“But one day, when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was there in the house, she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house.”
Genesis 39:11-12 ESV
Joseph is doing his work faithfully in his master’s house. He’s a slave, not a free man. And he’s a slave not because he lived a profligate life and blew through his money and ended up in debt as some did back then. Nor did he drink himself into a debt-fueled slavery either. He’s sober and faithful to his duties.
Oh, and lest we miss it, he’s not fiddling around on his free time, scrolling mindlessly on social media and wandering into porn either. He’s faithfully executing the duties he has at hand when he ends up in a very bad predicament. His master’s wife, who’s never named precisely, wants him. It’s very possible that she arranged it so that no one else was in the house so that she could put the moves on Joseph. It’s entirely possible that in her single-minded vanity and lust that she figured there was no way he’d resist her if they were alone.
For one, she was Potiphar’s wife and he was a high ranking official, not just Joseph’s owner. Surely she had to know that this put the handsome young slave in a precarious situation. A thing to learn from the outset is that power gives men and women a chance to pursue and indulge in their heart’s desire and such desire is almost always sin. Modern culture likes to paint whole classes of people as victims of someone else’s sin. The reality is that unless Christ is our Lord we will always and inevitably sin. And grievously. Unless we seek God first, everything else we be out of order.
A second point is that no sin is ever without victims.
An affair like the one Potiphar’s wife seeks has both Joseph and her husband cut by sin’s jagged edge. Later in Scripture we see the horrific fallout of David’s sexual sin.
The murder of a noble man.
The death of the child of adultery.
Strife and even warfare within the house.
And let’s not forget that one of David’s sons, Amnon, even raped his half-sister, Tamar.
Sin brings consequences because sin is always, first and last, against God. Sin is never a private act and sexual sin cuts so very deep because it’s an intense form of self-worship and rebellion against God’s created order. It impacts and often destroys whole families. In our day we’ve convinced ourselves that sex is a private matter but Joseph knew better and so should we. Family is the first structure unto which a person is born, not the state or church. Therefore, sexual infidelity is not a private matter but an attack on each of the other structures (church and state). Without sound and rooted families there can be no true peace in culture. That Christians of our time will debate abortion and yet miss the premise of sexual anarchy upon which abortion is based is telling.
But anyway, Joseph, as we see, resists the grasp of his master’s wife and flees. We note the incredible faithfulness to the Lord that Joseph shows. He’s hardly in a position of advantage or blessing, is he? One could easily make the argument that God has even abandoned Joseph and yet the young man’s heart refuses to turn from God. How many lesser trial than these grave ones have caused us to wallow in self-pity? Joseph, though, is a picture of faithfulness through trial. A slave? No matter. Betrayed by his own brothers? No matter. Never to see his homeland or father again? Again, no matter.
Joseph is able to resist so strong a temptation from so weak a position because the preparation for spiritual warfare is always the soil of one’s heart, soft and grateful to the Lord no matter the circumstances. What’s missing is bitterness. Had Joseph been bitter or impatient in his trials he may very well have acquiesced. Such is how it is that we sin. We grumble first. We complain. Sin, especially sexual sin, is the self-medication of the soul that hates God and will not find joy in Him.
Let us soberly assess a lesson here.
David was king of Israel when boredom and spiritual lethargy led him into temptation. Joseph was a slave in the house of a pagan, alone and stung by the most bitter arrows of betrayal a man can know, when Potiphar’s wife tempted him. The one had a kingdom; the other owned and controlled nothing.
Which man do we envy?
Would we look to Elon Musk or Bill Gates to see success and miss the humble servant of the Lord in our midst? You see, the Bible’s definition of a man is David in a cave, or on horseback turning from sin at the word of Abigail, a lone woman before an army. Do we see faithfulness as our highest goal, or worldly power? Do we see the lesson?
What man among us wouldn’t want Samson’s power and, indeed, his conquests too?
But it’s Joseph who fears, not man, not circumstances, but sin!
This is the lesson of lessons for the Christian pilgrim who wonders about the path of his/her life. Our highest goal is faithfulness to our Savior who died for us! This and this alone, a life of gratitude to God and a hatred of sin – true and thorough – is the good life. We have it all backwards and upside down! Joseph fled sexual sin precisely because, despite his low estate, he didn’t consider any other truth but that the Lord is good and will do good. The truth of truths is that we will always choose what we love most! For example, Esau loved a meal more than his birthright. Whatever causes us to sin is that thing which we truly love, not God. It’s love of God that drives out sin for only then do we see how horrible sin is.
Thus, we read this passage of history with humility and, indeed, with trembling. What would the “perfect storm of temptation” reveal in us? While we don’t know exactly, we do know the principle. We must pray that the Lord pours His love into our hearts so that we yearn for Him first and above all else! We must pray that He draws us closer and closer to Himself and His Word so that we yearn for truth, not the stuff of this world. Any abridgment or diminishment of faith in our lives is exceedingly dangerous. Joseph’s story shows why. Watch as his story unfolds and compare it to the spiritual train wrecks that were Samson and even King David after Bathsheba.
If we heed the Bible well we learn from it and not from bitter experience. After all, experience is a ruthless teacher. She gives the test first and the lesson later. Let us humbly come before God and learn from Him and the Word instead. Let us learn that the greatest thing we have is the Lord…is faith, and not any other thing in this world. David escaped from sin’s grasp on this day and was naked. There was more humiliation to come. More trial. Let us learn and learn and learn here so that we may walk faithfully in world of danger.
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