JOSEPH WANTED REWARDS FOR HIS MINISTRY SERVICES
Conventional thinking about Joseph is that he was only a victim and that he could do no wrong. Actually, Joseph was greedy for fame and recognition as we see in the following story:

Genesis 40 shows how Joseph did tried to use God’s gift of the ability to interpret dreams for his (Joseph’s) benefit. Even after saying, “Do not interpretations belong to God?” (verse 8), and after using that ability to interpret the chief butler’s dream, he asked the chief butler to “… remember me, when it is well with you, and do me the kindness, I pray you, to make mention of me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house (verse 14) .” His request, however, was ignored by God and the chief butler who, “… did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.”

COMMENTARY: Joseph is generally considered to be a Messiah figure, but he was also a man who had his shortcomings. His first mistakes were when he proudly reported his dreams to his family, thus causing division. The verses on which we are focusing here report his failure to trust God for his release from prison. Rather, he tried to benefit from the dream interpretation gift by asking the chief butler to put a good word in for him with Pharaoh. It did not work, of course, and he was forced to spend more time in prison.

The lesson here is that God’s gifts should not be exploited for personal benefit. People who try to do that may effectively cause more trouble for themselves. Joseph was slow to learn this lesson, but he eventually did and God used him in a mighty way to provide for Israel.