The heart of the Book of Exodus is found in chapters 19–24, where God and Israel enter into a covenant in the wilderness of Sinai. Immediately before this pivotal moment, in Exodus 18, Moses reorganizes Israel by appointing leaders of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, entrusting them with the serious responsibility of judging the people on his behalf. What is interesting is that Moses did this based on the advice of his father-in-law, Jethro.
Why his father-in-law, of all people? Could it be that Moses’ wife had complained to her parents about her marriage, which may have been on the brink of collapse? Why did Moses have to send his wife and children back to his in-laws (Exod. 18:2–3)? Was it for their safety? Or was it because he could no longer cope with the frequent conflicts at home? One thing is clear from Exodus 18: even if Moses had lived with his wife and sons, he was in an environment where he had no choice but to neglect and sacrifice his family. If the structure was such that Moses alone had to handle all the disputes of a population of two to three million, the stress he endured is beyond imagination.
May is Family Month. Moses had no family. Ministry was everything to him. Do we, as pastors, truly have families? This is a true story from many years ago in Chicago. A teenage son repeatedly called the church, trying to share his struggles with his father, who was a pastor. Each time, the father ended the call by saying, “Son, you know I’m a pastor. I’m extremely busy taking care of the congregation right now. Let’s talk when I get home after work.” Eventually, the discouraged son called the church one last time and said, “May I speak with Pastor Kim, please?”
When did Moses not only regain his wife and sons—his family—but also begin to see fruit in his ministry? It was when he selected leaders to act on his behalf and delegated his work and authority to them. “Moses chose capable men from all Israel and made them leaders of the people—officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. They judged the people at all times; the difficult cases they brought to Moses, but the simple ones they decided themselves” (18:25–26).
According to scholars who study church growth, the structure of a growing church is one in which pastors lead, and laypeople do the ministry (see Eph. 4:11–12). Some say that if the essence of the sixteenth-century Reformation was taking the Bible out of the hands of the clergy and placing it into the hands of the laity, then the twenty-first-century Reformation is about taking ministry out of the hands of the clergy and placing it into the hands of the laity. When Moses did everything himself, not only Moses but even the people suffered (v. 18). Needless to say, his family must have suffered greatly as well. It seems significant that after the structure of ministry was changed in Exodus 18, Israel entered into a covenant relationship with God in chapter 19.
Church planters may say, “Please don’t talk about such luxuries. Even if I want to delegate, there are no mature people to whom I can entrust the work.” Just before Jethro exhorted Moses to select capable people from among the people and delegate his work and authority to them (v. 21), he said something that deserves careful attention: “You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him. Teach them the decrees and laws, and show them the way to live and the duties they are to perform” (18:19a–20b). Fully formed leaders with whom pastors can share ministry do not fall from heaven. They are produced through a pastor’s continual prayer and training of the congregation. Training baby Christians into mature leaders is the essence of pastoral ministry (Eph. 4:11–12). At the end of Matthew 9, Jesus asks his disciples to pray, “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Matt. 9:38). Then, at the beginning of chapter 10, the names of the disciples whom Jesus chose appear. Jesus trained them and sent them out, giving them “authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness” (Matt. 10:1). This was a delegation and the transfer of authority in his own ministry.
What makes delegation and the transfer of authority possible is prayer and thorough training. The day Moses truly became a leader was the day he entrusted ministry to capable leaders whom he had raised through prayer and training. At that point, he was also able to restore the family he had lost. As we observe Family Month, this is a core leadership issue pastors must reflect on. Moses stopped striving to be endlessly devoted at the cost of everything else and began to work effectively. His family was reunited, and his home became a place of joy. This is the birth of a true leader.