This study brings us to the end of the second major division in the book of Exodus - the Wilderness Cycle of stories whose theme is faith. There are four such divisions whose themes are:
I Chs. 1 - 13
Deliverance or Salvation
Egypt
II Chs. 14 - 18
Faith
The Wilderness
III Chs. 19 - 24
Covenant Obedience
Sinai
(Trust & Obey)
IV Chs. 25 - 40
Worship
The Tabernacle
The section on faith ends with this chapter. It features two episodes, in both of which Jethro figures (otherwise known as Reuel, Moses' father-in-law). In the first, Jethro brings Moses' family to him, hears him recount all that God has done, and responds with faith and worship. In the second, Jethro contributes significantly to the ordering of the life of God's people.
Three essential characteristics of the People of God, viewed as a Community of Faith, emerge in the chapter: The Mark of Mission, The Mark of Mutuality and The Mark of Meekness.
We have seen that the faith which, all along, God had been seeking to kindle in His people's hearts was at last brought to birth in them at Rephidim in the experience of their victory over Amalek. (See Note 1 below) Now the first fruit of their newly awakened faith is that it is awakened in another. So there is established at the very beginning of their history God's missionary purpose for His People. The first mark God puts on them is the mark of mission. Jethro, converted to the faith of Israel, is the first sheaf in what God intended should be a huge harvest.
Many Biblical scholars tell me that Jethro, the priest of Midian, far from being a convert to the faith of Israel, must all along have been a worshipper of Yahweh, or he would never have been allowed to offer sacrifice in the presence of Aaron. With all due respect, I find myself obliged to answer, "No way!"
i. Aaron had not been appointed to the priesthood yet, for one thing.
ii. And as for Jethro having been a life-long worshipper of Yahweh, I cannot see it. Consider: Moses had met Jethro first when he had fled from Egypt forty years earlier. Jethro had shown him kindness for protecting his daughters from a loutish bunch of desert tribesmen, and Moses had subsequently married one of the daughters. Jethro was introduced then as a Midianite, a Bedouin, a foreigner belonging to a desert tribe. Jethro was a priest among them; but what God he served among the Midianites, the Bible does not tell us. For sure it was not Yahweh; it would be another forty years before God would reveal Himself to Moses by that name, by the burning bush. If Jethro had worshipped God by the name Yahweh, how could that name have come to Moses forty years later as something new?
iii. And if Jethro had worshipped Yahweh, then why, when Yahweh ordered Moses back to Egypt, did Moses not tell his father-in-law excitedly, "The God you worship has sent me?" Instead he had to find some other argument to persuade Jethro at that time to release him.
No, Jethro was a foreigner, devoted to the worship of a strange god. He comes to Moses in the desert, hears all that Yahweh has done in Egypt, and in the desert journey of His people since, and is thoroughly converted from his old faith to faith in Moses' God. More than that, he proceeds at once to offer worship in the manner and in the spirit that befits the best worship of Israel herself: the worship of burnt offering and sacrifice. The point at which the scholars baulk - that a foreigner should offer sacrifice in the presence of Aaron - is precisely the point the story is told to make: that the convert is accepted right in, into the very bosom of the Family of God. God makes no distinction between them and him. The best, the most fitting comment that can be made here is the comment Peter made in the house of the first Gentile convert to the Christian faith, "Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality; but in every nation any one who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him." (Acts 10:35) That had been true a long time before Peter tumbled to it.
Here, right at the beginning of Israel's story as a nation, God brought it home to her that He was taking all this trouble with her, not for her own sake alone, but for the sake of others through her. "I will bless you," God had promised Abraham (top line of the promise), "and make you a blessing" (bottom line of the promise). Here at Rephidim, a foretaste is given of the blessing Israel will be to the world if she will let God have His way with her.
God chose this bunch - set His love upon them - called them to walk with Him by faith and declare the wonderful deeds of Him Who called her. And to what end? To bless the nations with their knowledge of God, and a like faith with her own. She was elect ... for the sake of the non-elect!
And we, gathered into His church, are His elect also, called according to God's purpose, blessed by God with His salvation in our life together, for the sake of others - for the blessing of strangers - for the conversion to a like faith with ours of those who do not yet know the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The way to do it is spelled out in this story. Almost every phrase is burdened with meaning.
i. "Moses went out to
meet his father-in-law" ... went out to meet him. v. 7
Folk will not come to Christ till we, His people, go at least halfway
to meet them. People will not be converted to Christ and join the
church if we just sit and wait for them magically to appear (though
astonishingly, some do).
ii. Moses started
with a man with whom he already had a relationship.
So should we. A weakness in many schemes of organised evangelism is
that they require us to try and take the Gospel to total strangers.
It is no bad thing to try and do; but is it not more sensible to
start with those who are not strangers: our school children's
parents, our business associates, our sports or hobby club members
...?
iii. Moses greeted
Jethro with the greatest courtesy ... "they asked each other of their
welfare."
No scalp-hunting spirit; rather, a real care for each other as
between friends ... the only basis for evangelism.
iv. And they went
into the tent ... Moses' tent.
He used his own home to witness to his father-in-law. The best tool
of evangelism many of us have is our own home. Do we use
it?
"There Moses told his father-in-law all that Yahweh had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake, all the hardship that had come upon them in the way, and how Yahweh had delivered them." (v. 8) It was in that atmosphere of good fellowship and genial hospitality that Moses shared with his guest all that God had done ... to Pharaoh and the Egyptians ... and all the hardship that had come upon them in the way. It was an honest testimony, not dressed up. Moses, we may be sure, did not conceal from Jethro their own repeated failures of faith in the face of God's repeated kindnesses. Nor need we hide ours; it is not to the high quality of our own faith that we are called to testify, but to the high quality of God's faithfulness.
So Moses told how God had delivered them - time after time, and as recently as in the conflict with Amalek. His testimony was updated, and ever accumulating - as ours should be. And the result of all this friendly, honest, eager sharing is stated in the simplest terms, "And Jethro said, 'Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods.'"
"Listen while I tell you what God has done!" That is all Moses had to say. Not "Listen to what we have done." We are to be witnesses, not paragons of virtue. These rookie pilgrims in the desert were nothing to write home about; their faults and failures were all too glaringly obvious. But that did not lessen the glory they were able to give to God. Nor need our failures. What mattered was that through all their trials and failures, they were learning to trust God, to build their lives on His promises, and the dependability of His love for them. And immature though they were in faith, nonetheless, God drew Jethro, the Midianite, into their company and blessed him with life and health and peace ... and, what is more, made him at once a blessing to them all, as we shall see.
That is why God has gathered us to Himself as a people, so that He may draw strangers into our midst to hear us tell of all the wonderful things He has done.
• God so loved
the world, in those far-off days, that He gave to it Israel, His
adopted child, that whoever lived by her faith might not perish, but
find life.
• Later, God so loved the world, still, that He gave to it His
only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but
have the life that is eternal.
• And in these last days, He has gathered to His Son a band of
brothers, born again into His family, and He so loves the world of
our day that He would give us to the world, if we will let Him, that
whoever believes in Jesus through our testimony should not perish,
but have eternal life.
In the second episode which begins at v. 13, God at once makes this new convert a source of blessing to the congregation he has entered.
Coming in from right outside, he sees things with a fresh pair of eyes, and he is able to introduce a principle which has always been a basic requirement of life for the people of God: the principle of sharing, the law of fellowship. "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." (Galatians 6:2) Here is seen in the Old Testament the first seed that will blossom centuries later as the doctrine of the Church as the Body of Christ.
One of the marks by which the people of God are to be distinguished is that our life together functions as a well-knit, harmonious whole - like a human body, all of whose various members work together under the direction of the head. The tragedy of so many Christian 'Bodies' (churches) is that they are afflicted with areas of paralysis. The few willing and eager workers (and God be thanked for them) lack the committed help of the rest. Someone has described the Church as a team of players desperately in need of a rest watched by thousands in the stands desperately in need of exercise! Is it right to enjoy the advantages of fellowship, but bear little or no responsibility in it? If the church merits our support at all, it merits our committed support. Every church needs eager, willing members so committed that they sink or swim with it. No church can live on its reputation, but only on people answering to the call of God.
We need each other, to pull together and get things done.
Notice the qualifications for Moses' helpers, for they are the standards to which we must all be committed, whatever our part in the church's life may be. (v. 21)
(1) They must
be able.
Let no
one, in any sort of Christian service, despise the need for training
in it. To rely on our skills alone is wrong, to be sure; we are to
rely on God. But our reliance on Him will show itself in the
dedication of those skills, and that means continually improving
them. God is not served by wilful incompetence. Whatever our gift is,
let us develop it.
(2) They must
be such as fear God.
Not the
fear of men, but the fear of God is to be one of our chief
motivations. We are going to have to answer to God how we played our
part in the life of His people ... every last one of us.
(3) They must
be trustworthy.
We are to
be dependable - not sloppy in anything we do. Whatever we do in the
service of the church, let us always be there, be there on time, and
be ready.
(4) They must
be incorruptible.
The day
we serve Christ in His church to satisfy some selfish need of our
own, we have become a stumbling block. It is not recognition we are
to work for, nor even personal fulfilment; we are to work for
Christ.
When the church is full of folk like this, then the blessing of verse 23 will be upon us: "Then you will be able to endure and all this people also will go to their place in peace."
There is a lovely balance in God's dealings with His people. First He makes His people a blessing to the newcomer; then He makes the newcomer a blessing to them ... but only to the degree they are willing to listen to him, only as they are humble enough and meek enough to receive what God gives him to contribute.
There is given to us here a notable insight into the character of the man Moses. He is elsewhere described as "the meekest man in all the earth." (Numbers 12:23) This story goes a long way to substantiate that judgement. For think: Moses had lived with Jethro for forty years, and in all that time, Moses' life had gone nowhere. Then God took him away from the dull routine of Jethro's household and launched him on the great adventure that started in Egypt. From that time on, Moses had lived dangerously, defied Kings and wrought wonders. Clear of Egypt - with none but God to guide him - Moses had led his people through crisis after crisis, and they had survived every one of them. All this with no help from any man, but only from God. Now along comes his father-in-law with advice that implies a criticism of Moses' leadership! Moses might well have thought, "Just who does Jethro think he is to tell me what to do and how to do it? We've come all this way without any help from the Jethros of this world - who in forty years never heard a word from God. What does he know about it?" But Moses did not react like that. Rather we read (v. 24), "Moses gave heed to the voice of his father-in-law, and did all that he said."
That, in my book, makes Moses a big man. It is the little men who always know better and resent criticism.
• What sort of
people are we? Proud, or meek? Unbending, or pliable?
• What rules us? Pride of place? Or humbleness of mind? (the
mind of Christ)
• Whom do we follow? Proud Lucifer? Or the humble
Christ?
Psalm 37:11 - It is
the meek who shall "possess the land, and delight themselves in
abundant prosperity."
Matthew 11:29, "Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek
and lowly in heart, and you will find rest to your souls."
Serve God with meekness. The best test that we are truly doing so will be that we are content to get no recognition for it.
Men heed thee, love thee, praise thee not?
The Master praises; what are men?
Note 1:
How sadly true to life it is that we take faith seriously at last
only when our backs are to the wall. That is how it was with Israel;
she trusted God in earnest only when she went in peril of her life.
As the old war-time saying has it, "There are no atheists under
fire."
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