Vintage - “of old, recognized, and enduring interest, importance, or quality.” 

God loves people.

God made people for relationship. 

Joseph knows who God is. 

Genesis 39:9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?”

Genesis 40:8 “We both had dreams,” they answered, “but there is no one to interpret them.”

Then Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”

Genesis 41:16 “I cannot do it,” Joseph replied to Pharaoh, “but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires.”

Genesis 41:51 Joseph named his firstborn Manasseh[a] and said, “It is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household.”

Genesis 41:52 The second son he named Ephraim and said, “It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.”

Genesis 42:18  On the third day, Joseph said to them, “Do this and you will live, for I fear God:

Genesis 50:19-20 But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

Genesis 50:24-25 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” And Joseph made the Israelites swear an oath and said, “God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place.”

Genesis 50:20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

"It's one thing to recognize the sovereignty of God, it's another thing to keep oneself and one's role in proper perspective."

- John Walton

Joseph knows who he is.

Genesis 42:21 They said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that’s why this distress has come on us.”

Genesis 43:30 Deeply moved at the sight of his brother, Joseph hurried out and looked for a place to weep. He went into his private room and wept there.

Genesis 45:2 And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it.

Genesis 45:14 Then he threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin embraced him, weeping.

Genesis 46:29 Joseph had his chariot made ready and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel. As soon as Joseph appeared before him, he threw his arms around his father and wept for a long time.

Genesis 50:15-19 When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?” So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died: ‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.” When their message came to him, Joseph wept. His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said. But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God?

Genesis 30:2 Jacob became angry with her and said, “Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?”

Genesis 50:19 But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God?

Genesis 50: 20-21 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

God made people for relationships.

2 Corinthians 5: 18-21 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin,[a] so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

"True Christian reconciliation is not something to be achieved or mastered. Instead it is something discovered--the power of God's grace welling up in one's life."

- Robert Schreiter