Emotions Cannot Determine Truth

Note from today’s Bible reading: Genesis 36-39

Jacob had many sons, yet he “loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a varicolored tunic” (Genesis 37:3). Not surprisingly, this blatant show of favoritism caused Joseph’s brothers to resent him (Genesis 37:4).

Eventually, the brothers planned to kill Joseph (Genesis 37:18). However, Reuben stepped in to prevent this from happening and convinced the rest to throw Joseph into a pit instead (Genesis 37:21-24). From here, Joseph was sold into slavery, and the brothers “slaughtered a male goat and dipped [Joseph’s] tunic in the blood” (Genesis 37:26-31).

The bloody tunic was brought back to their father, and, without a word from them, he reached what seemed to him to be an obvious conclusion: “It is my son’s tunic. A wild beast has devoured him; Joseph has surely been torn to pieces” (Genesis 37:33). This led Jacob to mourn for his son and he “refused to be comforted” (Genesis 37:34-35).

This raises an important point. Joseph was not dead, but Jacob believed he was dead. His emotional response was so strong that he could not even consider that he was believing a lie. This should serve as a warning for us not to allow our emotions to lead us to believe something that is false.

So remember that emotions cannot determine truth. Just because we “feel” something to be true does not mean it is true. We need to be willing to step back and question what we “feel” in order to honestly, rationally, and Scripturally discern what is really the truth.