and bringing them into Egypt. But there is also a focus in the sacred account in Genesis upon the piety and righteousness of Joseph.

We saw it when Joseph had to bring an “evil report” to Jacob about the sinful behavior of his brothers (37:2).

We saw it when with innocence and sincerity (with no guile or grandiosity) he reported his dreams of his family bowing before him (37:5-11).

We saw it when Moses said Joseph was a “prosperous man,” even when he was a slave in the house of Potiphar (39:2).

We saw it when he fled from the salacious advances of Potiphar’s wife (39:12) and when he refused to sin against man (Potiphar) in committing adultery, but most especially to sin against God (39:9b: “how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God”).

We saw it in his willingness to extend mercy and forgiveness to his brethren who had treated him so maliciously (45:5; 8a).

And we see it also in Genesis 47 as Joseph is presented to us as a man of virtue and diligence. We see this in at least three ways in Genesis 47. First, he nourishes his father and brethren (47:1-12); second, he faithfully serves Pharaoh the king, so that the people say, “Thou hast saved our lives” (47:25); and third, he honors his father, even as Jacob neared death (47:30).

The Bible is not a mere moralistic handbook. Its focus is on the glory of God, not the virtue of men, though it does provide us with virtuous models to follow. Joseph is one such model.

The apostle Paul said, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). And here in Genesis, Joseph is saying to us: Follow me, as I also followed Christ.

As we have opportunity: Let us nourish our brethren. Let us faithfully serve those who are over us in the Lord. And let us honor father and mother, that our days may be long upon the land which the Lord our God giveth us.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

WM 351: Book Interview with Joseph Weissman: Carpzov's A Defense of the Hebrew Bible

 

JTR

Five Misrepresentations of the Confessional Text position by Mark Ward in "The Septuagint and Confessional Bibliology" in The Authority of the Septuagint:

From X:

Five Misrepresentations of the Confessional Text position by Mark Ward in "The Septuagint and Confessional Bibliology" in The Authority of the Septuagint:

1. MW once again claims that we are "fraternal twins" to IFB KJVO (p. 169). We have repeatedly stated that KJVO is completely incompatible with WCF/2LBCF 1:8 and is a position we repudiate. To say we are *only* "fraternal twins" to KJVO is, in fact, a deceptive and pusillanimous obfuscation.

2. MW reviews only three of our four plenary lecturers in the 2024 RBS conference, completely overlooking Christian McShaffrey's lecture on Apologetics. Co-editor Ross was at the conference and should have noticed this oversight. MW apparently made this omission because McShaffrey does not hold a PhD degree. This, however, is not a standard for participation in the RBS or holding to the CB position. McShaffrey is an established OPC pastor, the stated clerk of his presbytery, a member of the executive committee (& secretary) of the RBS, and a respected writer and spokesman for the Confessional Text position. MW, however, imposes his own arbitrary standard (he only reviews speakers who hold the PhD, p. 170), and so inexplicably omits consideration one of the four plenary speakers for the conference he was reviewing.

3. MW claims that our 2024 conference on the LXX represented a distinct shift or turn in emphasis for CB by focusing on the OT, though we have from the beginning had a whole Bible (OT and NT) emphasis and concern. The assertion that this is a new emphasis of CB is simply wrong.

4. MW states that CB holds that there are singular extant “perfect manuscript copies” of the Bible (p. 178). This is never an argument we have made, but MW continues to repeat this charge. He provides no citations to demonstrate that this is our view, because no such citations exist.

5. MW makes no serious reference to or any interaction with perhaps the key emphasis of the CB movement. We are contending for retrieval of the classic Protestant position regarding the text of Scripture, held by men like Owen and Turretin, including the rejection of the LXX's use to "correct" the Hebrew text (what Berntson calls in his article in this book the "older view" of the Protestant orthodox).

JTR

WM 349: KEACH on the DIVIINE AUTHORITY of the Holy Scriptures: Part 3 of 17: DIVINITY in MAJESTY

 

JTR

WM 348: On what basis can we say authoritatively that the TR is THE Confessional Text?

 

JTR

The Vision (11.21.25): And God spake unto Israel

 

Image: Autumn evening skies, North Garden, Virginia, November 2025.

Note: Devotion based on last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 46.

“And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I” (Genesis 46:2).

Genesis 45 presented a great climax in the life of Joseph, as he finally made himself known to his brothers and was reconciled with them.

The story does not, however, end there. Genesis 46 follows with the account of how Joseph’s father Jacob [Israel] made his journey to Egypt.

God had been at work providentially to preserve the line of Abraham, and in bringing Jacob [Israel] and his household to Egypt, God is further working out his providential plan. That plan will include hardship for this elect nation, as they will be placed in bondage in Egypt. Yet it will also include God’s mighty work of deliverance in the Exodus under Moses.

Jacob did not know all that was ahead. He simply listened and obeyed the command of God.

As we look back at the opening verses to this chapter (46:1-7), we can see how Jacob and his household might stand as figures for every believer and for all the people of God, his church, collectively.

Jacob was called to leave his homeland and go to Egypt. We too have been summoned to answer the call of God upon our lives. We have been called to leave all behind and follow Christ wherever he leads (Luke 9:23).

Jacob worshipped God (see v. 1 “and [Jacob] and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac.”). We are called to give worship, to offer spiritual sacrifices, the fruit of our lips, to the one true God of the Bible.

God has spoken to us in this age, not in visions, but by his Word written (v. 2: “And God spake unto Israel…”). We are to receive his Word and take it into our lives.

He gives us his perfect love which casts out fear (v. 3: “fear not…”).

He gives us his promises that we will be a great nation, the spiritual seed of Abraham (v. 3: “for I will make of thee a great nation”).

He promises to go with us into every circumstance and to bring us out again, to be all our comfort and hope in life and death (v. 4: “I will do down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again…).

Moses records Jacob’s response to this call: “And Jacob rose up…” (v. 5). He took with him “all he had” (v. 1) and followed. This included “all his seed” (vv. 6, 7). He entrusted not only himself but all his family to the Lord.

May we learn from men like Jacob in Holy Scripture how we are to obey when the Lord calls upon us.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

WM 350: Reflections on a 1-STAR REVIEW of The Authority of the Septuagint

 

Notes from this episode:

Dr. Greg Lanier made an x post back on Nov. 2, 2025, just a few days after his co-edited book (with William Ross) titled The Authority of the Septuagint was officially released at the end of October. In this post, Lanier was bemoaning the fact that the first amazon review posted for the book was a 1-star evaluation by a reviewer complaining about the book’s misrepresentation of the Confessional Bibliology (CB) position. Lanier despaired, “At this rate we'll be at negative infinity stars before long.”

The 1-star reviewer had focused on a footnote in the opening pages of the book’s introduction as an illustration of how the CB position was misrepresented in the Lanier/Ross book. The reviewer pointed out that in this opening footnote the editors lump in the CB position with writers and works with whom actual CB advocates have no association. Furthermore, the editors also failed in this footnote to offer any citations of actual works from CB advocates. Rather than offering a fair and objective presentation of the CB position, the footnote seems to offer a dismissive “guilt by association” smear.

Indeed, there is only one chapter in the Lanier/Ross book that is not either a positive presentation of scholarly research or a positive advocacy presentation concerning usage of the LXX (for the latter see Roman Catholic scholar James B. Prothro’s article “A Roman Catholic Approach”).  That one out-of-place chapter is the excursus by Mark Ward on “The Septuagint and Confessional Bibliology.” Far from being a sympathetic advocate of the CB position (as Prothro is for the RCC position) Ward has been a persistent and termagant critic of CB who has often misrepresented our position (including by repeatedly suggesting we hold to KJVO or are “cousins” to KJVO—though this is a position we have repudiated). On a recent podcast Lanier defended the decision to invite Ward rather than an actual advocate of the CB position to contribute to the book, because, he suggested, no one holding to the CB position was capable of writing an academic essay presenting the CB viewpoint with sufficient scholarly rigor.

What Lanier might not have picked up on relating to the 1-star review was the irony which was likely intended by the reviewer. Here is some of the background to this story that Lainer might have missed:

Back in 2022 the 1-star reviewer and I co-edited a book titled Why I Preach from the Received Text. This book consists of 25 short articles written by various confessionally Reformed church officers (Presbyterian, Baptist, and Independent) who have advocated for retrieval of the traditional Protestant text of Holy Scripture in the life of confessional churches.

In the Introduction to Why I Preach from the Received Text, we (the editors) made plain that though all the contributors had great respect for the King James Version and the overwhelming majority of us (though not all) made nearly exclusive use of it in our public ministries, we were not advocating a KJVO position. In fact, we wrote the following in that introduction:

The reader should not, however, be confused about this book’s primary focus. Critics of the traditional text, in fact, often confuse our position, whether intentionally or unintentionally, with “King James Version-Onlyism,” a position which is inconsistent with WCF and 2LBCF 1:8. We did not ask our authors to address, “Why I Preach from the King James Version,” but “Why I Preach from the Received Text.” The primary purpose of this book is a defense of the traditional original Hebrew and Greek text of the Bible (p. 17).

Our book was officially released on Friday, July 22, 2022. Just 48 hours later and although he had no advance copy of the book, on July 24, 2022, Mark Ward posted a caustic review of this 276-page book to his personal blog and “plastered” it to several other online sites including amazon and goodreads, where he also gave it a very low review rating.

Ward’s review consisted of over 3,700 words, meaning it was much longer than any of the 25 individual chapters in our book, which were limited to c. 2,500 words each. In Ward’s review the term “KJV” appears 93 times. Based on Ward’s review one might think that the primary purpose of Why I Preach from the Received Text was to promote the readability of the KJV, rather than retrieval of the traditional Protestant text of Holy Scripture. The bulk of the “review” came under a section titled “KJV Readability” and included 8 subpoints each of which has the words “KJV” or “KJV Readability” in its title. There was even more. Ward intentionally misrepresented and demonized one of our authors such that it created problems for him in his church and presbytery.

Ward ended his “review” with these words, “…I cannot recommend this book, and I am dismayed that the tiny Confessional Bibliology movement has gathered enough strength to publish it. I pray that its days will be few.”

Perhaps Lanier and Ross were unaware of the animus that Ward had expressed against the CB position. Maybe this will help them understand why we were dismayed and disappointed when they accepted Ward’s gracious “offer” to contribute this excursus on CB to their book. It came from a man who has literally prayed an imprecatory prayer that the days of the CB movement would be few. Thankfully, the Lord has not been pleased to answer the petitioner’s prayer in the way that he hoped.

Sadly, Ward’s article in the book continues the misrepresentation of our position. He once again makes the claim that the CB position is the “fraternal twin” of KJVO. Here are just a few of the other problems with Ward’s review of 2024 Reformation Bible Society Conference in his excursus: He chooses only to review three of our four plenary lecturers in our conference and then critiques our conference for not covering the topic (apologetics) addressed in the plenary lecture which he omitted to review. He claims that our 2024 conference on the LXX represented a distinct shift or turn in emphasis for CB by focusing on the OT, though we have from the beginning had a whole Bible (OT and NT) emphasis and concern (see the quote shared above from our 2022 book). He states that CB holds that there are singular extant  “perfect manuscript copies” of the Bible. We do not.

The sad thing is that when Myrto Theocharous offers her synthesis of our position in the book she does not actually interact with our position but with Mark Ward’s distortion of it. In reality we are simply contending for the retrieval of what Levi Berntson calls in his article “the old view” of the Protestant orthodox fathers. Sadly one will not encounter this in Ward’s review but only a straw man of our position.

Finally, let me encourage Dr. Lanier. The first review was 1-star but I’m sure this will eventually level out. After Ward posted his low review of our book, the next dozen or so were 5-star reviews and readers have continued to find it useful. Perhaps the same will happen with their book.

JTR

WM 347: KEACH on the DIVINE AUTHORITY of the Holy Scriptures: Part 2 of 17: ANTIQUITY

 

JTR

WM 346: Book Interview: Peter Van Kleeck, Jr., The 30 Best Arguments Against KJVO* (*Answered)

 

JTR

WM 344: KEACH on the DIVIINE AUTHORITY of the Holy Scriptures: Part 1 of 17: CONTENTS

 

JTR

Lectures on the Nicene Creed & Confessing the Faith @ Westminster Baptist Church, London (11.8.25)

 

 

These are my three lectures at the conference. All conference messages can be found here.

JTR

WM 345: Book Interview: Fraser Jones, Meet the Puritans, Second Edition

JTR