Passage: Genesis 39:6-23

The Big Idea

Potiphar’s wife pursued Joseph day after day, and finally grabbed him. Joseph refused, called it what it was, “great wickedness and sin against God,” and ran, leaving his coat and his position behind. It landed him in prison on a false charge. Yet “the LORD was with Joseph.” Temptation is Satan’s poisonous bait, designed to get us to swallow sin on our own. Joseph overcame because he knew God personally. And when doing right costs us, God’s presence, mercy and favor follow us even into the prison.

Bait

Proverbs warns that a prostitute can reduce a man to a loaf of bread, but an adulteress hunts down a man’s very life (Proverbs 6:26).

Speaking of bait: why didn’t Noah do much fishing on the ark? He only had two worms! And did you hear about the fight at the seafood restaurant? Two fish got battered.

Faithful and Handsome (Genesis 39:6)

Potiphar left everything in Joseph’s hands. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.

Joseph’s faithfulness to God had ministered to Potiphar. Potiphar trusted him completely because he could see Joseph answered to a higher authority.
The Bible is honest about appearances: David, Absalom and Rachel are all described as good-looking. Beauty isn’t wrong, and wanting to look nice isn’t sinful. (If the barn needs painting, paint it!)
But it’s not the most important thing. Peter says our beauty shouldn’t be merely outward, but the hidden person of the heart, with the lasting beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, precious to God (1 Peter 3:3-4).

Joseph was the guy who woke up with perfect hair and muscles, and deep, spiritual purity.

The Hunter (Genesis 39:7-10)

After a while, Potiphar’s wife looked at Joseph with desire and said, “Lie with me.”

She didn’t care about Joseph. She lusted after him, the way a lion craves its prey.
In this she’s a picture of Satan. He hungers to destroy our purity. Peter says to be sober-minded and alert, because the devil prowls like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).
Satan knows the best way to consume us is to get us to take sin into our souls. Like the virus uploaded to the alien mothership in Independence Day, he wants to plant something that brings death to our inner life.
He can’t simply kill us. He has to persuade us to swallow the poison ourselves.

But Joseph refused. He told her, “My master doesn’t worry about anything in the house; he’s put everything in my care. No one in this house is greater than I am, and he’s kept nothing from me except you, because you’re his wife. How could I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”

Joseph knew he had a choice, and he chose what honored God.
How did he win? He had a real relationship with God. He’d been in the pit. He’d cared about his Father’s business. He’d walked with God through pain, so now he could resist temptation. His integrity grew by clinging to God.
There are no shortcuts. (Can you think of a great love story without a struggle?)

Do you struggle to simply say no to temptation? Don’t get discouraged. That strength grows over time, like a muscle. When you fail, come back to Jesus, and He’ll build you up. We have to learn to trust the Lord and not lean on the arm of flesh.

Joseph’s flesh may have whispered, “It’s about time something fun happened to you.”
But Joseph saw it for what it was: great wickedness and sin against God. He knew God’s heart by experience, and that’s the secret to overcoming temptation: a living, dependent relationship with God as your Father.

She kept at it day after day, but he wouldn’t listen to her or even be around her.

Satan doesn’t give up. There was part of Joseph that longed for the blessing of a wife, and the enemy kept dangling a sinful substitute.
Joseph stayed faithful, just like Jesus. Jesus was tempted too, and resisted by trusting His Father and the Word of God (Matthew 4:1-11). Satan wanted to sidetrack Him, but Jesus knew His mission and wouldn’t give in.

Joseph showed wisdom: he didn’t listen to her, and he wouldn’t even spend time alone with her. Husbands, take note. You may never intend to have an affair, but unnecessary time alone with someone you’re not married to, especially emotionally close time, is foolish. Not because we’re scared, but because we’re wise. Build guardrails before you need them.

Running (Genesis 39:11-12)

One day Joseph went into the house to do his work, and none of the household men were inside. She grabbed his garment: “Lie with me!” But he left his garment in her hand and ran outside.

She forced the issue. Now Joseph faced an even harder choice: sin, or lose his coat again.
Remember the last coat? His brothers ripped off the robe that marked his authority. Now he had a new position, and it was in his hands whether he’d lose it. This time he could keep it, if he was willing to sin.
Joseph loved administration; it was his gift and his ministry. So he had to choose between a ministry God had given him and honoring God Himself.

Do you love ministry more than you love God? Would you run from it if it meant sin?

Jesus did. He often left a town just as He got popular. He told people not to talk about Him. When crowds wanted to force Him to be king against God’s plan, He slipped away (John 6:15).

Joseph was willing to run, lose the coat, and face death rather than sin.

The False Accusation (Genesis 39:13-20)

She called her servants and told them, “Look, this Hebrew came in to mock us! He tried to lie with me, but I screamed, and he ran and left his garment.” She kept the garment until her husband came home and told him the same story. When Potiphar heard it, his anger burned.

She invented a lie that could get Joseph killed. She obviously didn’t care about him.
Notice it doesn’t say who Potiphar was angry at.

Potiphar put Joseph in the prison where the king’s prisoners were kept.

Many think this shows Potiphar wasn’t fully convinced. A slave accused of assaulting his master’s wife could expect death, yet Joseph was only imprisoned. Perhaps Potiphar suspected the truth but felt he had to act.
Blameless, falsely accused, condemned anyway. Remind you of Anyone?

The LORD Was with Joseph (Genesis 39:21-23)

But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love. He gave him favor with the prison warden, who put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners. The warden didn’t bother checking anything under Joseph’s care, because the LORD was with him and made whatever he did succeed.

So Joseph was thrown into prison for doing the right thing. “Wow, God must be unreliable if that’s what happens to His servants!” How many people have thought that? How many times have I?

We have to stop thinking like merely human, fleshly people. Something bad happening doesn’t mean God is against you.

It might be the very sign that God is with you and trusts you with a special assignment.
Elite special forces don’t complain when they’re picked for the hardest missions. It’s their calling and purpose.
We’re chosen, commissioned servants of God. What mission has He given you? Your marriage, your job, your family, your community.

And we’re not responsible to complete these missions in our own strength. Good thing, because we have no spiritual resources of our own. We only have grace: God’s promise to supply everything we need for life and good works through His Son.

Look how the passage shows it. Remember: humility + faith = grace.

“The LORD was with Joseph.” That’s presence and relationship, the source of faith. When my kids were little and saw me in the pool, they jumped right in, though they couldn’t swim a lick. My presence made them brave. That’s childlike faith.
“He showed him mercy.” Mercy is not getting what we deserve. Joseph was a sinner like us. Focusing on God’s mercy grows humility. Pride says, “God has to help me,” or “I deserve better,” or “I can get out of this myself.”
“He gave him favor.” Give is the language of grace. Always given, never earned. Wages are earned; that’s the language of law. Grace is God’s gift, supplying everything we need, and it’s always available (2 Corinthians 12:9).

“Whatever he did, the LORD made it prosper.”

That’s the coolest thing about grace. It reaches everything you do.
God is real and active today. He cares about your life, your situations, and He wants to make it fruitful.
Picture God’s blessing as a waterfall flowing constantly from His heart. When we choose humility and faith, we step under it.
Here’s the secret: when you stop chasing the blessings and simply come to your Father in humility and faith, that’s when you’re blessed.

Grace Takeaway

Temptation is bait, and Satan wants you to swallow it. But you belong to a Father who is with you. Know Him, flee what dishonors Him, and trust Him even when doing right costs you everything. The prison couldn’t keep God’s favor away from Joseph, and nothing can keep His grace away from you.

For Discussion

How would you define purity? What is temptation?
How do you usually deal with temptation?
How did Joseph handle Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39:8-10)?
What’s the only way to build up resistance to temptation?
What’s the right thing to do when we fall?
Dig deeper: “Lead us not into temptation.”
– What does this prayer mean? Does God ever tempt us? Read James 1:13.
– Read Psalm 5:8 and 27:11. Where does God lead His people? How is someone “led” by God?
– If temptation shows up, how can God lead you out of it?
– Read 1 Corinthians 10:13. How do we find the “way of escape,” and how do we endure? What’s God’s role?
– Read 1 Thessalonians 3:5 and 1 Peter 5:8. How important is resisting temptation?
– Why do you think God allows His children to be tempted?

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Satan’s Poisonous Bait