“Select out of all the people some capable, God-fearing, honest men with an aversion to improper gain,and set them over them as captains of divisions of a thousand, of a hundred, of fifty, and of ten; let them act as judges for the people.”

(Exodus 18:21)

Strange as it may seem there is one place in scripture where a father-in-law is credited with giving his son-in-law good advice. Whether or not there is any significance in the scriptural fact that this good advice originates in the father-in-law and not in the mother-in-law, we leave to sons-in-laws to decide.

But the scripture says that Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, came to visit him in the wilderness and watched all day long as Moses, the great lawgiver, sat in court hearing the grievances of his people one against the other. With almost divine insight Moses meted out justice in each case from early morning till late evening. With patience Jethro stood by and watched the whole procedure. But, instead of praise for his son-in-law’s amazing legal talent, Jethro had only criticism.

“Moses,” he said, “ you are going to wear yourself and your people out if you continue in this practice. There are too many people, too many cases; and you have neither the strength nor the wisdom to judge and rule over this great multitude alone. Let me make a suggestion: ‘Select out of all the people some capable, God-fearing, honest men with an aversion to improper gain, and set them over them as captains of divisions of a thousand, of a hundred, of fifty, and of ten; let them act as judges of the people.” So spoke Jethro, Moses’ father in law.

And the remarkable thing about this scripture is not only that good advice should come out of the mouth of a father-in-law, but the real miracle occurs when the son-in-law accepts the good advice of his father-in-law and acts upon it.

But this unprecedented piece of advice from Moses’ father-in-law has value and importance beyond the family circle of Israel’s great deliverer. See how pertinent for us it is today as we come to a congregational meeting when we shall choose church officers.

First of all, there is in Jethro’s suggestion the root idea of representative government. “Select out of all the people,” Moses’ father-in-law told him, “some capable, God-fearing, honest men with an aversion to improper gain, and set them over them.” Here, in Jethro’s practical plan of delegated responsibility and authority to selected men instead of centering all rule in one man, we find the beginning of a movement away from tyranny toward freedom — away from monarchy, “the rule of one,” toward democracy, “the rule of the people.” The world has learned, sometimes by the sad experience of great suffering, the truth of Reinhold Niebuhr’s and Lord Acton’s dictum based on Jethro’s ancient wisdom: “All power is corrupting, but absolute power is absolutely corrupting.”

Bacon, in his essays on English government, wrote: “It is supposed with all probability that Alfred the Great, who was well versed in the Bible, based his Saxon constitution of sheriffs, etc. on the example of the Mosaic divisions.” And so it may well be that we owe all our free institutions in the English speaking world today directly to the generous interest and wise advice of an Arabian chieftain for his Hebrew son-in-law.

Certainly in the Presbyterian church we can see Jethro’s principle at work. The genius of our system of church government is ruled by elders — by the representatives of the members of a congregation who rule over them in spiritual matters, rather than centering all rule in a priest or a preacher.

Is it a good system — this business of representative government — where the people are ruled by their own representatives rather than by a tyrant or a dictator? Is it good or bad?

Well, it can be good. There is nothing wrong with the system. It opens the way for much freedom and sets up safeguards against oppression and cruelty. But the system itself is no better and no worse than the men who rule it.

In the days just prior to the last great war many a European nation repudiated its representative form of government because the people became disgusted with the corruption and the inefficiency of their state, as it was run by corrupt and inept men.

A harassed Presbyterian parson once petulantly remarked from his pulpit that trying to run that church with their present board of elders was like a farmer trying to run a dairy with a herd of bulls.

Government by representatives of the people, in church or state, is no better and no worse than the men selected to rule.

And so we come logically to the second bit of amazing wisdom in the advice Moses’ father-in-law gave him. Jethro laid down not only the principle of representative government, but he also named the primary qualifications of worthy leaders to guarantee the success of representative government. “Select out of all the people some capable, God-fearing, honest men with an aversion to improper gain; and set them over the people.”

First, the selected representative must be a capable man. No one wants a fool to make decisions of life and death for him. Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and the mad Caligula conferred the consulship on his horse. If one be chosen to represent his people let him be one of proven ability and wisdom. St. Paul advised Timothy in selecting the elders for the church at Ephesus, “lay hands of ordination hastily on no man.”

This does not mean, of course, that only those who have attained to fame and eminence should be selected, but rather that only men of proven ability, loyalty, and faithfulness be chosen. One of our church’s delegates to the Montreat conferences this past summer brought back this quip: “If you want something done in the church school, don’t call on the expert, call on the average man. The expert blows in, blows off, and blows out.”

First, select a capable man. Second, be sure he is a God-fearing man, advised Jethro. Why God-fearing? Oh, because the God-fearing man and he alone will be ruled in his own heart by something higher than his own selfish desires and appetites. When the God-fearing man deals with his fellow men, and rules over them, he will be governed in his own heart by those absolute standards of right and wrong and truth which God has laid down in His moral law. In the final analysis the only guarantee the common man has to his rights and his freedom is the allegiance to the constitution of God’s revealed will which abides in the soul of a God-fearing ruler in church and state.

Third, select men who are honest with an aversion to improper gain. In the primitive society of Mosaic times, the great threat to the miscarriage of justice and inhumanity to man was bribery. A dishonest judge who would sell for a price his decision could defraud widows and orphans of their living. In our day the ancient precept has an ever broader and deeper application. Graft has been added to bribery as a tempting sin to those in power, and men in places of responsibility in business may be unjust and inhumane to multitudes of men and women and little children, if they love money more than men, if they are possessed by no aversion to improper gain.

But the possibilities of improper gain do not stop even here: What of those who seek office who have no aversion to improper gain in power over people? What of the man who wants office and power and authority to lord it over his fellows, or as a trophy of personal accomplishment, or to preen his pride, rather than for the purpose Jesus laid down: “He that would be chiefest among you — that would rule over you — let him be the servant of all.”

There was even a church officer in New Testament times whom the aging Apostle John had to rebuke in his last Epistle: “Diotrephes who loveth to have the preeminence among you.”

The Master, in his striking picture of the Good Shepherd who knoweth his sheep, and calleth them by name, and layeth down his life for the sheep — sets over against that appealing, loveable figure, the contrast of the “Hireling”, who takes his position of authority and oversight, not because he loves those committed to his care and for the good he can do them, but because his eye is set on what he is going to get out of it. He is really a hireling.

Yes, Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, gave him good advice. First, rule the people by many representatives rather than by one man, and second, select as representatives men of higher character to ensure good government and to safeguard the people’s rights.

But it is about here that Jethro’s good advice petered out — at least that is as far as Moses took his advice. From the record in Exodus it is clear that Jethro intended that Moses himself should select those chieftains for the people. However, from the Deuteronomy account (1:13-15), it appears that Moses left the selection of the able men to the people themselves. After all, there must be an end to the amount of advice any man, even a meek Moses, can take from his in-laws. Moses improved on Jethro’s suggestion. He let the people choose their own judges and captains. Democracy was born.

Oh, how heavy a responsibility democracy puts on the common man in church and state. How easy to turn to other standards in voting for one’s leaders — to vote for a man as our representative because he is our friend, or kin to us, or because he will do what we want to have done, listen to our counsels and pet us along, rather than vote for a man because he is capable, God-fearing, and honest, with an aversion to improper gain.

But such is the responsibility our democratic, representative government thrusts upon us, both in our political life and in our Presbyterian church government. We ourselves determine, by the caliber of men we choose to elect as our representatives, just what kind of church and nation we shall have.

 

PASTORAL PRAYER

O God, we pray for Thy church, which is set today amid the perplexities of a changing order and face to face with a great new task. Baptize her afresh with the life-giving spirit of Jesus. Grant her a new birth, though it be with the travail of repentance and humiliation. Bestow upon her a more imperious responsiveness to duty, a swifter compassion with suffering, and an utter loyalty to the will of God. Put upon her lips the ancient gospel of her Lord. Help her to proclaim boldly the coming of the Kingdom of God and the doom of all that resist it. Fill her with the prophet’s scorn of tyranny, and with a Christ-like tenderness for the heavy-laden and down-trodden. Give her faith to espouse the cause of the people, and in their hands, that grope after freedom and light, to recognize the bleeding hands of the Christ. Bid her cease from seeking her own life, lest she lose it. Make her valiant to give up her life to humanity that, like her crucified Lord, she may mount by the path of the cross to a higher glory.