This morning, I considered Joseph and how, during famine, people came to him to provide grain. They knew he had nourishment for them; Joseph stored the grain and saved Egypt from famine. We read in Genesis 41 how “all the world came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe everywhere.”
As I think about the famine in the Bible, I suddenly remembered God’s words in Amos 8:11: “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.“
I think about this famine of hearing God’s words. I think about this famine of knowing, treasuring, and speaking words from the Bible. Souls are starving. There’s a famine indeed. But then I think of Joseph. He had the grain stored up, and people came to him. He had the nourishment in a time of scarcity. The thought feels like a call-to-action for us. We have the Bible; we know the word and we can bring people to the Living Word. And we recall Jesus’ words in Matthew 4: Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Whenever we can, we can talk about what we’re reading in the Bible. We can share from the scriptures like the families in Deuteronomy 6 as God says this: “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.”
We fill our hearts with God’s word. We impress these words on others. We talk about them. We think about them. We store the word up. We offer grain in famine.