of slavery appalls me. And the fact that they actually OFFERED it all to him doesn't make me feel any better because he was their only source of FOOD. It seems a little like extortion or something. Remember when WHAM! wanted us to choose LIFE? But I guess the key is, while he accepted all they had, he gave them the only thing that really mattered - LIFE. Had he not known about the famine and been proactive, they wouldn't even be ALIVE. Last week our pastor said, to paraphrase, "Jesus is the Word, the Bible is the Word and they cannot be separated. So, when you read the Bible, imagine that JESUS is telling you the stuff." Well, I thought about this when I was reading the passage about Joseph taking everything the Egyptians had and enslaving them... and then I allowed it to come up alongside of some stuff I have read in the New Testament... like Jesus saying: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Matthew 16) Here, Jesus asks us to give up all that we have and are to follow him. Voluntarily, like the Egyptians did with Joseph. I guess the difference is, they could actually SEE that it was a matter of life or death. Sometimes it's not that obvious to us. But here's what's interesting: Jesus did this very thing for us. I mean, He was God - with the sparkly throne