“The Lord Was with Joseph”: A Scriptural Case Study in Why the Lord Allows Bad Things to Happen to Good People
by Matthew L. Bowen
Bad things happen to good people, of course. What’s more, sometimes terrible things happen to the best people even when they are striving with the utmost diligence to do what is right. The entire book of Job is “the paradigmatic literary case of the innocent sufferer, afflicted by the Deity through no fault of his own, and forever kept in the dark concerning the actual cause of his misery.”[1] Nobody ever suffered more for doing so much good for so many than Jesus Christ himself, who never once committed sin.[2] Like Job, Joseph in Egypt represents an antetype or foreshadowing of the Savior with respect to unmerited suffering. As with Jesus and his atoning sacrifice, what happens to Joseph ultimately sets up the divine means of saving the house of Israel alive. This short study will explore the typology of Joseph as the life-saving sufferer (as opposed to a hapless victim of suffering) and the far-reaching impact of the divine deliverance accomplished through him. [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 11 – Genesis 37–41
Jennifer Ann Mackley, JD, is the Executive Director of the Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation, which she co-founded with Donald W. Parry in 2020. In addition to her legal practice as a partner in Mackley & Mackley, PLLC, Jennifer has authored or edited 21 books including Wilford Woodruff’s Witness: The Development of Temple Doctrine. She has been serving as a historian for the Wilford Woodruff Family Association since 2014 and has made numerous presentations and podcasts based on her research of Wilford Woodruff’s life and, through his records, the development of temple doctrine in the 19th century. Jennifer served in the Minnesota Minneapolis Mission and has been a temple worker in the Provo, Washington, D.C, Chicago, Salt Lake, and Seattle temples. She and her husband Carter are the parents of three adored children.
Jenny Reeder is the nineteenth-century women’s history specialist at the Church History Department for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She has a PhD in American history from George Mason University, and an MA from New York University in history, archival management, and documentary editing. Jenny is on the Church Historian’s Press Editorial Board, the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts Advisory Board, the Mormon History Association’s book awards committee, and the editorial board of Mormon Historical Studies. She has taught at BYU Education Week and has been a featured speaker at BYU Women’s Conference, the BYU Easter Conference, and Time Out for Women. She recently published First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith with Deseret Book, and past publications include At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women and Witness of Women: Firsthand Experiences and Testimonies of the Restoration. She leads the “Discourses of Eliza R. Snow” project, collecting and publishing all of Snow’s sermons on the Church Historian’s Press website and a selection of discourses in an upcoming print volume.
Ben Spackman is a PhD candidate in American Religious History at Claremont. His dissertation examines the intellectual roots of LDS creationism and evolution in the 20th century. Prior to his work at Claremont, he received a master’s degree and did PhD work in Old Testament languages and literature at the University of Chicago. He is a guest editor of a special edition of BYU Studies dedicated to biological evolution and LDS faith, and writes at 