A Pagan Priest and the People of God
Exodus 18
For the last month we had a young man named Zane visiting us from the U.S. Zane actually lived in Paris for six years and came to Connexion for a lot of that time; he moved back to the U.S. a few years ago. We knew him well back then, so we had him over last week to spend the afternoon with him. He was telling me about conversations he had had with people in the church, questions he would ask.
One of those questions was, how has Connexion changed in the time he’s been away? And one of the answers he got was surprising to me: someone said, “Connexion is becoming a ‘missionary church.’”
I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, and I’m still not. We’ve always had a lot of missionaries in our church who are in Paris for various reasons. We have our Dimanche de la form’ throughout the year, and we have a new theme for those training sessions every semester. The theme this semester has been missions. We have two short-term missions trips organized for this semester as well—so maybe all that is where that answer came from.
At any rate, here’s my precision to this idea that “Connexion is becoming a missionary church.” If by that, you mean that we are becoming a church that is entirely focused on sending people out to other countries to be missionaries, then you’re wrong—that is part of what we’d love to do, what we have always wanted to do, but not all of it.
However, if by “missionary church”, you mean a church that is devoted to the mission Christ gave to the church, to go and make disciples of all nations, including our own, then you’re right: we are a missionary church, and we always have been. It’s difficult to find the right balance in explaining what it means to be a church on mission, so our speaking about the nations this semester has been a much-needed “rebalancing” for us.
All of this may seem unrelated to the passage we’ve just read, Exodus 18, but it’s not; in fact it is very pertinent.
Exodus 18 acts like a hinge; it is a transition passage. The first half responds to everything that came before, and the second half helps prepare for everything that will come after.
If you remember, last week we saw the first time that Israel, as the free and independent people of God, is attacked by a foreign nation. And we saw God’s judgment against that nation, almost as a warning: if you raise your hand against God, he raises his hand against you.
And then, right after, we have an arrival that feels a long time coming: the arrival of Moses’s family.
If you weren’t here for the beginning of our series, we need some context.
In Exodus 2, we see Moses flee Egypt after killing an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew. (This was before God ever called to him, before he became the figure he is in chapter 18.) He goes to a country called Midian and comes across these young women watering their father’s flock. They’re set upon by some shepherds but Moses intervenes and keeps them safe, waters their flock.
The women’s father Jethro, the priest of Midian, invites Moses in for a meal to thank him, and Moses ends up staying with him, and eventually marrying one of his daughters, Zipporah, and they have a son, Gershom. (At some point later they have another son, Eliezer, as we see in v. 4, both sons named after significant moments in Moses’s life.)
Then God calls Moses from the burning bush to go free his people.
At some point between his departure from Midian and now, Moses sent his family back to Midian to stay with his father-in-law. We’re not sure why, it could have been for any number of reasons—the most likely, in my opinion, is that he sent them back to Midian simply to keep them safe.
But now that Israel is free, and they’re out of Egypt, Jethro brings Moses’s wife and sons back to him.
Chapter 18 is almost entirely focused on Jethro, whom we’ve barely seen in this story. And what we see is fairly extraordinary, and—like I said—it serves as a hinge around which the entire book of Exodus turns.
A Pagan's Response (v. 1-12)
So remember what we talked about last week: this is the first time that Israel has been on their own as a free nation. They were a big family when they arrived in Egypt, and since they had become a people, they had been enslaved in Egypt. This was the first time they were a people on their own, outside of that context of slavery.
And right away we see how a pagan nation responds to them. Amalek attacks Israel, raising their hands against the throne of God himself (as we see in 17.16).
This is one way the nations will respond to God. (And when I say “the nations”, I mean any people or people group who don’t belong to God’s people—at this time, the people of Israel.) That’s the way some nations will respond to God’s presence and God’s people: through conflict.
Another way the nations will respond to God was mentioned back in chapter 15, in the song the people sang after God brought them through the Red Sea:
14 The peoples have heard; they tremble; pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia. 15 Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed; trembling seizes the leaders of Moab; all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away. 16 Terror and dread fall upon them; because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone…
God’s works in this book are impressive, to say the least. So one way the nations will respond to God’s presence and his people is fear, dread, trembling.
But in today’s text, we see a different way for the nations to respond to God’s presence and his people.
Jethro brings Moses’s wife and sons back to him, and the two men spend some time together. (Fortunately, it seems that Moses and Jethro have enjoyed a good relationship since they first met in Midian.) They hang out in his tent, or perhaps walk around the massive camp, and Moses tells Jethro everything that happened in Egypt and since then, everything God did.
Jethro sees God’s presence when he sees God’s people. He sees how God has dealt with his people. But he doesn’t go on the offensive, and he isn’t afraid. He rejoices.
V. 9:
9 And Jethro rejoiced for all the good that the Lord had done to Israel, in that he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians.
10 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. 11 Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people.” 12 And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and sacrifices to God; and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God.
This isn’t just acknowledgement of a fact, like when you go into someone’s new apartment for the first time and say, “Wow, it’s very spacious.” What Jethro does is much bigger than that. He worships: “Blessed be the Lord,” he says. And then he makes a confession: “Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods.”
He doesn’t become an Israelite—and no one’s asked him to—but he makes a statement about who God is, and he acts on that statement in reverence of God: he makes a sacrifice to God and eats with Moses and Aaron and the elders of Israel in God’s presence.
This is huge. This is a profession of faith. Jethro is not a member of God’s people. He is a pagan priest. And yet, after hearing what God has done, he rejoices and proclaims that the Lord is greater than all gods, then he comes together with God’s people to eat a meal in God’s presence.
We cannot rush over this too quickly. Tim Chester called this moment—particularly v. 12—the climax of the exodus, and he’s right.
One of the explicit intentions of God in all the Bible is that God’s people show the nations who God is.
Let’s take an example; we’ll see this in a couple of weeks, but I don’t know how much time we’ll have to spend on it. In Exodus 20, God gives Moses the Ten Commandments. One of those commandments, in v. 7, says this:
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
Now there has been a lot of talk about what exactly it means to take God’s name in vain. Some people say it’s about using God’s name as a swear word: we weren’t allowed to say “Oh my God” or “Jesus Christ!” when I was a kid. Some people connect it more to praying or declaring things: saying things like, “Yes, we proclaim that you will no longer have migraines, in the name of Jesus!”, and expecting those things to happen.
Of course, we shouldn’t do these things either; we don’t let our kids say “Jesus Christ!” when they’re frustrated, and we can’t use Jesus’s name as a kind of skeleton key to open whatever door we want opened.
But that’s not what this commandment is talking about. It’s not about swearing, or using his name for selfish purposes, or even about using God’s name lightly, as the Segond 21 says. It’s not primarily about how we speak.
Carmen Joy Imes wrote a wonderful book called Bearing God’s Name; the entire book is devoted to this question. She makes incredibly persuasive arguments from the biblical text—she convinced me—but I don’t have time to go through them all now. The main takeaway is that the word for “take” in Exodus 20.7 literally means to “carry” or to “bear.” The people of God were called to take God’s name—his proper name, not “God” in the general sense but “Yahweh”, the name with which he revealed himself to Moses—and carry it to the nations.
To put it another, more modern way, Exodus 20.7 is more about evangelism than just the way we speak—evangelism through our lives. By the way the people of God live, they were called to show the nations what God is like, what is behind his name—the holy character that God’s name represents. This commandment is a warning against claiming God’s name as a people, and yet living in a way that is not in keeping with that name.
In Exodus 18, the people still haven’t received God’s law; there’s still a lot they need to change. But through Moses’s testimony and what Jethro sees, Jethro sees and recognizes who God is. In v. 12, he makes a sacrifice to God, a burnt offering; and he sits down with Moses and Aaron and the other elders of Israel to eat a meal. In this meal, we see the nations—in Jethro the pagan priest—responding to God’s revelation with faith, with a profession that God is who he claims to be.
This meal, which brings together Israelite and pagan to worship the one true God, is a foreshadowing of what was to come. It is repeated every time the church comes together. It is a picture of the great invitation that Jesus Christ would bring through his life, death and resurrection, throwing the doors wide open to all tribes and tongues and peoples.
We do the same thing every week. Our meal is the bread and the cup, which represent the body of Christ and the blood of Christ. The finished work of Christ unites us in faith to one another—many nations, worshiping and honoring one God.
A Pagan's Help (v. 13-27)
Given the heights of v. 1-12, and everything they represent, the second half of chapter 18 may seem a bit mundane in comparison. But in fact this section is really interesting, for a number of similar reasons.
V. 13-16 describe the situation. Moses sits to “judge” the people from morning until evening.
What does it mean to “judge” the people in this sense? It’s not just a matter of criminal affairs (though that was surely part of it). This camp is huge—counting the women and children, likely around two million people. You put that many people together, there’s going to be friction. There are going to be disagreements. And someone will need to make decisions about what to do.
Moses is the guy who’s doing this now. Why is he the guy? Because: who else is there? Maybe Aaron, but Aaron was never explicitly designated for that function. Moses is the one who’s holding the staff of God, after all; he’s the one whom God chose to lead his people. So inevitably, he ends up being the one getting caught up in the details.
This happens all the time, doesn’t it? We start one thing, and get preoccupied in the urgency of that thing, and before we know it we’re taking on a million other things like it—and we don’t even realize that it’s way too much, we’ve bit off far more than we can chew. That’s the situation Moses is in. It’s not hubris on his part—Numbers 12 tells us that Moses was an extremely humble man—it’s just… Who else is there? It’s the classic dilemma of focusing on what’s urgent rather than on what’s important.
Moses can’t see it, but interestingly, chapter 18 is told almost entirely from the perspective of Jethro. Jethro, the outsider, who hasn’t been with Israel all this time, comes in, and right away, he can see the problem. This is one reason I love reading the Bible with people who didn’t grow up in church; they’ve got enough distance from it to recognize things we can’t see because we’ve had our noses pressed up against it for so long.
So Jethro sort of casually asks Moses, “What are you doing?”
And Moses explains, like to a child: “Well, they’ve got problems, and they come to me so I can ask God what they should do, and I tell them.”
Jethro’s response is perfect: “That’s nuts.” V. 17:
What you are doing is not good. 18 You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone.
So Jethro gives Moses some really basic advice. He tells him that Moses should be the one to come before God and ask for instruction, and that Moses should tell them how God wants them to live. (That’s coming very soon, when God gives Moses the law.) And then, Moses should delegate. V. 21:
21 Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. 22 And let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. 23 If you do this, God will direct you, you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.”
There’s a lot of good, common wisdom in what Jethro says—it’s something I had on my mind for years at the beginning of the church, when I was wearing multiple hats; I often thought of this passage and felt like Jethro was being my own personal tutor. It’s why I’m so thankful for the team God has given us here—I don’t have to wear every hat, because I’ve got godly, dependable men and women with me who can do the things I can’t do.
And I’m thinking a lot about it now these days too, but from the other side. I’m watching a group of men and women giving so much time and effort to the building project, and I’m seeing how dedicated they are…and I’m worried that they’re going to run themselves into the ground. So I’m thinking about the best ways to help them work well without burning themselves out.
But there’s a lot more going on here than just practical wisdom on how to delegate.
First of all, Jethro’s advice reiterates what we saw last week. Israel’s victory against Amalek was dependent on Moses’s ability to keep his hands holding up the staff of God. But he could not do it on his own.
That’s what we see again here: even if Moses is the man God has chosen to lead Israel, he is not the Savior. He’s just a man, and he can’t do this alone.
Secondly, Jethro’s advice wisely places the emphasis, not on skills, but on character. Moses should find able men (so competence is necessary), but what should characterize them above all else is that they fear God, are trustworthy, and hate a bribe. Moses should make sure that the people he puts in charge won’t be susceptible to pressure, won’t try to sway the hands of justice because it would be more rewarding for them personally.
It’s reminiscent of Paul’s list of qualifications for being an elder of the church in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. An elder should be competent (“able to preach”), but above all, he should display godly character.
So why is this part of the chapter significant? It’s not because Jethro gives Moses good advice, but because Jethro’s advice gets the people ready to receive the law.
In chapter 19, they’ll arrive at Mount Sinai, where God will give his law to the people. The law of God will radically reorganize everything about this people, from their loftiest spiritual goals to their most mundane practices. There will be a lot of practical application, a lot of situations in which they won’t quite know how to put the law into practice.
They’ll need help. They’ll need judges. They’ll need leaders.
By God’s grace, through this event, the structure necessary to begin obeying the law is already in place, before they ever get to Mount Sinai.
And isn’t it incredible that the man perhaps most responsible for preparing the people to become the people of God, to truly “bear his name”…was a pagan? It wasn’t Moses; it wasn’t even an Israelite. It was a pagan priest who recognized a need and who had enough wisdom to see how to meet that need.
It’s another echo of what would come later. The church could have so easily been structured differently—how easy would it have been for them to say, “All pastors and leaders in the church must be of Jewish origin, even if the members of the church are not Jewish”? Jesus was Jewish; all of the apostles were Jewish; a mentality of ethnic superiority could easily have extended out beyond that group of men.
But it wasn’t. Those who were set up as elders in the churches were both Jewish and Gentile. It didn’t matter where they were from, but rather what they were like, their character.
This passage is so important for understanding what’s happened so far in the story, and what’s coming next. In the first half, we see a man representing the nations responding in faith to what God has done for Israel—the proper response to the wonders God displayed in chapters 1-17. And in the second half, we see this same man, from a foreign nation, integrally involved in preparing the people of Israel to live as God’s people, in chapters 19-40.
Conclusion
Now, surely this passage isn’t here only to orient us in the story; it’s not only a transition. No: this text establishes two great principles that still apply today.
Firstly: the grace of God to his people, and the people’s response to that grace, is meant to invite all peoples to faith in God.
The message of the gospel is of singular importance; there is no evangelism if the good news of Christ is not proclaimed by God’s people in such a way that those who hear it are able to understand.
But the proclamation of the message alone is not enough. God’s hand at work should be clear from what people see when they look at us, not just what they hear when we speak to them. That’s why it’s not enough for a pastor to be a good preacher, and faithfully speak the truth of the gospel; he must live in accordance with what he preaches. Otherwise, his preaching is dangerous, even if what he says is true.
This is what Jethro saw, even if it was before the law, so the image the people were meant to display wasn’t totally complete. Moses told Jethro what God had done; Jethro saw this new people gathered in the desert to worship the one true God—and he was convinced. He celebrated God’s works among his people and joined them for a meal in God’s presence.
And afterwards, he went back home. Our home group was wondering if that meant Jethro didn’t really have faith in God, because he didn’t stay with them. The text doesn’t give us that kind of information—but I don’t think so. Jethro’s return to Midian seems more like a missionary trip. We don’t know what kind of priest he was before, but given what he says in v. 10-12, I think it’s safe to assume what kind of priest he was after: a priest who returned to Midian to tell others of the one true God, the God of Israel. It’s an assumption, but I’m happy with it.
The grace of God to his people, and the people’s response to that grace, is meant to invite all peoples to faith in God. This is one reason I love our church. We have so many nations represented in our church—over forty, last time we checked. We are a larger-scale picture of what we see in Exodus 18. And this is why we’ve been speaking so much about missions lately: the mission Christ gave the church is incomplete as long as it is only focused inward. We won’t all go to foreign countries to preach the gospel; but the nations are the goal. God’s plans are not limited to one place or one time; they are universal, and they are eternal.
That’s the first thing. Here’s the second: we see that Moses had been shoe-horned into this role of judge over the people, and God used Jethro to show him, and everyone else, that Moses wasn’t up to the task. No one—not Moses or anyone—could be a judge of God’s people on their own. God is the Judge of his people; God gives and manages the law.
Moses’s inability to be the perfect Judge for God’s people reminds us that someone else would have to fill that role: Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the nations, is the perfect Judge Moses couldn’t be. He instructs us in God’s law and his character through his Spirit, and one day he will return to judge the living and the dead.
So our call, whoever we are, wherever we’re from, is to submit to him. To read his Word, and understand how he calls us to live. To listen to his voice, and obey what he tells us to do. And to trust that before he judges us, he himself was judged for us. He took our sin upon himself and received the judgment we deserve, the punishment we deserve for our sins, so that when he returns to render the final judgment, he can look at us and definitively declare that we are perfect—not because we are perfect, but because he was perfect for us.
Our perfect Judge reigns over us, guides us, and is returning for us. Let us bear his name well, and live in faith in him, and call the nations to that same faith.
