Hi there!

Joseph the Leader or David the achiever.

Some days ago, a forum was raised in my office about these fellas and we are still on it. You will be surprised the to know why and how people identify with these charatcers. I want to take that same forum to my fellow Nairalanders. Trust that you wont hold anything back!!!!


So guys, what is it your verdict? Joseph or David Who do you choose and why?(if you know the characters that is :-))

Have fun!


Abi

Both are achievers and had their own mishaps. It shouldn't be a matter of which one should be chosen in preference to the other. Their circumstances were quite different and equally tough; they both suffered, experienced ridicule from their own family members, rose from humble backgrounds, became leaders of nations by God's grace, typified/prefigured Christ, and are both remembered today as men of faith in the hall of fame (Heb. 11:22 & 32).

Both are achievers in their unique ways and circumstances.

If you mean David and Joseph in the bible. They were both leaders and achievers. David is my favourite bible character (after Jesus, of course). It's easier to connect with him than with many other bible characters, including Joseph.

Joseph is my Man!

I can identify with him. His life taught me a lot of lessons about life:

Never tell you dreams and aspirations to anyone but God. Consult God in all your decision makings.

Hold on to your intergirty whatever comes you way and don't sit on your talents.

God was indeed good to him through his trials and he died a fulfilled man.

David!

Because he mirrors the christian life today, he was a man like us who struggled with temptations that we struggle with today. A man who longed to please God in every way with his life but also fell a few times. He taught me that it does not matter how may times you fall but that you stand up stronger after each fall. He taught me that God does not see as man sees for if He did, David would never have gotten close to being A MAN AFTER GOD'S OWN HEART!
He taught me the value and joy in praising God. For a man who was the least in his family, tendering sheep while his more illustrious brothers fought in the Isreali army, a man who spent his youth fleeing from danger while his peers where loafing around the palace and yet God could still take him and make him the greatest Jewish king of all time!
David was a man of many faults, he was in no way perfect like many of us today, but he loved God with all his heart and sought to please him in all that he did.

God, make me more like David not only in name but in words, deeds and character. Help me to understand that you don't see as man sees, that you look into the heart to what our motives really are. Help me to know that my place today does not determine the future you have for me. Help me see that your thoughts and ways are very different from mine, that i can only see this minute but you alone know tomorrow. Help me be the best that you want me to be and to like David, thank you in all circumstances. Help me to love my enemies and pray for them like David did and to know that they are loved in thy sight too.
I can do all things thru Christ that strengtheneth me, teach me to wait for the signs on the mulberry tree.
Thank you for the life of King David and the many lessons that it teaches us today. Like David, i also fall into the temptation of women and pride. Help me to stand up after each fall, let your spirit guide me that i may be able to withstand the temptations of the evil one.
Thank you Jesus that in all my faults you still look within and you still love me. Thanks for your hands that hold me when i fall, thank you for your shoulders that carry me when i'm too weak to walk.

Thank you most of all for the name, David. Thanks for making me know that i can live the victorious life of one of your most loved men!

Davidylan,

You must have been through some grooves! Seems God has been good to you, ?

Abi

I hate David. If you study his life without rose-colored glasses, you will be disgusted. He was no better than a modern day militia leader, a murderous man with no respect for human life, yet he is considered as a hero.

Seun

David Ke? Which of the versions of the bible did you get your views from? Nairaland JV?

Ok what about Joseph?

Abi

l respect both characters because they understood God in their only different way and situation.
l will go for Joseph, because he was a man with great dreams who knew his place and destination and was never ready to trade with his future.He would hv sleep with potiphar"s wife and beg God for forgiveness but he never did that.That is what u call "the fear of God" not because u fear the consequence of the sin but because he respect and love God. that was why Favour followed him all around. The bible say when a man ways pleases God , his enemy will be at peace with him and that was why whenever he went whether in the pit, prison, potiphar's house or the palace he was highly favoured.
another thing l learnt was that to every life there are lives that are attached to it. if that person falls, it will take God grace for the others behind not to fall. If he hadn't accomplished his dream and purpose, his family and the whole Isreal will have dead of hunger during the famine. another example is Adam because he sinned all his seeds also sinned.
l love the kind of heart Joseph had, even with all they did to him, he still forgave them and accomodated them and the ultimate was how he use his God given talent to become the first not egyptian prime minister. He just a wonderful person.

Seun:

I hate David. If you study his life without rose-colored glasses, you will be disgusted. He was no better than a modern day militia leader, a murderous man with no respect for human life, yet he is considered as a hero.

At least David knew God existed and whenever he was wrong he was quick to retrace his steps, That was why God loved him.

Seun:

I hate David. If you study his life without rose-colored glasses, you will be disgusted. He was no better than a modern day militia leader, a murderous man with no respect for human life, yet he is considered as a hero.

This is why I love David so much. I can't really connect with Joseph because he was pictured as a near-sinless person. David committed some of the worst sins ever, I can connect much better with that. The best part of it all was he became a man after God's heart. That gives me hope. By God's standards, no one is perfect not even the biggest pastor or pope. He equates rebellion with witchcraft and groups lying and gossiping with murder. We all are guilty and it is the same atonement He offers to all of us, regardless of whatever our sins may be. One of the hardest things for us christians to grasp is that God would accept us with all our impurities. David helps us understand that better. I want to be like David.

Seun:

I hate David. If you study his life without rose-colored glasses, you will be disgusted. He was no better than a modern day militia leader, a murderous man with no respect for human life, yet he is considered as a hero.

Militia leader maybe. . .no respect for human life - arguably so.

Did you read about the time he refused to drink the water that his men got for him, simply because it was done at the risk of their lives? Or when he refused to let Abishai remove Shimei's head from his body because he was cursing the king during their flight from Absalom? And did you also read the several times he rebuked his nephews, the sons of Zeruiah - Joab and his brothers - for their violence and readiness to shed blood at the drop of a hat with the words 'you sons of Zeruiah are too hard for me'? How about the times he refused to kill Saul when he could easily have done so? Etc, etc.

Maybe he had some respect for human life, afterall.

I should have said "little respect for human life". Remember the (200?) Philistines he killed just so he could get their foreskins and get his wife. Would you like to be killed so someone can get married to his preferred lover?

So we agree that he had some respect for human life, however little that is.

Seun:

I should have said "little respect for human life". Remember the (200?) Philistines he killed just so he could get their foreskins and get his wife. Would you like to be killed so someone can get married to his preferred lover?

According to today's standards, yes. . . it does appear shocking.

But according to the standards of the time. . . ?

Well Joseph didn't kill any Egyptians, and his time was before David's time.

Do you excuse the (currently dead) white people that enslaved our ancestors because by their standards it was ok?

Joseph was not a soldier. Do you consider yourself more morally upright than soldiers who have killed, or still kill, people at the war front?

I do not make excuses for David. The bible doesn't either. I only suggested that looking at it in the light of the prevalent standards at the time might influence your evaluation of his actions.

Hmm, David, because he is the progenitor of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

But regarding character, I have to give that to Joseph. He was able to rise above his brother's betrayals and forgive them later on. He never lost faith in God even after being thrown in jail, for refusing to sleep with his master's wife. (who sai, nowadays, some youths would find that as a bragging right). Another test that he endured with flying colours was when he spent some years in jail, after his jailmate had been released, partly due to him and then forgot to tell the leader about him.

You really have to give him kudos to him. He had a big heart, willing to forgive even his own enemies. When his brother's came to Egypt to buy food during the famine, he would have taken revenge and killed them. But the test he administed to them showed to him that his brothers had come to terms with their earlier sins of selling him into slavery and were remorseful about it. Just read the story about the discovery of Joseph's possession in Benjamin's sack and his brothers were aghast and pleaded with him that their father would be devastated by Benjamin's fate. He could not control his emotions and cried. It is a very touching story.

David had his own merits too, by refusing to kill Saul, even at the slightest opportunity when his enemy fell into his hands. But his adulterous relationship and his ignoble act of having Uriah killed in the battlefield was an inglorious chapter of his life. Nevertheless, they were great leaders and in as much as we could admire their redeeming qualities, lets look unto Jesus Christ as our Role Model. He Atoned for our sins on the Cross so that God will forgive us and admit us into Heaven.

Praise Him in the Highest!!!, Amen

There are many customs and traditions ppl held centuries ago that we agree are bad. In the future, ppl may ban eating of domestic animals and think of us in the same light. Just like slavery in bible days, it was accepted everywhere as a normal. Usually the slaves were debtors who couldnt pay. However, God warned them to treat the slaves well. He gave instructions for their release. Those ppl weren't as civilized as we are and we can't judge them by our standards.

The white slavetraders who enslaved our ancestors were downright wicked even by standards of the Egyptians in Moses' time. This was made worse by the fact that the world was becoming civilized and people were already learning that some things are just not right. These ppl obviously had no regards for the lives of Africans.

This is not to absolve David of any wrongdoing. David was a sinner like all of us. Salvation in christianity is something many ppl cannot understand. It's hard to imagine how someone can do so many bad things and just say to God that He is sorry and God would declare him forgiven. God even went as far as calling David a man after his own heart - a Holy and Righteous God calling murderer and adulterer a man after his own heart. Obviously, God must have totally wiped David's slate clean.

they both teach us the good and the bad.