Leadership wisdom from outsiders
None of the complex questions about life have simple answers; we would just like it to be that way.
Some of the reasons Britain and South Africa down the years have dragged their feet on granting nations and peoples political power and/or independence were put something like this: "They aren't ready for it; they don't know how to exercise political power and independence." After all, "We made something out of these countries, invested our lives, toil, wisdom and made them prosperous—you can hardly expect us to allow people who know nothing about the exercise of authority or the running of a country to take over and bring it to ruin." That makes sense—of a sort.
"You should have seen this country when we came into it! You don't know the sacrifice our people made over the centuries to build this great state and nation so it's easy for you outsiders to say we should hand over the reigns of government to those who are incompetent and who benefited from us and our toil. We work to build and make it great, you tell us to hand it over?" That makes sense too—of a sort.
But nothing's that simple. How wise can we be if we don't raise up wise leaders from the people with whom we live? How shortsighted we are not to see that one day, if we don't give them a voice, in some honourable and wise manner, that they'll be sorely tempted to seize power from us? That people are not ready for independence or the honourable exercise of democratic and/or moral power may be because we did not prepare them for it.
A great leader was told he was well-intentioned but wrong and he recognised the truth of it (Ex 18:18; Deut 1:9-12). He was offered wise counsel and took it. With the cooperation of the people (Deut 1:13-15) he chose leaders who were competent, honest and devoted to God and the people. They shared the burden of government with him (Ex 18:22) and everybody benefited.
This is another section which makes it clear that Moses was no power-hungry tyrant. As soon as he realized the wisdom of the counsel, his love of the people and his recognition of his own limitations led him to implement it (18:24). He didn't feel he had to hog the power and would have been glad if the whole nation were prophets (Numbers 11:29). That wasn't just talk—which is easy—that was walk, as we can see from this section.
There's something else about this section worth noting. The wise counsel came from an "outsider". Precisely where Jethro stood with Yahweh isn't clear from these texts; but he could hardly have been an ignoramus since he would have heard from Moses down the years, since he was a descendant of Abraham and since he had heard the story of what Yahweh had done to Egypt. But he wasn't an Israelite! And what is a non-Israelite doing offering lessons on statesmanship to the leader of Israel?
God had more than one way of speaking to humans, more than one way to teach them. Sometimes it is done in what we call 'special revelation' and at other times it is done by what we call 'the school of hard knocks'. With special revelation as a basis we can then do some reasoning on and from nature (see this in Romans 1). With special revelation as background and realizing that all our good gifts come from God, we can go through life learning. The 'Wisdom' literature makes this clear to us.
Prov 1:8-9; 6:20 and other texts insist that we should listen to the teaching of our fathers and mothers. Much of what is in Proverbs is the kind of thing we learn by living. This too is the teaching of God. It is God who gives the farmer wisdom says Isaiah 28:23-29, esp.26,29. And do we think that means only Israelite farmers? Israelite fathers and mothers? When we pray for men and women in high office and ask God to bless them with wisdom, are we asking him to pour verses into their heads? Do we not pray for foreign rulers that they too might be influenced by God and his wisdom? Or do we ask wisdom only for our own? Compare 1 Tim 2:1-3.
It shouldn't surprise us that a Midianite priest (Reuel—"friend of El"), though an "outsider", had wisdom from God. Nor should it surprise us that many people in political office, though they have no personal relationship with Jesus Christ, have integrity and wisdom from God. What God would this be who is so grudging with his blessings? Everywhere we look, in every face we look, we see or have reason to believe we would see, God's gifts "strewn like sands upon the great seashore." Instead of denying their existence we ought to thank God for them and tell these gifted people who they should thank for their giftedness.
It is part of a great leader's character to acknowledge his or her debt even to those "outside". It's part of the humility of a great leader to allow himself/herself to be taught the wisdom of God by whoever has it. We have enough special revelation to work with, as a basis of judgement on what is or is not wise, but God didn't only give us a Bible, he gave us gifted people. outsiders as well as insiders.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, theabidingword.com.
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