Villains in the Bible: The Pharaoh | September 27, 2026

This second week of the “Villains in the Bible” series (using resources from Church Anew) looks at Pharaoh’s story in the book of Exodus. As absolute ruler over Egypt, Pharaoh has everything he could want. But his fear of losing his power leads him to do terrible evil to the Hebrew people. Pharaoh’s story is a warning to us, challenging us to ask what decisions we make out of fear, where our decisions intentionally or unintentionally harm the people around us.

Today’s Scripture readings are Exodus 1:8-14, Exodus 5, and Mark 10:35-45. I again quote twice in this sermon from Pastor Derek Tronsgard’s sermon prompts commentary included in the Church Anew resources. 

Here’s the sermon podcast audio and the livestream from Living Hope.

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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Christ our Redeemer. Amen

Some of you know that in college, I did a double major in computer science and religion. I also have a music minor, which if you’ve heard me sing might be a surprise. But for most of college, I wasn’t sure which path I’d follow.

I worked at Crossways Camps for two summers, then summer after junior year I actually interned as a Java software developer, which paid much better than camp, but was nowhere near as fun. I have a distinct memory of sitting in my cubicle pulling up the ELCA’s how to become a pastor website. I love being a pastor…and I’ve also joked many times that following the computer science path would have paid better.

I still follow tech news pretty closely, and as I see what’s happening in that world with AI, I’m more and more glad to not be trying to work as a programmer. There’s a lot of fear right now about in lots of fields about AI taking over, but it’s actually happening in exactly the area my degree is in. Entry level programming jobs are disappearing.

ChatGPT can write sermons too, but they’re still missing the human element that I think is important, and data centers don’t do hospital visits, so I’ve got a little while here. But there’s a lot of people afraid of being replaced, afraid of being made irrelevant.

Last week when we looked at our first villain, we talked about pushing back against the serpent’s message that something is missing, that you’re incomplete. The serpent’s tactic is to say you are lacking, but being made in God’s image is enough.

This morning, we’re looking at our second villain, a man who has everything, has complete power, and yet is afraid of losing it. The Egyptian Pharoah rules as an absolute monarch. He’s wealthy, he has a powerful army, his word is the law; but he’s afraid of this growing group of people in his kingdom who worship differently.

Our reading today starts in the first chapter of Exodus, but we actually need to go back to Genesis to figure out where we are. Last week, we heard about the first humans leaving the garden of Eden and God going with them out into the world. From there, the book of Genesis follows a particular family, focusing on Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants, the followers of the Lord God.

In Genesis 37, we meet Jacob’s youngest son, Joseph, the guy with the “technicolor dreamcoat.” Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery in Egypt, but God is with him, and Joseph eventually becomes basically the prime minister under the Pharaoh.

There’s a famine in the whole region, but it’s ok because God warned Joseph about it in a dream, and he arranged for food to be stored up. Joseph’s brothers and his father Jacob eventually come to Egypt looking for food, they find Joseph, and the whole clan winds up living in Egypt. Eventually, everyone in the story gets old and dies.

The Hebrew people—the descendants of Jacob who are there because of Joseph—the Hebrew people flourish in Egypt. They’re still a distinct group of people, they have their own way of worshiping, their own history and culture, but they’re there in Egypt and they multiply.

Exodus 1:8 – “Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.” This new Pharaoh doesn’t know this history; he doesn’t care about this history. What he knows is that there are a lot of these Israelite people, these Hebrews, and they’re not like us. They’re not “real Egyptians.” What’s going to happen to us if they keep growing?

Derek Tronsgard writes, “The Israelites had been welcomed into Egypt by Joseph’s legacy. The new Pharaoh wipes that history away. He looks at the Israelites with fresh eyes and what he sees is not neighbors but threat. The erasure of shared history is often the first step toward dehumanization. When we stop knowing the story of the people around us, it becomes easier to fear them.”

I think about the ways Somalians in Minnesota have been demonized over the last couple of years. Do you know why so many Somalians are there in Minnesota in the first place? Part of it is because there are a lot of Lutherans in Minnesota, and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service—now Global Refuge—did incredible work with local churches to resettle refugees from Somalia. There’s a shared history there.

Or I think about the way Haitians in the United States are being treated as a political football right now—there’s a whole long history of why Haiti is such a dangerous place to live that people are here as refugees. It has to do with a slave revolt and 150 years of debt repayment to France along with our own nation refusing to recognize or trade with the new nation, and then the United States invading and occupying Haiti from 1915-1934.

When we forget that history, it’s easier to ignore our neighbors and treat them as others who don’t belong here, to bring them up as a way to score political points, rather than treating them as people, as neighbors.

Verse 9: “‘Look,’ [Pharaoh] said to his people, ‘the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.’ So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor.”

But it doesn’t work. They just keep multiplying. So the Egyptians “make their lives bitter with hard servitude.” They tell them to make bricks, but don’t give them the straw they need, then they beat them when they don’t make their quotas.

We didn’t read this section, but Pharaoh even commands that when Hebrew baby boys are born, they have to be killed; only the girls can live. That’s where we get that story of Moses being hidden in a basket in the river.

Pharaoh is clearly a villain in this story. He does terrible things, enslaving people, even murdering children. But he’s not just trying to be evil; he’s acting out of fear.

The Hebrew people are enslaved not because there was so much work to be done and the Egyptians needed more labor; they’re enslaved because the Egyptians are afraid of them. Pharaoh is afraid of these people who seem so different gaining power, and him losing his power.

We see similar patterns today, right? Tronsgard compares it to, “The leader who feels threatened by a subordinate and starts to undermine them. The boss who is insecure and micromanages or acts aggressively against their team. The nation that perceives a minority population as a threat to their stability and security. The logic is always the same: I’m afraid of what I might lose and so I will take from you to feel safe.”

Are you ever tempted to fall into that trap of hardening your heart against others’ success?

The good news in this story (and there’s not a lot of good news in the part we read; we have to continue in the story) is that God is on the side of the oppressed. God hears the cries The Israelites cry out to God for help, and God hears them. God sends a rescuer. God calls Moses and then Aaron to go to Pharaoh and demand he let God’s people go. When Pharaoh refuses, God intervenes, over and over until finally God’s people leave Egypt.

And as we heard in the Gospel reading, Jesus gives us the example to follow. “Among the gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; instead, whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant.”

Pharaoh oppressed others so they would not become too powerful; but Jesus gives his power away out of love. And he calls us to do the same, to love as we have been loved. Rather than letting fear harden our hearts, we love our neighbors, we put others first, we give so others will have enough.

Let us pray:
Lord God, thank you for the example of love you give us in Jesus, who gave his life away for us, who came to be a servant. Give us the strength and will to follow his way of love, not seeking power, not acting out of fear, but trusting in you and daring to serve others in your name. Lord, make us your servants, fill us with your Holy Spirit, and lead us into your freedom. Through Jesus Christ we pray. Amen

Villains in the Bible Series

Week 1: The Serpent
Week 2: The Pharaoh