“You
be the people’s representative before God, and you bring the disputes to God,
then teach them the statutes and the laws, and make known to them the way in
which they are to walk, and the work they are to do. Furthermore, you shall select out of all the
people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain; and
you shall place these over them, as leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of
fifties and of tens. And let them judge
the people at all times; and let it be that every major dispute they will bring
to you, but every minor dispute they themselves will judge. So it will be easier for you and they will
bear the burden with you. If you do this
thing and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all these
people also will go to their place in peace.”
Having
prepared both himself and his son-in-law to whom he was about to give some
advice, Jethro is now ready to share his recommendations with Moses. After drafting my thoughts for this section,
I noticed quite unintentionally that Jethro shared 10 recommendations with
Moses as to how to govern the people of Israel.
With appropriate adaptation, we can apply these recommendations to our
nation, to our organizations, and to our churches.
Recommendation
No. 1 Be the people’s representative before God. That has got to be the shortest and the best
job description of a Christian CEO I have ever seen. Just ‘be’ the people’s representative before
God. Do not think of yourself as the boss, others will come to see you as that
on their own and they will accept it better.
And remember, Who your own ‘Boss’ is.
Second, the purpose of your leadership is not about goals, products,
services, finances, etc. It is about
people, first and foremost. Third,
remember that as a representative, you yourself are one of them. You are not better, and relative to your
Boss, you are not smarter. You are one
of those you represent, but you happen to have been given a different
opportunity because of the way God wired you.
Finally, your key role is to draw upon the ultimate Source of wisdom and
justice. You (and those you place in
subordinate leadership positions) are simply a conduit between the people and
God, presenting Him with their challenges (family, church, organization, and country)
that they face. Recognize your role as
such and then act accordingly.
Recommendation
No. 2 Bring their disputes to God. I know this sounds much like the first
recommendation but I would submit that it is not. Recommendation No. 1 speaks of who the leader
is. This recommendation speaks of what
the leader does. As a leader, you are to
actual lay the challenges and disputes that people have before God’s throne and
trust Him with the solution. You need
not fear the outcome or that He cannot handle them. Hudson Taylor, that great famous early
missionary to China, would tell you that his greatest secret for success was
his ability to “turn his problems over to Jesus” and then leave them under His
care. As a leader and representative of
those people looking to you for wisdom, direction, care, fairness, justice, and
so much more, you need to simply take those problems “before God”. When I was starting to learn that, and
practiced it more and more, two things happened in my own leadership. I enjoyed my work and my life much more and I
could sleep at night much better. There
may often be a temptation to address brand new challenging issues yourself, but
I caution you not to. Doing so may
result in two undesirable outcomes.
First, you will not necessarily have the best answer to the challenge.
Secondly, you may get into the habit of “going it alone” – without God. Both can have serious consequences. (Note: I am not saying there are no problems
that you should not be able to handle from experience or from your own
knowledge of God’s Word; there are. And
Jethro’s list allows for that, as we will see shortly.)
Recommendation
No. 3 Teach the people the statutes and laws. In the world of
work, arbitrators who decide cases between employers and employees or unions
have a rule of thumb: did the employer make his/her rules well known on a
regular basis to the employees? If
he/she had, then the action that they may have taken against an employee for
breaking the rules may be more justified.
While ignorance of the law may not be an excuse, certainly breaking the
law when you know it, presents a harder case to defend. But Jethro did not want Moses to teach his
people the laws and statutes, just so that they could break them and be
punished. On the contrary, Jethro sensed
God wants us to know them so that we will know what is required of us in order
to live at peace with our Maker and our fellow man.
Recommendation
No. 4 Teach them how to walk or live their lives – everything
they needed in order to accept themselves, to carry out their associations with
others, and to enjoy their relationship with God. Life was hard in the wilderness; it was
different than in Egypt. New ways of
interacting were critical to the survival of the group. It is no different today, as the world
evolves so quickly, as life becomes faster and faster – we, especially as
believers, need to know how best to ‘walk’ in the midst of our ever-changing
cultures.
Recommendation
No. 5 Teach them what work they are to do. Jethro recommended that Moses assign jobs to
individuals. We do not know if that
meant every man, woman, and child – but certainly it covered all the men. And if this was the case, realistically it
could only be done as he implemented some of the other recommendations
involving delegation that Jethro gave him.
It is interesting, however, that as a leader, Moses was to advised to
provide jobs for people because Jethro realized that people needed a means
whereby to contribute to their society.
God has made us in a way which requires us to be busy, employ our
God-given talents and abilities, and bring forth results. After all, we are made in the Creator’s
image. Leaders both in general life
(politics), at work (industry) and in our churches (faith) need to give people
work to do.
Recommendation
No. 6 Select able men who fear God, are truthful, and hate
dishonest gain. Wow, do we ever need
this today. We need it in every aspect
of our life – government, industry, education, research, retail, and in our
churches. You can read the political
scandals that come out almost daily in the media to know we do not have it in
our government. You only need to read one
issue of the Institute of Global
Ethics’ newsletter to know we do not have it in industry, education, or
research as much as we need it. And
certainly we hear about enough scandals in the leadership of our churches, that
we know we lack it there. But as a
minimum, let us develop a means of selection that ensures the men and women we
pick to lead our various institutions, especially our churches, are indeed
qualified in the basic requirements suggested to Moses by Jethro.
Recommendation
No. 7 Place these selected individuals over others as
leaders. Jethro realized the importance
of delegation of authority. Many top
managers and lots of pastors do not. Not
only is delegation important for the person that you are giving an opportunity
to show his/her leadership skills and to be aptly occupied in contributing to
the process or the end product/goal, but as we see from the recommendations of
Jethro that follow, it is also a God-given instruction that is good for the
delegator.
Recommendation
No. 8 Establish a governance structure, especially where the
numbers are large. Jethro recommended
that Moses put these able leaders in charge of ten others (a good span of
control as we call it in the Human Resources field), and then add leaders at
higher levels appropriately so that all the work will get done and each person
will have someone that is taking care of them even if they are a leader
themselves. This works for churches as
well. Imagine the pastor being
responsible for the welfare, development and spiritual and personal oversight
of ten associate pastors or elders, who each are responsible for ten other
church volunteer leaders/families, and so on throughout the whole
congregation. Nobody would fall through
the cracks. If you were away one week,
you would get a call from your leader who did not see you on Sunday. He/she would know whether you were okay or
sick, or just angry, etc. Through a
system akin to this, the whole church could be cared for. People would feel responsible for their
charges and all of us would be cared for.
Recommendation
No. 9 Let these leaders actually make decisions (judgments) that
involve the people, within their scope of authority and responsibility and let
them escalate more critical decisions up the line to the top. This was great advice from Jethro to Moses. This is the principle upon which much of our
decision-making takes place, whether it is in our businesses or our
military. In fact, our court system
works in the same way, with the added process of appeals that can be made to a
higher court by the litigants. Moses
could not possibly make every decision for all the Israelites. A senior pastor cannot possibly make every
decision for every program or ministry in his/her church. Unfortunately, some try.
Recommendation
No. 10 Let these leaders bear the burden of leadership with you. People want to be well utilized. People want to help their leader, their boss,
and their pastor. Let them. You do not have to be a superhero all by
yourself. I have always felt that a
leader that wants to do it all by his or herself, is getting awfully close to
being an autocrat, rather than a motivator and influencer.
The Benefits
of Heeding Jethro’s Recommendations Jethro basically said to his son-in-law Moses
that if he followed his recommendations (obeyed his instructions), he will end
up enduring as a leader. He will last
longer, he will be able to withstand the pressures of leadership, he will enjoy
his work, and above all, he will not burnout.
But note Jethro was not just asking Moses to obey him simply because he
was his father-in-law. No, rather Jethro
says you only need to obey me if “God so commands you”. That says a lot about how we should decide
whether or not to obey someone who appears to give us wise counsel. But it also says a lot of the wise counsel
giver. Moses had to know his
father-in-law’s advice was in accordance with God’s will for his own life. And Jethro knew that if God did not agree
with what he was telling Moses, his advice would be of no real help.
But not only
was Moses to benefit from advice that agrees with God’s desire for his life as
a leader, but the text goes on to say through the words of Jethro that the
people will be benefit as well for they shall live in peace. Is that not the goal of every leader for each
of his followers – that they should live in peace and prosper?
If you are a leader today – in a business or in a church,
adopt Jethro as your own personal counselor and heed his advice. Take a look at his ten recommendations and
see if there is any area in your leadership that could benefit from your
application of his sound and Godly advice.
_____________________________________________________________________
[Are you
looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken
is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]
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