Pivoting Towards Leadership Plurality
Leadership challenges related to growth
and maturity amongst God’s people are not a novel concept. As far back as 13th
to 14th BCE, Moses (prophet and leader of the Israelites) concluded,
on the advice of his father-in-law (Jethro), that the most effective way of
leading his people was through a plurality of leadership. The book of Exodus
provides the context of their exchange:
But Moses’ father-in-law said to him,
“What you are doing is not good. Surely you and these people with you will wear
yourselves out because the task is too heavy for you. You cannot handle it
alone. Furthermore, select capable men from among the people—God-fearing,
trustworthy men who are averse to dishonest gain. Appoint them over the people
as leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. So Moses chose
capable men from all Israel and made them heads over the people as leaders of
thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And they judged the people at
all times; they would bring the difficult cases to Moses, but any minor issue
they would judge themselves (Exod. 18:17-18, 25-26, BSB).
Moses was challenged, and relief was provided in the form of wisdom
from an observer. Walvoord and Zuck (1989) posit that Jethro urged a delegation
of responsibilities, but Moses was not to abdicate his responsibility to teach
the people. Relief would be achieved through a collaborative effort where Moses
would “appoint spiritually and morally qualified men as judges to implement the
keeping of the Law (Exod. 18:16, 20-21; Walvoord and Zuck, p. 136). Foundry
(2018) further describes how collaborative ministry greatly benefited the
people of God: Jethro recognized that the current system would fail, as the
workload was too heavy for Moses; the result was “the implementation of a
multi-tier judicial system of capable leaders with indispensable qualifications”
(p. 202).