Power.
What’s troubling about power?
What do we love about power?
1. As a woman, what is so appealing about power? When do you feel the desire for power the most?

For me it’s when I’m lacking control. It doesn’t matter if it’s when my three year old flat out says “no, mom” or if the energy bill comes and is entirely to expensive and I cannot go back a month and turn lights off around the house…I like power! I like control!

We will visit two women today that understood this desire for control, for power…and we will see how far this hunger for power takes them.

Read Genesis 39: 1-7
2. What’s happening with Joseph?

Joseph was put in charge of much; he was esteemed and trusted by Potiphar.

3. What do you suppose this Potiphar was like?

He was a very important man, a man of power. He had the responsibility of guarding Pharaoh, and imprisoning all who were against Him. He seemed, in my opinion, to be quite focused on possessions, wealth, and stature.
I guess it’s verse 6 that really hits me…”He had no concern about anything but the food he ate”. Although this illustrates how God helped Joseph, it also, to me, showed what kind of man “Potiphar’s wife” was married to. Shoot- she didn’t even have a name! She was…”Potiphar’s wife”…how, demeaning. Could she possibly have felt so powerless…that she went searching…in a vindictive, quite power-seeking way?

4. What do you think she was looking for?

Keeping your place here in Genesis, turn to and read 1 Kings 19:1-3

Jezebel was married to King Ahab, a powerful, greedy, and confused man. Not to mention a wuss. She had a reputation for murdering prophets. She was an angry woman.

5. What causes a woman to resort to anger? Could a man who cares only for himself, and so little for his wife, cause a woman who deeply desires love and respect, to act in anger?

Most likely…Jezebel was pissed off. Mad at her situation, mad at her daddy, mad at the curly hair she was born with…we don’t really know. The Bible doesn’t go into detail on that one. However, what we do know is she’s pissed and she’s bitter. And dangerously she is out to use that anger through the power she has acquired through a careless and powerful husband.

6. What does Elijah do in these three verses? What do you think this does to Jezebel’s ego? What do you think this confirms for her?

7. How does it make YOU feel when you lash out in anger? Do you feel a release? How long does that last? Yeah…that’s about how long it probably lasted for her too…which is why she was never at peace, but at war.

Read on in I Kings 2…this is where Jezebel in all her hatred shines…

8. Wow, Jezebel is quite a character, isn’t she? Have you ever met someone with this desire to bitterly destroy someone else for the purpose of pride? If you’re having trouble, think back to middle school…

In sixth grade I was friends with a girl named Amber. She was an average-looking, taller than usual, new to the neighborhood kid who had some issues at home. Even then, I befriended the least likely to have a friend…call it a calling, call it a weakness…I really don’t know…I just know it happens a lot.
Anyway, Amber was awful. She stole my library number and checked out 16 books in my name, and never returned them. She stole a ring my dad gave me, and made fun of my plain white fold over socks. She poured blue finger nail polish in my goldfish bowl and tragically murdered dear “Goldy” in the process. She was bad, and it was miserable being her friend. Amber moved away after a few months, as her new step dad was transferred.
I still think of Amber often…how she struck fear in me, and yet a sense of awe. I remember knowing even then, that her anger was not towards me, but towards her powerless situation.

I think adults still feel that powerlessness. I think women are subject to feeling that bitterness, that anger…and it turns petty and vindictive.

Go back to Genesis chapter 39. This time read verses 8-20.

9. Earlier you were asked what this wife was searching for…how determined is she, according to verse 10?

10. Have you ever been so troubled by the desire for something that you become fixated…and unaware of seeing the danger involved?
It could be as simple as the desire for your four year old to be the best in class, or the quest to be the best at apple pie baking…what’s eating away at you and enticing you to seek control and power, and therefore becoming troubled?

She schemed on removing him from her husband’s household.
11. Why do you think she did that?

When we become enthralled by the desire to be in power, we have the tendency to cover our messy tracks. She is doing just this.

Power=control=separation from He who IS in control=T-R-O-U-B-L-E

12. What does God say happens to Jezebel in 1 Kings 21: 23? This kind of death signified shame. It was meant to describe a death of one who could not afford a proper burial.

We don’t know what happens to Potiphar’s wife, but we do know she didn’t get what she originally wanted.

By these endings neither Jezebel nor the wife gain power. By these endings they are not awarded pride. One gets a disappointed stressed out husband, and is back at square one. The other gets a death and a big slice of humility. Their stories end sadly.

The means of these sad stories is trouble, caused by power-seeking women, who covered up what they REALLY needed with control. How will your story end?