Judah's Devotion 

Then your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons. One left me, and I said, “Surely he has been torn to pieces,” and I have never seen him since. If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in evil to Sheol.’ “Now therefore, as soon as I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us, then, as his life is bound up in the boy's life, as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die, and your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to Sheol. For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life.’ Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father.” (Genesis 44: 27 to 34) 

After meeting with his brothers the second time, Joseph pulled another trick on his brothers. He asked his servant to hide his cup in Benjamin's sack and sent them away. Then the servant followed and overtook them accusing them of stealing and said to them that he who was found with the cup should be his servant, and the rest of them should be innocent. However, when the cup was found in Benjamin's sack, they were all desperate.  Instead of letting the servant take Benjamin alone, they all went back with the servant. Last time, they left Simeon alone by himself.  This time, they all were willing to share the consequence. Yet only Judah was speaking out for the family. 

Instead of defending from the individual point of view, Judah was able to value the family as a whole. Especially the bounding between his father and the boy, Benjamin. That's what Joseph was trying to find out after playing those tricks on his brothers. What Judah had done was not by accident but by learning from his daughter-in-law Tamar. 

As described in Genesis 38, Tamar was married to Er, Judah's firstborn, then Onan, Judah's second son. However, God put them to death because of their wickedness in the sight of God.  Then Judah promised Tamar to marry his youngest son Shelah after he was growing up but never did. So, Tamar took things in her own hands by tricking Judah to sleep with her to conceive.  Tamar taught Judah a lesson of devotion. Tamar was willing to sacrifice herself for the integrity of the family she and Er had. So, when Judah promised Jacob that he would bring Benjamin back he was devoting to the integrity of the family. 

In the Bible, apostle Paul describes the devotion of Christ to the integrity of the church as the love between husbands and wives below. 

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. (Ephesians 5: 22 to 30) 

God chose Judah to be the ancestor of Jesus Christ because of his devotion to the integrity of the Israel family. For the same reason, God chose us to be members of Christ's body so that we could devote ourselves to the integrity of his church. Apostle Paul describes his ministry to the church as below. 

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.  To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. (Colossians 1: 24 to 29) 

Indeed, Jesus Christ has already devoted everything to the integrity of the church. It's up to us to devote to the church's integrity so that the mystery hidden for ages and generations could now be revealed to his saints as Paul described. Emmanuel. 

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