WEEK
2
JOSEPH IN JAIL
Genesis 40; 39 supporting
MEMORY VERSE | Proverbs 3:5
J
oseph was his father Jacob’s favorite son. But his older brothers
became so jealous they sold Joseph to traders who took him all the way to Egypt and sold
him as a slave. Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh’s guard, became Joseph’s master.
At first, Joseph was given only small responsibilities. “You. Go clean the outhouse,” Potiphar ordered.
But God was with Joseph and helped him do well. Soon, Potiphar was giving Joseph bigger and better things to do. “Here, take my brand-new chariot for a test drive,” he offered.
Soon, Joseph was in charge of everything Potiphar owned. “Ah, I don’t have a care in the
world, now!” Potiphar announced as he relaxed with a glass of eucalyptus juice.
All seemed to be going well for Joseph—until Potiphar’s wife started testing him. “Well,
well, Joseph,” she said. “You’re so important now. You can take anything you’d like!”
Joseph shook his head. “Potiphar has put me in charge. He trusts me! I can’t do anything
against him or sin against God.”
But Potiphar’s wife didn’t give up. Every day she bothered Joseph, trying to make him do
something wrong.
“No. No, I can’t,” Joseph told her.
At last Potiphar’s wife got angry and made up lies about Joseph. “He’s done something
awful!” she shrieked.
Potiphar was enraged. “I trusted you, Joseph,” he thundered. “You’ve let me down.”
1
“But I didn’t do it!” Joseph protested.
Potiphar didn’t listen. “Throw this man in jail!” he called out.
Even though Joseph had done nothing wrong, guards hauled him off to prison. The jailer
glared down at him. “New scum!” he scoffed. “You’re probably worthless like the rest of them.”
“I won’t cause trouble,” Joseph promised. “Here, why don’t I oil all the door hinges so they
don’t creak so badly?”
The jailer stared at him in surprise. “Someone get this man an oil can!” he called out.
Just as in Potiphar’s house, God was with Joseph and gave him success. Soon Joseph was
in charge of all the prisoners and everything that happened in the jail.
“I had a dream,” the drink
taster told him. “Me, too!”
announced the baker.
One day, the jailer dragged in two new prisoners. “Got a couple of live ones from the
palace. Need you to sort ’em out, Joe.”
Joseph took a good look at the two men. One was tall and thin and purple in the face.
The other was short and round and pale. “Hey there, I’m Joseph,” he introduced himself.
“Who are you?”
The drink taster looked up at Joseph with sad eyes. “I tasted Pharaoh’s drinks to make
sure no one put poison in them.”
The baker nervously tapped his fingers on the cell bars. “I was Pharaoh’s baker. I make a
really tasty honey and oat scone. You should try one!”
“We’ll work you in on kitchen duty,” Joseph promised.
Joseph made sure the new men were welcomed and checked on them each day. One morning,
he found the drink taster staring into his cup of water and the baker weeping into his gruel.
2
“You seem sad. What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I had a dream,” the drink taster told him.
“Me, too!” announced the baker.
“But we don’t know what our dreams mean,” the drink taster added. “And no one can tell us!”
“Only God knows what dreams mean,” Joseph explained. “So we can ask Him to tell us.
What did you see in your dream?”
The drink taster scrunched his eyes shut, trying to recall each detail. “I saw a vine with
three branches that budded and grew ripe grapes. Then I had Pharaoh’s cup in my hand
and I squeezed the grapes into it and gave it to Pharaoh.”
God had given Joseph the
meaning to the baker’s dream,
too. But it wasn’t happy.
Joseph smiled. God had given him the meaning of the dream, and it was good! “In three
days, Pharaoh is going to give you your job back,” Joseph told the drink taster. “Please,
when you’re free, speak to Pharaoh and get me out of prison. I haven’t done anything
wrong.”
“Of course!” agreed the drink taster.
“What about me?” asked the baker. “My dream’s good, too, right? Right?”
“I need to hear it first,” Joseph pointed out.
“Oh, yeah. Right,” said the baker. “I saw myself with three baskets of really great baked
stuff for Pharaoh on my head. But these pesky birdies kept eating my best scones! And
that’s all. So, I get my job back, too, right?”
God had given Joseph the meaning to the baker’s dream, too. But it wasn’t happy.
3
Joseph took a deep breath. “In three days, Pharaoh will have you taken out of prison,”
he explained. “But, well, there’s no good way to say this. He’s going to have you put to
death.”
The baker stared at Joseph in shock. But there was nothing Joseph could do. Three days
later, on his birthday, Pharaoh called for both the drink taster and the baker. He welcomed the drink taster back to his old job.
But just as God had told Joseph, the baker was put to death.
Though Joseph was deeply saddened, he hoped and prayed for the day when Pharaoh’s
drink taster would remember him.
“He promised to speak to Pharaoh for me and get me out of here,” Joseph told himself.
“Surely he’ll do it soon.”
But the drink taster forgot all about Joseph—for years! Joseph couldn’t help wondering
whether he might be stuck in prison for the rest of his life.
Even though he was stuck behind bars and couldn’t see how anything that had happened
made sense, Joseph still knew God was with him. He still trusted that somehow, all the
pieces would fit together in the end.
Let ’s !
Talk
=
The awesome thing about books and movies is that things usually work out great in the end!
Even though the main character faces some confusing times, it all makes sense by the time
you reach the last page or the credits roll. Each of you share about your favorite story:
What’s something that happens that’s confusing or hard for the main character? How does
it work out in the end?
Here’s the amazing thing—our lives are kind of like that, too. Except that God’s still telling
our story, so sometimes we’re living in the confusing, hard, middle part where we don’t see
how it’s going to work out yet. God doesn’t tell us exactly how it will all work out, but He
does promise that He will be with us the whole way. Each of you share one thing in your life
that feels hard or doesn’t make sense right now. Then pray for each other, that God will
remind you He is with you all the way through it.
Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL READER’S VERSION © 1995, 1996, 1998, 2014 by International Bible Society.
Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. ©2016 The reThink Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
4