Exodus 18 is about Jethro’s visit with Moses. Jethro observes Moses judging the issues of the people from morning to evening, and he can’t believe what he sees! He questions Moses, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone...?” Moses replies, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God...and I make them know the statutes of God.” Jethro responds, “What you are doing is not good!”

So what exactly could NOT be good about Moses instructing the people about God’s will? It wasn’t WHAT Moses was doing that concerned Jethro. It was HOW he was going about it, namely, “alone!” Jethro keenly warns Moses, “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.” In other words, if Moses burns out emotionally and spiritually, and he will, the people will be hurt along with him!

Side lesson: You can do right things the wrong way and end up undoing all of them!

Jethro’s advice for Moses is simple: don’t do this alone! Surround yourself with “able men from all the people...who fear God” and let them assist you in the task of judging the people. The result is that Moses is still the visible, frontman. He still instructs the people in God’s law. However, he is not alone now. Spiritually mature and equipped men also care for the people’s spiritual instruction as well. In a very discerning conclusion, Jethro tells Moses, “It will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. 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.”

The benefits of a plurality of leadership in this text are clearly that the burden of leading the people is shared, God’s spokesman is enabled to endure, and the people are spiritually cared for.

Amazingly, one could easily switch a few names around in this narrative and find himself in the New Testament! Replace Jethro with Paul and Moses with Titus and you are in Paul’s epistle to Titus! Titus 1:5,9 “This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.” These elders were to “be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.”

Just as with Moses, these elders would share the load upon Titus to instruct God’s people in Crete. God’s design for the leadership of His people never changes!

When the design does change, we have changed it, and the results are never good! Whether we embrace a corporate model for the church or a weakened leadership model, such as deacons without elders, the consequences are the same. Eventually, the pastor/teacher will wear out in one way or the other. He will wear down physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. He will then become irritable, exhausted, frustrated, and impatient. His sermons will grow lacking. In the worse case, he will wear down morally. Usually then after bearing an unbearable load, he then has to bear the ridicule of those inside and outside the church. All of this could have, might have, been avoided. How? He wasn’t meant to bear it alone.

As a result, the congregation will suffer as well. They will suffer through mediocre sermons, a distant pastor, or worse.

For the sake of those whom God has called as pastor/teachers and for the sake of the church, let us adopt and embrace God’s design for leadership. None of our models of church polity will do - no matter if we “think” our church is doing just fine! If we are not following God’s plan, we are only robbing ourselves of His greatest glory among us!