Gladly Receiving the Gifts of God | Exodus 18

Last November, Chat GPT was made public. This AI text-generating software is truly mind-blowing, and we are in the early dawn of a new era of life living with Artificial Intelligence and all its capabilities. Since its launch, the inventors have been watching and noting how the public have been using chat GPT. Things like brainstorming, translating text, and coding were at the very top of the list, but there was another use near the very top that drew my attention: advice.

This is from the article analyzing these results:

Life can often deliver a huge plate of misery. It’s therapeutic to just have someone or something to listen to you vent. What if you’re all alone? Chat GPT has zero judgment and will offer you logical advice and support based on swaths of self-help text. It might be just AI, but if you don’t feel like you have a lot of outlets, Chat GPT could be a very practical solution. 

User: It’s so frustrating coming back to visit family when all they do is tell me what to do like I’m still a child.

Chat GPT: I understand how frustrating it can be to feel like you're being treated like a child when you are an adult. It can be especially difficult when you are visiting your family, as you may feel like you are expected to conform to their rules and expectations. However, it’s important to remember that your family likely has your best interests at heart, even if it doesn’t always feel like it. It can be helpful to try and have open and honest conversations with your family members about how you are feeling and to set boundaries to ensure that you're treated with the respect and autonomy that you deserve.

It’s easy to see in our world that we live in a Therapeutic Age. More and more, we are surrounded by talk of mental health, or self-care, and our culture is looking anywhere and everywhere for advice. But in our advice seeking, more and more, we don’t want to be viewed as a project or an inferior. We don’t want some higher up looking down on us and fixing us. We just want to be “seen for who we really are”. We want empathy, someone diving in the quicksand with us and identifying with us in our struggles and telling us that we are fine just the way we are and we need to fight for all that we deserve and to cut out anyone that we deem toxic. And what’s better suited to do that than something that has no emotional baggage of its own—an AI text-generator?

In short, our culture despises hierarchy. And it despises it because it says that there are differences in this world that we can’t control. And when we can’t control something, the inevitable result is one of anger, fear, and rejection.

But what about us? What about you and me? As Christians, we recognize that we are not God, there’s a clear difference, and that he created a world filled with beauty and majesty and differences and hierarchy. And all of it is rooted in the trinitarian character of God and his saving works. And as we turn our attention to Exodus 18, that’s exactly what we see: the character of God and his saving works being applied even to the running and administration of a nation.

Exodus 18 is the end of what could be described as the “testing time in the wilderness”. This large section began after the Song of Moses after the victory at the Red Sea (15:22). We have since seen 4 episodes of testing and trials in the wilderness: the bitter water, the manna from heaven, the water from the rock, the Amalekite invasion. And chapter 18 finishes this section by introducing us to another crisis—one of administration and the governing of the people.

In this section, we have seen that each time a crisis comes, the Lord graciously provides solutions, and often in unexpected ways. The water is bitter? Throw a log in it? You’re hungry? Let me rain bread from heaven. You need more water? Go hit that rock. You’re under attack? Moses, lift your arms. And here in chapter 18, the bringer of this new solution is a foreigner.

And as we end this section, I believe Moses is meaning to communicate to us this main point: The salvation of the Lord brings us into a new community, where God graciously provides godly leaders for the well-being of his people.

Really, during this entire wilderness excursion from the Red Sea to Mt. Sinai, the Lord has been graciously given gifts to his people even in their suffering and complaining. And we’re going to look at 3 such gifts that I believe this text highlights for us and for which we should be extremely grateful to God for: the gift of family, the gift of salvation, and the gift of godly leadership.

The Gift of Family

With the very first word of chapter 18, we are introduced, or rather reintroduced, to the character of Jethro. As in chapter 2:16, Jethro (also called Reuel) is identified as the priest of Midian. This is the third priest so far listed in Scripture, all of whom have been foreigners identified with their countries: Melchizedek the Canaanite who blessed Abraham (Gen 14), Potiphera the Egyptian priest whose daughter Joseph married (Gen 41), and now Jethro the priest of Midian. But Exodus 18 does not highlight Jethro’s national or religious connections, but his familial connection to Moses.

No less than 12 times is Jethro referred to as Moses’ father-in-law. It’s mentioned so much you just want to say to Moses the author, “OK! We get it! He’s with you!!” And clearly Jethro had a couple reasons to seek out Moses and the people of Israel. First, he’s family! And it seems that at some point, Moses and his family, consisting of his wife and 2 kids, return to Midian from Egypt because Jethro is described here bringing Moses’ family back to him. 

Now, if you were away from your wife and kids for any extended time, upon seeing them, I imagine the first thing you would do is run up to them and gather them into your arms and kiss them and rejoice with them. Now consider all that Moses has been through since being separated from his family—the battle of wills with Pharoah, the plagues, the Passover, the exodus, the crossing of the Red Sea, all the struggles in the wilderness for food, water, and safety…I imagine it would be infinitely sweeter to see them! But look how Moses describes this reunion…(18:7)

Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him. And they asked each other of their welfare and went into the tent.

Remember, Jethro is a foreigner. He’s not a jew, he’s not a part of the “covenantal” family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…and yet he’s family to Moses. Jethro and Moses have almost nothing to connect them—no blood, no religion, no culture. And yet, they are intimately connected because of what happened all the way back in Exodus 2, where the fugitive Moses saved Jethro’s daughters from shepherds. Moses is a deliverer, a savior, and he exercised that in saving Jethro’s daughters. And now they are united by Moses and Zipporah’s marriage—they are family, and now the bloodline of Jethro and the bloodline of Moses are mixed forever in these two sons Gershom and Eliezer.

The names given to the boys tell the story of Moses’ life: “I was a stranger there (Gershom), but God is my helper (Eliezer).” In the naming of his two sons, Moses depicts what happened to him—strangers in Egypt that fled to Midian and the Lord helped him—but also what is happening to the nation of Israel. They were strangers in Egypt too. And not just strangers, but slaves, bound to the land by Pharaoh through hard, slavish work. And the land that was promised to their Father Abraham was nowhere in sight. But God came and delivered them from that dominion and brought them out of Egypt and to himself, and in doing, has brought them into a new family. Look at Hosea 11:1…

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

The same is true for us! In our salvation, we are not just saved from sin, our sentence commuted, our status declared righteous, but we are also brought into a new family. We are adopted as sons of God! Galatians 4:4–5 says…

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Families are so interesting, aren’t they? In natural families, two completely separate families, likely not knowing each other, probably from different towns and cities (maybe countries and cultures), brought together by the union of two people, who become their own families. And in this way, people are united together in ways that they never would have been otherwise. 

But what about this family? This church family? Paul said in Galatians 4 that we are now adopted into a new, spiritual family, what Paul calls in Ephesians 2:19 the “household of God”. We call each other brother and sister in Christ, because in Christ, we are united in ways as intimate as family.

Our families can be such powerful influences in our lives, can’t they? They can be such sources of encouragement and strength and support—but they can also be the ones who deal you the greatest harm. These are the people who are let into our inner lives like no one else. Our parents have seen us from the very beginning—there’s no faking around them. It’s our dads we’re trying to impress, and our moms we’re trying to get off our backs and let them know we can do this on our own (when we really can’t…)!

And it’s people in our community, our family that we let into our inner lives: our joys, our celebrations, our suffering, our fears, our decision-making. We help each other move, bring meals when a new life is welcomed, we cry and hold each other when there’s a miscarriage, we support one another when there’s a job loss or illness.

Families are God-given gifts that are given to be the first source of growth, development, strengthening, encouraging, backing up, and sending out. We’re always there for one another, no matter what. 

That’s how important family is! Family means everything. It is one of the sweetest and greatest gifts God can give. They are the first people we call when trouble comes and the ones who are with us through all the ups and downs. And in Exodus 18, we have this happy reunion, and Jethro is wondering, are all the reports of all the crazy things that have happened true? And happily, they were all true.

The Gift of Salvation

So Jethro set out from Midian to find Moses and the Israelites because he had heard all that God had done for Moses. And he finds them encamped at the mountain of God. And after the opening pleasantries, they ask each other about their welfare and head into the tent to discuss.

And what a story Moses has to tell! And Jethro has heard some interesting stuff from Moses before—remember, before leaving for Egypt, Moses went to Jethro to ask permission to leave (likely having to explain to him that his instructions are coming from a burning bush…). But Moses recounts, and probably (like all dads) in way too deep of detail, everything that had happened from when he last saw Jethro to this point.

And what is at the heart of this story? Deliverance! Deliverance from the hardship of Pharaoh, deliverance from the hardship in the wilderness…and all of it from the Lord. 3 times in these 2 short verses, the Lord’s name is mentioned as the one who is doing the delivering. Yes, Moses has been raised up from childhood to be a “deliverer”, but there is no doubt in anyone’s mind who is the one doing all the actual delivering. It is the Lord! 18:1 tells us that Jethro had heard all that God had done for Moses and the Israelites, and now he hears it straight from the man himself.

How often do we think on our salvation? As with the Israelites, we did not pull ourselves out of the slavery of sin, but were delivered by God himself! And this is a gift! An unmerited, unearned, gracious and glorious gift! How often do we consciously stop and consider the cosmic realities and miracles that had to happen in order for you and I to be saved? And how often do we thank God, for he and he alone is responsible for our salvation? Look at how David describes it in Ps 40…

I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD. Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie! You have multiplied, O LORD my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.

And that’s the goal of our recounting: proclamation! It is worth recounting our salvation and thinking on the saving works of God in order to declare it to all those around us! That’s what Moses did. He recounted to his father-in-law, a foreigner, all that the Lord had done for them, how he had brought them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, supplied their every need in the desert, and carried them all the way to here!

The result? Jethro rejoiced. And his rejoicing wasn’t simply that Moses was safe, but he rejoiced in the Lord that led to blessing the Lord. Look at v. 10–11…

Jethro said, “Blessed be the LORD, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh and has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people.”

What Jethro had only heard about in v. 1, he now knows that the Lord is the Lord of Lords. He has conquered the gods of the Egyptians, has destroyed their army at the Red Sea, and defeated the mighty Amalekites. And it is this acknowledgement, this mental agreement, that leads to worship.

That’s the power of your testimony. I know when we share our stories in our Missional Community, it is without fail a powerful encouragement for all who hear. It leads us all to say, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow!” So think on your salvation, regularly, and never tire of proclaiming it.

The Gift of Godly Leadership

The next day, it must be “Take Your Father-In-Law To Work” Day, because Jethro sits and observes what Moses does for the people. And what he witnessed was a constant stream of people with their problems and their disputes, looking for answers from God through Moses. In a sense, Moses is operating like a prophet who speaks for God, a priest who mediates between the people and God, and a king who can rule and judge the civil affairs of the people.

And it doesn’t take long for Jethro to notice that there is just no way Moses, by himself, can do what he’s doing for all 2–3 million people of Israel. That’s a whole bunch of disputes to resolve!

And here we have the fifth and final crisis in the wilderness—administrative disorder. Notice, Jethro doesn’t just say, “Hey! Have you tried X?” No, he just up and tells him that what’s happening (v. 17) is NOT GOOD! It’s not good for Moses and it’s not good for the people! Moses is on the verge of burnout because there is no way he can get to all these people. And the people are not all being served, and so they are also suffering because of it all falling on 1 man’s shoulders.

So Jethro proposes delegating the work—spreading the load out onto many shoulders rather than just on Moses’. This will both relieve Moses from the tremendous workload, but will also actually be more effective in making sure all the disputes are addressed. It’s both effective and efficient. And really, Jethro is taking the saving work of God in deliverance and applying it to the everyday life of the Israelites…all the way into the civil government. This new set up will ensure that the statutes and laws of God are enforced in the whole of the camp in all of life.

The type of men that Jethro tells Moses to look for are “able men”. Able men are those who fear God, hate even the thought of taking a bribe, and ultimately are trustworthy who are able to bear the burden with him. Like Samwise Gamgee on the slopes of Mt. Doom, they may not be able to carry the heavy load of being leader of this great assembly, but they can carry Moses by taking on the easier tasks of judging disputes among the people.

Now, our modern egalitarian culture hears this type of hierarchical system and despises it. Any hierarchy immediately assumes that there are oppressors and oppressed. You set up this type of leadership structure, where the few have power over the many and you will have or have already abused the people who are at the bottom. We want to flatten everything. The very thought of someone having more responsibility or more “power” than someone else by nature is a wicked thing. 

According to the modern pagan mind, hierarchies are just social constructs that people in power set up so that they can keep and maintain that power and keep others below them. And of those things that are socially constructed, gender is right at the top. The binary between men and women is just a system, constructed by white European men, to control and force everyone into a system for them to keep and maintain power. I’m not a man or a woman, I’ve just been forced into a system of binary and hierarchy that tells me this is how a boy should act and how a girl should act. In order for me to be truly free, I need to break free from these social constraints and to live out my authentic self!

But the issue with all of that nonsense is that we live in God’s world, and the world that God made is hierarchical and good. It’s not all flat and same, but different and beautiful. Think if Beethoven had written his 7th symphony using one note. Think if Terry Redlin would’ve painted the SD prairiescape with one color. And think if we didn’t have within our civil societies rulers and authorities. It would be chaos! Just like in Israel in the desert. The world is hierarchical. Your workplace is hierarchical, as you respect and submit to your superiors. Families are hierarchical, with the parents ruling the house, particularly through the father. Your salvation was hierarchical, as you are wholly dependent on the saving grace of God! Hierarchy is a good gift and a beautiful thing. And Jethro here applies all the good of God’s saving works into the very administration of a nation. He sees it all connected…if you are going to be God’s people, you need to function well. 

So, the Lord hasn’t just given Israel a gift in the leadership of Moses, but apparently has also provided the nation with many able men who are able to bear some of the leadership burden. And the result of this delegation process isn’t oppression or abuse, but rather peace (v. 23). And as we look at the chaotic world, nation, state, city that we live in, it’s right for us as Christians to seek the peace of our city by asking our civil governments to be led by able, trustworthy, god-fearing men who hate bribes but love justice and God’s laws. I imagine if we had more of that, we would experience peace.

And the same is true in the church. The call from Jethro to find able men rings similar to what Paul tells Timothy to do in 2 Timothy 2:1–2…

You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.

I am convinced that what our world and church and marriages and families need most is faithful men. Faithful and able men, God-fearing and trustworthy men are a gift from God! And like all gifts from God, we are to receive them with joy and gladness and by faith, trusting that all that he gives is for our good and not our harm.

And because we know the gift-giver, we can thank him! Thank him for all the good that he gives. He supplies everything even in the midst of a desert…water, bread, protection, families, salvation, and leadership. And the ultimate gift that we have been given is the person and work of Jesus Christ, who not only saved us from our sin, but has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. All human authority derives its just rule only because King Jesus delegates it to able and trustworthy men, and he is a good and just king who is bringing all his enemies under his feet. So we give thanks to God for King Jesus, who is a good king, in whom we have forgiveness of sins, a new family, and a new life!