Exodus 18:17-19a
Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “The thing that you are doing is not good. “You will surely wear out, both yourself and these people who are with you, for the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. “Now listen to me: I will give you counsel, and God be with you.
Moses was the leader of Israel. He was the authority. Jethro was probably the only person that had some authority over him. Some may have tried to give him advice, but he may not have been open. They may have been afraid to. This was something that Moses needed to hear. The people would line up and he would hear their cases and act as judge. There were over three million people. He did this from morning until night. Jethro saw that this was an impossible task, so he gave his advice.
Jethro gave a great model. Promote wise people who hate dishonesty. Let some be over thousands, some be over hundreds, some be over fifties and others be over tens. They will judge the minor disputes. They will bring the major ones to Moses. This is great because this lets Moses create leaders, who in turn will train more leaders. This allowed Moses to have more time for other things. One of which was to write the first five books of the bible. This wouldn’t have been possible under the old method.
From where do we get wisdom? The bible is full of it. We get much of it as we read. We also get it as our pastors teach us at church. We should be in relationship with other believers. They are our confidants. There are also great things to be learned from sources that aren’t spiritual. I’ve heard it said that “all truth is God’s truth”. We could be listening to an atheistic teacher speak about the laws of gravity. This is God’s wisdom. Great things can be spoken by those who don’t have faith. There are plenty of topics that aren’t faith based. Moses’ situation was one of them. I’ve also heard that we should eat the apple, yet spit out the seeds. We take a percentage of what was said. We analyze the content and keep the good.
We gain this discernment by knowing the bible. Otherwise, we could take in all sorts of odd ideas. Our culture has it’s popular stances. Most believe them. However, some are contrary to the bible. Some of God’s ways are counter culture. That’s ok. Part of having a faith is having the courage to not go with the crowd.
We can learn things from any source. In the Old Testament, Balaam was spoken to by a donkey, Numbers 22:21-41. We can gain good things from many sources.
Lord, help us to “seek wisdom” as proverbs tells us. Give us the discernment to keep the good.