Lessons From Coats

Joseph had two coats that were very significant in his life.

The first was a very distinctive coat that his father gave him. His brothers knew their father loved Joseph more than them and every time they looked at Joseph wearing that coat they were reminded of it. Finally they could take no more and sold Joseph to some slave traders and took his beloved coat and doctored it with blood and rents and presented it to their father Jacob. Jacob looked at it and concluded the worst… some wild animal had killed and devoured his beloved son.

The second coat was given to him when he served as a slave to the Egyptian Potiphar. Potiphar’s wife made aggressive sexual advances to Joseph and when he was trying to get away she grabbed his coat to hold him back and he slipped out of it and got out.

Later she told her husband… your Jewish slave raped me and I cried for help and he ran away… here is the coat he left. Of course Potiphar saw the evidence, believed the story and had Joseph thrown in jail.

Note this… both Jacob and Potiphar were presented evidence and a contrived story and they believed it. They trusted the story tellers and failed to examine their motives.

I personally have been told by believable people that others, whom I also have trusted, have said bad things about me (in confidence). What do you do with information like that?

As for me… I did nothing. In one case I refused to believe it because I knew the character of the accused individual. In the other case I accepted that it might be true but decided it wasn’t worth pursuing. I didn’t let it affect our relationship. I just pretended it never happened and kept being me.

Jacob lost a beloved son (for a period of time) but found him again.

Potiphar lost a servant (forever) who had made him rich and that servant went on to make the King of Egypt rich.

I guess the lesson of the Two Coats is that you can’t believe everything you see and you can’t believe everything you hear. The Two Coats also teaches that there are people out there who are evil schemers trying to separate loved ones.

Carefully consider what you see and what you are told and who is telling it so you don’t suffer the same kinds of loss.