Genesis 37:31
“So they took Joseph’s tunic, killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the tunic in the blood.”
What is the definition of a lie? It may not necessarily be just words, but it may be the intentional misleading of another person to come to a false conclusion. Most (if not all) of us have at one time or another stretched the truth to the point that it became a lie. In the case of Joseph’s brothers, they allowed their father to assume that his favored son had been killed by some wild animal.
They did not actually tell the lie, but they presented Joseph’s bloody tunic and acted as if they had simply found it. Then they let their father believe a completely false scenario of his own imagination. I can only imagine the guilt they must have felt each time they heard their father’s weeping over a son he believed had been so violently killed.
I think it would be worthwhile for each of us to stop and consider if we have been guilty of leading someone else to believe something that is not true. Remember those devious brothers of Joseph and examine our own actions to determine if we are guilty of a prelude to a lie.
We may justify ourselves in that we did not actually tell a lie, but did we lead others to believe something that was false?
May God richly bless others by your words and actions!
– – – Pastor Cecil