Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell

Joseph's discernment not only turned Pharaoh's confusing dream into a plan for Egypt's future but was also instrumental in his own personal healing. His brothers' betrayal wounded him deeply, as did 13 years of slavery and prison. Yet as we read through these chapters describing his life, we see him emerge whole and successful in spite of his past. What was it that allowed him to break free from those years of suffering and betraya...

Today we will focus on a very important aspect of human relationships, especially as it applies to marriage: our mental habits. If we look behind the main events of this chapter, we observe a marriage in trouble. Potiphar's wife has grown disloyal and disrespectful toward her husband to the point that she is aggressively pursuing other men. She has fallen into some negative mental habits which will produce greater unhappiness for b...

The subject of spiritual gifts is a mystery to many people, even some Christians. Some deny such gifts exist at all, and others admit they may exist but believe that if they do they must beiong to only a few very special people. They assume normal Christians can't expect spiritual gifts to be a part of their everyday lives. Yet, the Bible teaches something very different. It tells us every Christian has been given the Holy Spirit t...

We are going to see today that Joseph was failed by every human source in his life. But God didn't need a human source to take care of Joseph. This godly man is a tremendous example to us of God's faithfulness. Joseph knew his source. He looked to God for his help. We make a terrible mistake when we look to people, or to our own wisdom or our own sources. Where do I go when I need help? Do I look to myself and say I can fix this; I...

On two occasions in this chapter Moses tells us that the Lord "prospered" Joseph: first, as a slave in Potiphar's house (vs 2,3) and, second, as a prisoner in the royal jail (v 23). In view of what most of us consider the word "prosperity" to mean, it might strike us as strange or even humorous to apply that word to a slave or a prisoner. But Moses doesn't seem to see any conflict between God "prospering" Joseph and the harsh circu...

Have you ever considered what would have happened to Joseph in Potiphar's house if he had yielded to the temptation of Potiphar's wife? In this episode we'll focus closely on character and why it's so important as it relates to Joseph and our lives. We'll also discuss how Joseph responded to temptation to learn how we can respond too. 

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Someone was determined to prevent Joseph's dreams from coming true. In fact, they were willing to kill him if that's what it took to stop those dreams. But God was the One who gave him those dreams, so God was able to outsmart Joseph's enemies and cause the dreams to come to pass. That's one of the great things about God: He can cause all things, even evil attacks, to work for His glory and the good of those who love Him and are ca...

Over the course of about two years, Jacob would go through at least eight major grief-producing events. So severe was the shock to his mental and emotional state that I believe he went into a severe depression for the next 20 years (Ge 37:33-35; 42:36,38; 43:3; 44:20-34; 45:26-28). Hopefully few of us will ever have to face such an intense concentration of tragic events, but all of us, in going through life, will experience seasons...

It's impossible to go through life without being injured by others, just as it's impossible to go through life without being the one who causes injury to others. Each of us is afflicted with a spiritual disease called "sin" which produces rebellion toward God and selfishness. The result of living in a sinful world is that everybody carries scars which are left when others sin against us. Over the past few weeks we have studied some...

As a husband and a father, Jacob shamelessly showed favoritism toward his wives and his children and, just as you would expect, it produced deep trouble in his family. Favoritism always does. Competition, jealousy, murderous rage and low self-esteem became the tragic fruit of the seeds he sowed. If this chapter seems bizarre and dysfunctional, it is, but it's been included in Scripture as a warning to us to treat those under our ca...

Sometimes it takes a crisis to bring us back to forgotten promises. Somewhere in the past we may have made sincere promises to God, but changing circumstances and passing years have caused us to all but forget we ever made them. In fact, so much may have changed that we may have lost hope that it would still be possible for us to keep those promises. But in today's study of the life of Jacob we learn that God doesn't forget old pro...

Some of us find it very easy to relate to Jacob. He was a man with obvious weaknesses of character, yet, he clearly loved the Lord. Even after some dramatic encounters with God, we find him falling back under pressure to old, ungodly habits. But Jacob gives us hope because, in spite of his failures, God didn't give up on him. He promised to transform him into a new man (Ge 32:28) and then kept working on him for the rest of his lif...

Of all the strange events in Jacob's life, this is by far the strangest. Left alone on the far bank of the Jabbok River, he ended up wrestling with a stranger in the dark of the night. During the course of the fight, Jacob began to realize he was grappling with no ordinary man. Though painfully injured, he refused to release his hold on the man until he "blessed" him. The request for a blessing in itself is surprising because Jacob...

Though Jacob had enough faith to receive God's blessing, he was still very immature in his understanding of God. On his journey north to Haran, he fell asleep with a rock under his head. In a vision he saw the spiritual realities now surrounding him. God had prepared a pathway, allowing angels to constantly attend to him. And, he saw the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ watching over him and heard Him make the same promises He had made t...

In this passage, we're going to see Abraham bless his son, warn him against sin and then send him on into the calling of his life. In essence, we're looking at what Jacob received from his father Isaac. For those who have not been blessed in such a way, you can still receive your blessing as a Christian. It is your birthright, and you need it!

To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation...

Moses has chosen to describe in vivid detail a very strange event that took place in Isaac's family. With the brilliance of a great storyteller he takes us through a day in which people used lies and deception to steal a spiritual blessing, and the amazing result was that they succeeded! This raises several questions: First, why did Moses take so much care to tell us this story? And the answer must be that he considered this to hav...

This passage is about two hungry men. One is returning to camp after an unsuccessful hunting trip. He is physically starving and feeling faint. The other has been waiting in camp cooking dinner. He is spiritually hungry, yearning for the birthright and blessing that would naturally go to his brother. The attitudes of these two men challenge us to examine our own attitude toward God. Are we like Esau who is too impatient to wait for...

Both these verses refer to children whom Abraham fathered, but his relationship to the two groups was very different. Verse six refers to the "sons of his concubine." These were six sons whom Abraham conceived in his old age with a woman named Keturah. When they reached a certain age he gave them enough to live on and sent them away. It appears he was their biological father, but invested little as their spiritual, emotional or edu...

It would be hard to imagine an offense more painful than that which Ishmael experienced at the age of 16. Suddenly, without warning, he was awakened early in the morning by his father, walked a distance outside of camp and abandoned to the wilderness with only a goatskin of water. One day he was the firstborn son of a tribal chief and, the next, he was the disinherited and penniless child of a single mom fighting to stay alive. Mir...