Missions Paul

Do you remember the story of Jacob and Esau (Genesis 25)? They were twins—Esau emerged first, but Jacob grasped his heel and took his place. Similarly, let’s move now to the story of the children of Tamar and Judah.

“When it was time for Tamar to give birth, there were twin boys. As she was in labour, one child put out his hand, and the midwife tied a scarlet thread around his wrist, saying, “This one came out first.”But then he drew back his hand, and his brother came out instead. The midwife exclaimed, “So this is how you have broken out!” and he was named Perez. Afterward, his brother, the one with the scarlet thread on his wrist, was born and named Zerah.” (Genesis 38: 27-30)

Reading this chapter isn’t easy. The story is full of failure, deception, and then unexpected grace. Despite the mess, there’s an important outcome: the birth of twins.

Tamar names the boys in connection with the events of their birth. This echoes the earlier account of Jacob grasping Esau’s heel. Once again, the order of birth is unconventional.

This raises questions: which twin will be born first? Who receives the inheritance? During childbirth, Zerah’s hand emerges first, and a scarlet thread is tied around his wrist, marking him as the firstborn. But unexpectedly, Perez—whose name means “breaks through”—arrives first. Scandal!

That detail is the family secret hidden in their names. The gospel of Matthew even includes both names—Zerah and Tamar—highlighting their significance: “Judah, the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar” (Matthew 1:3).

As with all our stories, we notice a thread of grace, redemption, and sovereignty running through them—woven by God, alongside many other themes.

Consider Tamar’s determination to continue Judah’s bloodline through levirate marriage with her father-in-law. Notice also Perez, the one not obviously chosen or first, but who breaks through because he is God’s choice.

Looking back, we can see the positives. But, it’s important to remember: the good emerges from the bad.

Your family’s story may not be a romantic, sweet tale suitable for all ages. Perhaps, like this narrative, it could be an 18 certificate! If so, your story is akin to that of Jesus, whose origin comes from sinful, ordinary people like us.

We all experience labels and rankings, such as first and second. The careful reader should ask: what threads have been tied on your wrist that God never allowed? Those threads cannot control God’s purpose. He works in unexpected places and ways.

Judah thought his actions were hidden. He left that roadside encounter believing it would soon be forgotten. But nothing escapes God’s notice, and this is just the beginning. What happens next will reveal not only Judah’s wrongdoing but also show how God works through the messes we try to conceal.

“Meanwhile Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get his pledge back from the woman, but he did not find her. 21 He asked the men who lived there, “Where is the shrine prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?” “There hasn’t been any shrine prostitute here,” they said. 22 So he went back to Judah and said, “I didn’t find her. Besides, the men who lived there said, ‘There hasn’t been any shrine prostitute here.’” 23 Then Judah said, “Let her keep what she has, or we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send her this young goat, but you didn’t find her.” 24 About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.” Judah said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!” 25 As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. “I am pregnant by the man who owns these,” she said. And she added, “See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.” 26 Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not sleep with her again.” (Genesis 38 v20-26)

The story continues as Judah sends his friend to pay the prostitute and retrieve his pledge. Yet she was nowhere to be found. His friend asked around, but no one had even seen a shrine prostitute there. With this, Judah wrote it off. “Let her keep it. Move on. No one needs to know.” That’s his attitude.

However, three months later, this illusion of secrecy was shattered. Someone did know. Tamar was visibly pregnant, and word reached Judah quickly. His response was ruthless: ‘Bring her out and have her burned to death.’ The man who had just slept with a roadside stranger was now calling for the execution of his daughter-in-law for sexual immorality. He was ready to burn the evidence without ever realising he was the evidence.

At the crucial moment, Tamar produced the seal, the cord, and the staff.

Everything stopped. Judah recognised them immediately, and in that moment the whole carefully constructed facade collapsed. To his credit, he did not deny it. ‘She is more righteous than I,’ he said, marking a turning point in the story.

Judah recognised the seal and cord immediately, but had been blind to his own guilt the whole time.

This is what happens when hidden things come to light. While we may try to hide our faults and control our image, God brings truth to the surface not to shame us but to reveal what needs to change. The lesson is clear: real transformation happens not by hiding, but by facing what is true, allowing God to work through our failures.

Let me recap this story so far: Judah drifts away from God and his family, making a series of compromising choices by aligning himself with Canaanite culture. One of those was to marry a Canaanite woman. His children were ‘evil’, and the Lord killed them because He sees absolutely everything.

So we continue.

“Judah then said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father’s household until my son Shelah grows up.” For he thought, “He may die too, just like his brothers.” So Tamar went to live in her father’s household. ¹² After a long time Judah’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had recovered from his grief, he went up to Timnah, to the men who were shearing his sheep, and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went with him. ¹³ When Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is on his way to Timnah to shear his sheep,” ¹⁴ she took off her widow’s clothes, covered herself with a veil to disguise herself, and then sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that, though Shelah had now grown up, she had not been given to him as his wife. ¹⁵ When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. ¹⁶ Not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by the roadside and said, “Come now, let me sleep with you.” “And what will you give me to sleep with you?” she asked. ¹⁷ “I’ll send you a young goat from my flock,” he said. “Will you give me something as a pledge until you send it?” she asked. ¹⁸ He said, “What pledge should I give you?” “Your seal and its cord, and the staff in your hand,” she answered. So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she became pregnant by him. ¹⁹ After she left, she took off her veil and put on her widow’s clothes again.” (Genesis 38 v 11-19)

Judah made Tamar a promise he never intended to keep.  Shelah, another of his sons, would never marry her. She had been with Er and Onan, and they died; he was not risking his third son with this woman.

So Tamar goes home, puts on her widow’s clothes, and waits.

In the waiting, nothing happened. Shelah grew up, and yet no message came. There was never going to be a message.

Both of Tamar’s husbands had dealt with her badly, and now their father discards her. She has no future, for she has no husband, no children and no one to take care of her. So she comes up with a plan.

Her prostitute act worked, and the clever thing she did was to get his seal, his cord and his staff. We may scratch our heads at what she did, but her world had written her off. People do the most audacious things when they are desperate. Judah, not knowing it was Tamar, slept with her, and she got what she needed. This was a desperate woman with desperate measures. Judah walked away thinking no one had seen, and it was all forgotten. Nothing was further from the truth.

Today, on Palm Sunday, we celebrate how the crowds waved palms and shouted Hosanna, but most of them misunderstood what kind of king he was and what kind of rescue he had come to bring. They were expecting liberation from Rome. He had come to do something far deeper.

In Matthew 21 v 14, after overturning the money tables, it says, “The blind and the lame came to him at the temple.”

Tamar’s story has that same quality of unexpected rescue. She was a woman the system had forgotten — wronged, discarded, without recourse. And yet God had not forgotten her. The rescue, when it came, looked nothing like anyone would have planned or approved of. It was messy, uncomfortable, and hidden from view. But it was real.

That is often how God works. He enters the forgotten places. He sees what the respectable world walks past. The woman sitting by the road in desperation, the widow with no future, the one that polite society has quietly written off — these are precisely the people the gospel has always been good news for.

Judah thought no one had seen. But God sees everything. And the story was far from over.

Joseph has been sold into slavery and finds himself in Egypt; we will come back to him, but for now, we are back with his family. A family full of moral disorder, and this chapter will show us that, but it’s not a comfortable read.

“At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam named Hirah. ² There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. He married her and made love to her; ³ she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, who was named Er. ⁴ She conceived again and gave birth to a son and named him Onan. ⁵ She gave birth to still another son and named him Shelah. It was at Kezib that she gave birth to him. ⁶ Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. ⁷ But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death. ⁸ Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother’s wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.” ⁹ But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. ¹⁰ What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also.” (Genesis 38 v 1-10)

Judah left his brothers. These four words reveal perhaps the state of his heart. He has seen his brother sold into slavery and then his father being lied to about his death. But there is something else beneath the leaving. It was Judah who proposed selling Joseph in the first place (Genesis 37:26-27). He didn’t just witness a tragedy — he helped engineer it. He left carrying that guilt. So he separates himself from his family and from God. He befriends a Canaanite and moves into his house, then marries a Canaanite woman. Each of these decisions reveals a spiritual drifting away from God — the kind of drift that often begins with a guilty conscience and an unwillingness to face what we have done.

Genesis 38 is not an easy read. We are told little details at times.

Er, “was wicked in the Lord’s sight” — and that is all. We are given nothing else. Whatever the wickedness was, God took it seriously, and Er was no more.

We are told more about Onan. The outcome was the same; God killed him, too. The reason was that he found a way to take the privilege and not the responsibility, v9. Onan took the privilege (sleeping with Tamar, his dead brother’s wife) but not the responsibility (the law of levirate marriage — fathering children with the wife of his dead brother to preserve the name). Onan died because of his deception and contempt for his dead brother. Onan wanted the privilege but not the cost.

And we should not pass over Tamar too quickly. She is introduced in verse 6, named — which itself is significant — and already by verse 10 she has been widowed twice through no fault of her own. She is a woman caught inside a system she cannot control, wronged first by Er, then exploited by Onan, who used her while deliberately denying her the protection and future she was owed. She could not expose him. She had no recourse. But her story is not over, and God has not forgotten her.

God sees everything. We don’t know why Er died, except that he had done something wicked. We know why Onan died. No one else did except Tamar, and she would not expose him. But God knew why. The hidden deception, God saw it all. God sees everything.

This passage is saturated with pain, and yet we read a word that changes everything: meanwhile. What looks like a tragedy is, in reality, an incomplete picture. Meanwhile. It’s a word you will see in the last verse. A beautiful word. It means when you’re not looking or unaware, God is still working. At the same time as you are doing what you are doing, whether you are in success or struggling, when perhaps the centre stage is the whole stage, and you see no one else or nothing changing, remember this word: Meanwhile.

“When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. ³⁰ He went back to his brothers and said, “The boy isn’t there! Where can I turn now?” ³¹ Then they got Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. ³² They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, “We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe.” ³³ He recognised it and said, “It is my son’s robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.” ³⁴ Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. ³⁵ All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said, “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.” So his father wept for him. ³⁶ Meanwhile, the Midianitessold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.” (Genesis 37 v 29-36)

While the father is inconsolable, Joseph is still alive. He may not know what the future holds, but he is very much alive. The truth is there, but the pain of a report hides it.

I see three things this morning:

• We can do the same as Jacob. We react to what we think is reality, when it is often an incomplete story. We react to what is in front of us or what we assume isn’t. Yet behind the scenes, there may well be many things taking place that we simply do not know.
• We can be like the brothers. We can often overlook the weight of our actions. The brothers may have rid themselves of Joseph, but they could not escape the consequences of their deception, their father’s prolonged suffering, and the burden of a lie they must carry.
• We can lose perspective so easily. We can mistake appearance for truth, and how deeply that mistake can shape our emotions, our decisions, and our lives. Sometimes, what looks like an ending is only a chapter unfolding out of sight.

Jacob mourned for a son who was still alive. He was handed the blood-stained robe. It told one story, but God was writing another. You may be holding something today that tells you that something is over, but nothing could be further from the truth. Whatever your pit, whatever your bloodstained robe, whatever feels final and closed — remember the last word of this story isn’t grief. It isn’t betrayal. It isn’t even the grave. It’s meanwhile. And meanwhile, God is working.

The brothers have thrown their youngest sibling into a dry well. Their intent is to kill him, but first, in an ordinary but callous act, they sit down to eat their lunch. There are times when we are staggered by others’ actions, and this is one of them. However, these dark days often become examples of wonderful periods of grace as the true author is writing silently behind the scenes of our lives.

“As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt. ²⁶ Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? ²⁷ Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed. ²⁸ So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekelsof silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.” (Genesis 37 v 25-28)

If you have ever been betrayed by a friend or a colleague, maybe a family member, then you will know it wasn’t what they did to you that twisted the knife, but it was how easy it was for them to hurt you. Over a meal, they decided not to kill their brother (thanks to Judah) but to sell him on. The twist of the knife was the price they were happy to receive for him. It was the price of a slave. Joseph was valued no more than a slave.

This is only one side of the story – the other is to know that God was involved from the beginning.

Often seeming like a coincidence, things begin to happen, and only when we look back a few chapters further do we see the hand of God at work from the beginning of what was a difficult period.

Before the decision to sell Joseph, before they sat down for a meal, before they threw their brother down the cistern, and before Joseph even set out from his father to see if they were okay, a caravan of Midianites had already set out for Egypt.

The brothers meant it for evil, but God was providing the transport for Joseph as a springboard into the next chapter of his life. That sentence alone is worth a pause and ponder.

Twenty shekels of silver, that’s the price of betrayal. Centuries later, the price had risen to thirty pieces of silver. The connection is real. The betrayal is even more so.

In Joseph’s story, as in the gospel, the betrayal is real. The suffering is real. The tears are real. But they are not the final word.

Perhaps you can see some similarities in this story?

Your situation may be very painful, and the anxiety is overwhelming because you do not know what will happen in this chapter, never mind the next. As I read this story, I realise God is the holder of our stories, your story. It doesn’t mean your pain is minimised, nor that it won’t get worse before it gets better. But you are not in the hands of the enemy; rather, your Sovereign God has got you. He is writing your story. Even when it looks like everything is finished, it isn’t. It is often later when we can look back and see the footprint of God in our most difficult chapters of life. Did you spot the particular spice that the traders were carrying? Myrrh was one of the three gifts the Magi brought to Mary and Joseph for the Christ-child. Myrrh was mixed with wine and offered to Jesus on the cross, and it was used by Nicodemus and Joseph to wrap his body as he was laid in the tomb. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it. Centuries previously, there was a cargo with a beautiful scent, speaking of the death and resurrection of another Son, the Son, passing by in a prophetic act.

How beautiful is this?!

Whatever has been stripped from you, whatever dry and dark place you find yourself in today, there is something you need to know. God prepared that cistern before you ever arrived in it.

“Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. ²⁰ “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.” ²¹ When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. ²² “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father. ²³ So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing— ²⁴ and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.” (Genesis 37 v 19-24)

The enemy of your life (and, incredibly, for Joseph, it was his own brothers) has a plan, and that is to remove you from the place and position God has given to you. Ultimately, to steal, kill and destroy.

These brothers had a plan: to silence Joseph once and for all. The story of your life is the story that God is writing, not anyone else.

God had watched a cistern dry up over time. This was crucial for the story. It saved Joseph’s life. We may not realise that even the dry circumstances of our lives could be used to save us.

Reuben was the firstborn and responsible in ways the others weren’t. He had already fallen out with his father (chapter 35) for sleeping with Jacob’s concubine. Perhaps this was his attempt at recompense for saving Jacob’s favourite son.

A dried-up cistern and a smart brother. That’s what God had to use. They would be used for a new chapter in the story of Joseph’s life.

Whatever you are going through, let me speak these words over your life – the cistern is empty. You may be stripped of everything that once made you feel significant, and this may be the greatest trial of your life, but you will not drown, for there is no water in the cistern.

You may find yourself in a dry place, and you may not know if you will ever come out of this experience. But you will. This is the story of a dreamer who went into the pit and came out.

What do you need to see or hear that reveals the condition of your heart? Across some fields comes that multi-coloured coat. The brothers see him long before he sees them. They have time to prepare and to choose their response. Or they have time to plot. The dreamer was still in the fields when they’d already decided his fate.

“Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, ¹³ and Israel said to Joseph, “As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them.” “Very well,” he replied. ¹⁴ So he said to him, “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.” Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron. When Joseph arrived at Shechem, ¹⁵ a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?” ¹⁶ He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?” ¹⁷ “They have moved on from here,” the man answered. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. ¹⁸ But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.” (Genesis 37 v 12-18)

They saw him from afar. He was on his own, away from the protection of his father and alone in the fields, coming ever closer to them. The jealous brothers didn’t take long once they saw the distant figure. They plotted to kill him.

What or who can you see in the distance that would make your fists clench?

Joseph, with his coloured coat, was an easy target. They didn’t see that he was carrying his father’s love for them. This was another provocation, but this time he was entering their space without his father’s protection.

Have you interpreted your vision correctly? Even if you have, are you in the right place to receive it? Jealousy distorts, insecurity makes everything feel like a threat, and unresolved wounds can make you the one who harms.

If we don’t have transformed hearts, then we will mishandle the opportunities presented to us.

Who will you be when that person comes onto your horizon?

Joseph received his dreams at 17 years of age. These dreams came from God. Some dreams do perhaps more than we realise. Between the dream and its fulfilment is the slow and costly work of becoming the person the dream requires.

“Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. ² This is the account of Jacob’s family line. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. ³ Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornaterobe for him. ⁴ When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. ⁵ Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. ⁶ He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: ⁷ We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.” ⁸ His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. ⁹ Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” ¹⁰ When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” ¹¹ His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.” (Genesis 37 v 1-11)

So we begin a new story. Focused on a 17-year-old son of Jacob (Israel), who loved him more than his other children, Joseph is given an ornate robe to wear; the favouritism was for all to see.

This favouritism led to Joseph becoming the hated one.

Joseph has 2 dreams about what God was going to do in his life – promotion over his family. But these dreams would require him to pay the price of seeing them worked out. He could never have imagined what these dreams would ask of him.

Perhaps you know that tension. You know what God has said to you. You know His hand is on your life. You may not be seventeen, and you may not have a flashy coat, but you know God has called you, and He may be using you already. You carry a dream in your heart. What we see from the opening of this story is that when God gives us something to carry, it may not be a smooth path. This dream has come to a son of a dysfunctional household: a father who shows favouritism, his brothers who hate him and the impetuousness of youth. This is the context in which the God-dream was planted, and it wasn’t ideal; it didn’t look like God-soil. There seemed to be a definite lack of wisdom. Joseph seems to have said the right thing at the wrong time.

I think this sums it up. The beautiful coat was given to him to wear. The character wearing it would have to mature.

The dreams God gives us are not too big for us, but perhaps at the time they are given, we are too small to carry them. So we need God to prepare us, develop our character, perhaps we need to go through trials to shape us, in order to see the dreams come into fulfilment. Preparation is everything.

Jacob came home. Three words that mean everything to a dying father. Whatever this means for you today, let it encourage you that those estranged from you, from God, can come home.

“Jacob came home to his father Isaac in Mamre, near Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed. ²⁸ Isaac lived a hundred and eighty years. ²⁹ Then he breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, old and full of years. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.” (Genesis 35 v 27-29)

If we hadn’t read the story of Jacob, we would miss the importance of those opening three words. He had left home at least 20 years previously after deceiving his father, Isaac, and now here he is, the prodigal returning home. Even after all the family disputes, here he is, the son at his father’s deathbed. If you have wandered away, you can come home, you can return.

The text beautifully states that he was ‘gathered to his people’; a phrase pointing to a homecoming, a gathering and a reunion with those who had gone before.

It also says how the two estranged sons are together burying their father. Death has a way of levelling out what is really important in life. I remember being at the hospital bed of a man who was dying, and there gathered around were two old, estranged friends who shared a common bond of friendship with the man. They both loved their dying friend, and his death brought them together after many years of being separated.

An estranged son is home. Two divided brothers together. A father dies in peace.

Isaac’s life was far from perfect, but to die this way was surely a blessing to him.

Whatever you have done, wherever you have wandered, the story of Jacob whispers the same invitation: you can come home.