Verses 1-3
Moses’ father-in-law might have advanced in his priestly office as the priest of Midian. In Chapter 2 he is referred to as a priest of Midian while verse 1 in this chapter refers to him as the priest of Midian. Perhaps that was why his title was used to refer to him in this chapter. According to the NIV study bible notes, Jethro may be a title meaning ‘his excellency’.
Moses’ equipping in the desert as a shepherd was for him to
learn how to administer after-care for the Hebrews
post deliverance from their Egyptian bondage.
Sheep are prone to wander and Moses had learned to deal with wayward
sheep. He had learned patience and
forbearance in dealing with them. That
gave him a foretaste of what it was like being leader of the Hebrews whose heart
always turned back to
Moses had also learned how to survive in the dreadful desert with its harsh living conditions. He had learned how to protect the young and the weak among the flock in a hazardous environment. Being shepherd of the flock had rendered him a tender and sensitive leader who was in tune with the weaknesses and failings of those who followed him. Leading the flock across a vast expanse of desert had honed his skills in attending to the needs of the flock under harsh conditions.
Moses’ father-in-law was owner of the flock and Moses was only a hired hand. Jethro had devoted himself to the sacred responsibilities as the priest of Midian. Consequently he delegated all the secular responsibilities of tending the flock to Moses and Moses received wages for tending the flock as a hired hand. Moses could not make major decisions concerning the flock without Jethro’s prior consent. He was held accountable to Jethro for how the flock fared under his care. If the flock suffered loss, Jethro would make Moses answer for it. He would not come among the sheep and goats and ask, “What have you done?” He would demand such an answer from Moses instead because as the shepherd goes, so goes the flock. If Moses could not come up with a satisfactory answer, Moses would have his responsibility taken away from him.
In the same way, if a company is not doing well, the board of trustees is not going to go down to the factory floor, grab a worker on the floor and ask, “What have you done?” They would instead go up to the top floor of the head office, knock on the CEO’s door and ask, “What have you done?” If he could not come up with a satisfactory answer, he would be let go. Whenever there is failure in an organization, those in the position of leadership are held accountable first and foremost, because as the leaders go, so goes the entire organization. You cannot separate the care of the shepherd from the welfare of the flock, nor the performance of the leaders of an organization from the welfare of the organization.
Forty years of tending someone else’s flock had instilled in Moses a sense of accountability and the notion of legitimate ownership. Moses had considered Pharaoh’s ownership of the Hebrew slaves illegitimate and so attempted to transfer the ownership to himself, with him as their ruler and judge. As mentioned in the study for the last chapter, God intended for the Hebrews to voluntarily submit to him when he had delivered them from their Egyptian bondage. There was therefore a conflict of interest between Moses and God concerning the Hebrews.
Moses’ problem was his failure to recognize that the Hebrews were God’s people, himself included. It had in part to do with Moses’ aristocratic upbringing that the ruling class had the say in everything concerning slaves. God was to him only some higher power he had hoped to garner for the deliverance of the Hebrews. Tending Jethro’s flock as a hired hand helped correct Moses’ attitude. He came to a more realistic understanding of his relationship to the Hebrews and God’s relationship to the Hebrews through his relationship to the flock and Jethro’s relationship to the flock.
Just as Jethro hired him to tend the flock for forty years, God was going to appoint him to be deliverer of the Hebrews and to care for them in the desert for forty years. Just as Jethro was owner of the flock, God was owner of the Hebrews. Just as Moses was accountable to Jethro for the flock, Moses was accountable to God for the Hebrews. If the flock suffered loss under Moses’ care, Moses would be responsible for it. If the Hebrews went astray under Moses’ care, Moses would be responsible for it. That is how it is with a hired shepherd and with someone appointed to the position of spiritual leadership. A hired shepherd is ultimately responsible for the welfare of the flock and a person appointed to the position of spiritual leadership is ultimately responsible for the welfare of the people under his care. Moses needed to get all these facts straight before God would appoint him to be deliverer of the Hebrews, so that they would be a people belonging to God and not to Moses.
It was surprising to see that a former prince of
Ac 7:22 Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.
Moses’ failure and his lowly position as a shepherd had so humbled him that he became speech impaired. It was compounded with his living in solitude while tending flock in the desert.
Jethro had a clean separation of the sacred and the secular. As can be seen in the last chapter he managed to stay away from the secular by having his daughters tend the flock while he performed the duty as a priest of Midian. He looked on the priesthood of Midian as of greater importance than a secular job such as tending flock. He was willing to subject his daughters to mistreatment by shepherds if only he could focus on his responsibilities as a priest. He could not have stayed away from the secular and focused on the sacred without the support of his daughters. By tending their father's flock these seven women relieved their father from the responsibilities of the head of the household so that he could fulfill God’s calling upon his life. Without these women taking on the responsibilities of the head of the household, Jethro would not have been able to set himself apart for God.
It was a high calling from God for Jethro
to put everything else in his life on hold and to devote himself to his service
to God. That arrangement demanded other people associated with him to
make sacrifice so that he could fulfill that calling. It was only through
the support and sacrifice of his daughters that he was able to maintain the
clean separation between the secular and the sacred. It took the sacrifice of other members in the
household for the head of the household to fulfill God’s calling upon his life.
The first half of Exodus 2:11 says,
Ex 2:11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor.
This was Moses’ description of his experience at the age of forty. The description of the circumstance under which he went out to where the Hebrews were suggests that he did so for the first time after almost forty years of living in Pharaoh’s palace, and that only after much soul searching. This can be corroborated by Acts 7:23 that says,
Ac 7:23 “When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites.
Please note that Moses put his experience at forty in
Chapter 2 side by side with his experience at eighty in Chapter 3 in order to
create a contrast. The description of his
experience at eighty suggests that he did not decide to lead the flock to Horeb only after forty years of tending Jethro’s
flock. Otherwise he would have used
similar expression in describing his experience at eighty as at forty.
Moses described himself going out to where his own people were as a result of having grown up. That he had grown up was described in the perfect tense. That single act marked a milestone of maturity in his life that he had reached after forty years of living. But he described himself as tending Jethro’s flock when he led the flock to Horeb. If it was the first time he was leading the flock to Horeb, Moses would have said that having tended Jethro’s flock for forty years, he finally led the flock to Horeb. That would have been similar to how he described his experience at forty. Instead he used the continuous tense for tending flock, showing that he led the flock to Horeb not as a result of having tended Jethro’s flock for forty years and finally getting a chance to go.
The use of the continuous tense also indicates the consistency with which Moses did what he did during those forty years of living in the desert. Its juxtaposition alongside his leading the flock to the far side of the desert and coming to Horeb suggests that he led the flock to Horeb with similar consistency. Leading the flock to Horeb was not the specific outcome of having tended flock for forty years as going out to where his own people were was the specific outcome of having grown up. So leading the flock to Horeb was of itself ongoing in Moses’ practice of tending flock.
Like his father-in-law Moses too had put his life on
hold. He had desired to be ruler and judge of the Hebrews; he could have
remained a prince of
Just as the sacrifice Jethro and
his daughters made in making his priesthood possible imbued Jethro’s
career as a priest with a sense of devotion, Moses' joyfully putting his life
on hold and his zeal for worshipping God imbued Moses’ career as a shepherd
with a sense of devotion. Tending flock in itself did not make it sacred;
in fact it was an abomination according to the Egyptian culture. It was
the devotion associated with it that made it sacred.
Unlike his father-in-law Moses integrated the secular with the sacred. While he worked a secular job as a hired
shepherd, Moses led the flock to Horeb, to the
Moses’ worship did not begin upon arrival at Horeb; rather it began when he embarked on the long
journey. Worship is a journey and not
merely arriving at the destination, a continuum and not just a series of
isolated special events. Arriving at Horeb was the culmination of the act of worship for Moses
in taking a long journey far away from the comfort of home and the bliss of
family. It was the long lonesome journey
that made coming to Horeb a
devotion on the part of Moses.
All that Moses could expect after a long arduous journey was nothing but
solitude on the
From Moses’ example we see that the notion of devotion permeates the life of a worshipper. However small or insignificant something might seem, a worshipper works at it with all his heart, as a matter of devotion to God. Devotion imparts meaning and purpose to even the most insignificant and mundane thing in life. It is the attitude of devotion of a worshipper that blurs the distinction between the secular and the sacred. No matter how small or insignificant something is, if it is done with a sense of devotion, it is an act of worship and is sacred.
On the other hand, no matter how sacred it might seem being the priest of Midian, if the duty thereof was not performed with a sense of devotion, it was not an act of worship and was not sacred. The office of priesthood did not make the function of the priesthood sacred; the devotion of the priest did. It is therefore not the nature of a task that makes the task sacred, but rather it is the attitude of devotion with which a task is performed that makes the task sacred. Even tending flock would become sacred and is no less sacred than the priesthood if it is done with a sense of devotion to God. Therefore being sacred is not about playing a certain role or doing certain things. Whatever we do as a devotion to God is sacred.
For that reason what a worshipper does is sacred because a worshipper sets out
to do everything he does, great or small, as a devotion to God. On the other hand a worker does not
necessarily do what he does entirely for God’s sake. Even though he may have accomplished a great
deal for God, he may not have done it as a devotion to God. A worshipper sets out to do things as a
devotion to God and that makes what he does sacred. A worker sets out to do things as a matter of
himself accomplishing something significant for God,
which does not make what he does sacred.
It is the motive of the person behind what he does that truly matters,
as we have already seen in Moses’ example in leading the flock to Horeb. Two people
can be doing the same thing, but what one does may be sacred and what the other
does may not be. Both may have
accomplished the same consequence, but in God’s sight they may be miles apart
because of the motive each has in what he does.
There is no distinction between the secular and the sacred when a secular job is used as a vehicle for worshipping God. Such devotion pleases God because it is motivated by the worshipper's desire to be wholly devoted to God, even in what is considered as mundane and secular. God uses the same measure to decide whether something is sacred or not regardless of whether the person is a priest or a lay person. It is the motive of the person in doing what he does that matters. In other words what a person does is sacred regardless of the nature of the work and the position the person is in, if the person's motive is for what he does to be devoted to God.
As a result of this blurring between the secular and the sacred, everyone is capable of sacred work to the extent of his devotion. Therefore we have no excuse to be spectators when it comes to doing the work of God since we are all capable of sacred work. It is a matter of whether we are willing to devote what we do to God or not, not whether we are capable of it or not. For that reason we will be held accountable for the way we live our lives because every situation in our lives can be a devotion to God if we are willing. Jesus used various parables to warn us about how we shall be judged. Our motives in doing things will be brought to light and we shall be judged according to what we have done and our motives behind doing it.
In the desert there is nothing much you can have and do. You can no longer boast about what you have and do in the name of God. You can no longer use God as the rallying point for your personal accomplishments. You can no longer derive your significance from what you claim to be doing for God. Your relationship with God or the lack thereof will be revealed. Your attitude toward God in the desert will truly reveal how much God is worth to you. The desert in a worker’s life is very revealing concerning his relationship with God.
Forty years before Moses appointed himself the agent of God
to fulfill the covenant God made with Abraham.
God was to him a higher power he attempted to harness for what he wanted
to accomplish among the Hebrews. When he
fled from
When a partner in a business relationship has been let down and there is no remedy for it, the natural outcome is the dissolution of the business relationship. Emotion would run high for one business partner who has to deal with the failure of the other to fulfill the terms of the partnership that have been agreed upon. If the business relationship remains, there must continue to be business dealings between the business partners. If further business dealings between them are not possible, there would no longer be a business relationship. It would be hard to imagine that a personal relationship that does not previously exist could come out of a failed business relationship where one business partner has been let down by the other.
That was exactly what Moses faced after he had fled to Midian. Now that his business relationship with God had been dissolved because God did not use him as the agent to fulfill the covenant God had made with Abraham, Moses’ natural inclination was to abandon his relationship with God and to turn his back on God. It would be unreasonable to assume that Moses would be able to initiate a personal relationship with God on his own after the letdown he had gone through. If he was able to initiate a personal relationship with God, Moses would have done so even while he was in a business relationship with God. The reality was that the letdown added even more hindrance to the formation of such a relationship. Why then was Moses so zealous in leading the flock to Horeb to worship God?
We can only speculate that Moses’ father-in-law might have been crucial in bringing Moses into a personal relationship with God. Had he been welcome into a family that had nothing to do with God, Moses might have terminated his relationship with God and fallen away. If he was indeed a friend of God as his name suggests, Reuel would have served as Moses’ example for building a personal relationship with God. He was not only Moses’ employer but also Moses’ mentor in matters pertaining to God. We don’t hear any conversation between Moses and his father-in-law. Moses must have learned from the way his father-in-law had lived his life. Though he was in a position to preach, his father-in-law was more inclined to lead by example. Besides it was hard to preach when the audience knew the preacher very well.
No one needs to learn how to cultivate a business relationship with God. We are idolatrous by nature and our natural inclination is that if you would bless me, I would worship you. That is the nature of the relationship between an idol and its worshipper; it is nothing more than a business relationship. Our inclination for such a relationship with God is deeply ingrained in our fallen human nature. But a personal relationship with God needs to be cultivated and we need examples for that. Moses provided an example for us while Reuel provided an example for Moses.
God put Moses in the desert not just for his own curiosity concerning what was in Moses; God also wanted Moses to see for himself the true nature of his relationship with God and the necessity for him to adjust his attitude toward God. God put Reuel in his path to assist him in making the proper adjustment. But ultimately it rested entirely with Moses what to make of his relationship with God now that he could no longer use God as a higher power for advancing his personal agenda. He fully understood that any relationship he had with God from that point on would no longer be a business relationship because there was no more business deal to be made in the desert between him and God. His business relationship with God had to be replaced with a more personal relationship. Otherwise there would be no relationship that could be spoken of, because a business relationship with God was simply not viable in the desert.
If he decided to have a personal relationship with God, Moses would have to put aside how he felt toward God for letting him down, when he had risked everything in abiding by God’s covenant. It was one thing to put aside his aspiration to be deliverer of the Hebrews; it was another to put aside how he felt toward God. Moses might be compelled to adjust to living in the desert and tending flock and yet harbored anger toward God. If he decided that he did not want to have anything else to do with God except to make business deals, Moses would have abandoned his relationship with God and turned his back on God.
The desert is therefore a place where relationship with God is afforded the opportunity to be transformed if it survives the desert, or abandoned if it doesn’t. It makes a worker’s relationship with God more personal and less businesslike if the worker is willing to adjust his business attitude toward God. Successful adjustment on the part of the worker ultimately leads to the worker being transformed into a worshipper. On the other hand failure to make the proper adjustment could lead to the worker’s abandonment of his relationship with God.
Moses turned out to be more than just a business partner with God and was considered by God to be a friend as we shall see later in this chapter. Moses was willing to put aside how he felt in his dealings with God. He was not businesslike and did not hold grudges against God regardless of how much letdown he had been put through. He abided by God’s covenant in risking everything, including his own life. He was willing to make self-sacrifice and give up his own rights for the benefits of others. He was always ready to help the oppressed. He was the kind of person God wants to have fellowship with. It had not been easy for Moses to become a friend of God. Moses had to give up much and was put through much trouble. It had taken forty years of persevering in the desert before God would finally reach out to him with an offer of friendship. God would take a long time to get to know a person before the person would be considered a friend of God.
We were created to be needy; we have legitimate needs to be satisfied. Satisfaction comes from having our needs met. Our drive for satisfaction manifests itself in our desire. Our desire will drive us in the direction of having our needs met. When we are relentlessly driven by our desire, it is the sign that we are not satisfied. Making an attempt to satisfy our need is a legitimate endeavor. But at one point we need to make a distinction between satisfying a legitimate need and pursuing above and beyond what we need in an attempt to find fulfillment.
We might have all our needs met and hence be satisfied, but we might not necessarily be fulfilled. We might have a happy family, a good-paying job, a comfortable house, a rewarding social life, a good reputation in the community, so on and so forth. We might be satisfied having all these, but we might not necessarily be fulfilled having all these. In other words fulfillment does not come from having all our needs met. It is legitimate to find satisfaction from what we do and what we have. But if we think that we can be fulfilled from what we do and what we have in this life, we would only be disappointed.
While satisfaction comes from having our needs met, fulfillment can only come from contentment. In fact we can be fulfilled even when we do not have all our needs met, as long as we are content. Contentment is a condition that is reached when we no longer crave something from the outside to satisfy us. When that happens, we find ourselves filled to the full with what we already have and what we already do - it is a matter of perspective. Without contentment we will never be fulfilled no matter how much we can find from outside of ourselves to fill us. Therefore being filled to the full has to come from within and not without. We can be fulfilled only when we are content. Contentment is the right way to be fulfilled.
Different people have differing levels of need to be met for satisfaction. Some require much while others little, with most falling in between. Some people live a very simple lifestyle and are satisfied; others live an expensive lifestyle and yet may have an insatiable appetite for more luxury. Some people are content being single; others are married and yet may want a better spouse. Some people live in solitude and are filled with joy; others are constantly in the company of friends and yet may feel empty and lonely. Some people are content with doing unimportant and insignificant things; others relentlessly seek greater and more important personal accomplishments.
When you are content, you are satisfied with what you already have and what you already do. You are fulfilled even though you do not have much and do not accomplish much. When you are not content, the more you already have, the more you will want, and the greater the personal accomplishments you have attained, the greater importance you will seek. You are not fulfilled even though you already have much and have accomplished much. People who are discontent cannot be satisfied.
People who are discontent have an ever-increasing appetite for satisfaction. They are like those who abuse drugs. Drug addicts need an ever-increasing supply of drugs to satisfy their cravings. You can say that drug addicts are an example of those who are discontent. On the contrary people who are content need a fairly constant level of satisfaction. Some may need a higher level, others lower, but people in either category are content because their need for satisfaction is consistent and not ever-increasing. They are not in bondage to, and not under the tyranny of, their ever-increasing appetite for satisfaction.
Being content does not mean that we would stagnate but rather that we would be driven by a different passion and no longer by our desire for what we want to do and what we want to have. On the other hand not all who are content have reoriented their passion. Some who are content might have no passion at all; they are content with the status quo and are not driven by anything - they are simply mediocre. They are examples of mediocrity with contentment. People who require a high level of satisfaction to be content are more likely to be mediocre. They are so consumed with pursuing their required level of satisfaction that they have little energy left for anything else. On the other hand people who require a lower level of satisfaction to be content have potentially more energy left over to devote his passion to something else. They are less likely to be mediocre among the content.
We can call our desire for what we want to do and what we want to have our innate desire because we were born with it. The biblical model for contentment prescribes the reorientation of the passion for fulfilling our innate desire to the passion for pursuing God. The Apostle Paul was an example of someone who underwent such a reorientation of passion. He said in Philippians 3:7-8,
Phil 3:7 But whatever was to my profit I
now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
Phil 3:8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ.
He described himself as having undergone a thorough transformation of his former way of life into a relentless quest for knowing Christ and gaining Christ. He had reoriented the passion for fulfilling his innate desire to the passion for pursing God.
Paul also said in Philippians 4:11-13,
Phil 4:11 I am not saying this
because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the
circumstances.
Phil 4:12 I know what it is to
be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of
being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether
living in plenty or in want.
Phil 4:13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
Paul was content with what he had in every situation, whether living in plenty or in want. He went on to say that he could do everything through him (Jesus) who gave him strength. What he could do was predicated on Jesus giving him the strength to, and with that he was content. We can see in Paul the fulfillment of what he said in 1Timothy 6:6,
1Ti 6:6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.
Godliness with contentment is the summary description of someone who has undergone the reorientation of his passion for fulfilling his innate desire to the passion for pursuing God. It is the biblical model for contentment and precludes any possibility of mediocrity. Rather than being lethargic a person who follows the biblical model for contentment pours his entire being into pursuing the greatest gain – God – in lieu of his innate desire for what he wants to have and what he wants to do by his own inclination. A person living such a lifestyle is anything but mediocre.
As Paul mentioned in Philippians 4:12, contentment is a learned trait. It is so because we cannot just brush aside our stubborn innate desire at will as we know so well. In fact acquiring the biblical trait of godliness with contentment is an ongoing learning process that takes a long time. It took Moses forty years in the desert to acquire it. Not only was time a critical factor for Moses’ learning process, but it also took the right kind of environment for its successful completion. It was against the backdrop of the desert that Moses acquired that biblical trait. The desert was critical in facilitating Moses’ learning process.
The desert is the place where everything is in short supply except for sand. There is not much that is available in the desert to fill you to the full, neither is there any spectacular personal accomplishment to be attained. Any previous pursuit of worldly passion would inevitably have to come to a halt when you take up residence in the desert. To adapt to the living condition in the desert one must learn to cope with chronic shortages. The desert is the ideal place where one learns to be content with the little one has and does. Of necessity contentment is the only viable option for someone living in the desert to be at peace with himself. Furthermore, since the pursuit of worldly passion is diminished in the desert, the pursuit of matters pertaining to God would potentially be afforded more opportunity to flourish, though that is still a personal choice. The desert can therefore be the classroom conducive to acquiring the biblical trait of godliness with contentment.
The beginning of this chapter painted a picture of Moses as having acquired that biblical trait after forty years of tending flock in the desert. Unlike forty years before when he was driven by his innate desire to deliver the Hebrews from bondage, he was now driven by his passion to lead the flock to the far side of the desert to worship God. That he was no longer driven by his innate desire did not result in his becoming totally lethargic. It did not result in a draining of passion on the part of Moses; rather it resulted in a reorientation of passion in him. Moses was simply content with what he already had and what he already did in the desert - worshipping God with a passion.
Moses’ passion was no longer doing some great thing among
men; rather it was worshipping God in anonymity and obscurity. His passion as a worker was replaced with his
passion as a worshipper. To worker Moses
delivering the Hebrew slaves from bondage was such a great personal
accomplishment that he was willing to give up the pleasures of
Formerly Moses used God as a higher power to attain his
personal aspiration. He made his
personal aspiration the center of his life and God was to revolve around
it. Thus Moses subordinated God to his
desire in his former way of life in
After forty years of tending flock in the desert, Moses had learned to be content as can be seen from his shrinking back from God’s command for him to go back to Egypt as deliverer of the Hebrews in the next chapter. If he was not content with tending flock in the desert, Moses would have jumped at God’s offer for him to do what he had considered to be the most fulfilling undertaking in his life. The reality was that Moses had learned to be content with leading the flock to Horeb to worship God; he no longer craved being the revolutionary leader of the Hebrew slaves.
With this change of passion something as insignificant and lowly as the job of a shepherd was enough to fill him to the full who had formerly desired to be the leader of a nation. So when God told him to assume leadership responsibility for the Hebrews, Moses no longer found it something that would fill him to the full as he had thought it would forty years before. In essence Moses had come to realize that it was not what he did that gave him fulfillment; rather fulfillment came from the contentment within. When he finally agreed to do God’s bidding in the next chapter, Moses was not doing it so much for the sake of seeking fulfillment in what he did as it was for the sake of doing God’s bidding. He no longer used doing God’s will as a means for personal accomplishment the way he had forty years before.
Thus Moses had made the leap from finding fulfillment from personal accomplishments for God to finding contentment in God. Previously he was discontent with being the son of Pharaoh’s daughter and so sought fulfillment from accomplishing great things for God. Moses hoped that his people would realize that God was using him to deliver them. On the surface it appeared that Moses was very much God-driven. In reality he was only using God as a means for personal accomplishments that would lead to what he considered a fulfilling life.
It was the same with Jesus’ disciples. They abandoned their secular jobs for what
they perceived to be a more fulfilling career in following Jesus. According to Peter they had given up
everything in following Jesus. On the
surface they appeared to be very much God-driven. God wanted to find out what was beneath the
surface of their zeal for God. God would
do that just as you would want to know if your spouse meant every word in the
marital vow when it was sworn. When
finally Jesus was arrested and crucified, his disciples thought that the
Messianic bubble had burst; their dream for significance in the
What was beneath the surface of their zeal for God was thoroughly revealed, not only to God but also to them. God intended for them to know the reality about themselves. It was a deeply emotional experience for them and was to become one of the motive forces behind what they would do for the rest of their lives. Only John among them was at the foot of the cross when Jesus was dying. All the other disciples felt guilty about it that they saw martyrdom to be their way of demonstrating their devotion to Jesus. Perhaps John was not martyred because he did not feel the same way as the other disciples did. Jesus’ disciples today are no different from Jesus’ disciples two thousand years ago. Today some of them still claim to be doing great things for God’s sake but only God knows what is beneath the surface of their zeal for God.
In the same way Moses had his dream shattered when he fled
from
Moses was zealous for God no longer for the sake of personal accomplishments; he was zealous for God just for the sake of God. God found that sweet just as you would find it sweet for your spouse to mean every word in the marital vow when it was sworn. Why don’t you start treating God as a feeling and sensitive person instead of using him as your means to personal greatness and fulfillment? If you know how to treat your spouse right and yet treat God like an idol, you are guilty.
God knows all things. He knows whether we are seeking fulfillment from personal accomplishments for God or whether we are being content with him. He tests us because he wants us to know what lies beneath the surface of our zeal for him. The test furnished a different outcome for Moses than for the disciples. For Moses it was an affirmation of his consistent devotion for forty years; for the disciples it was an indictment that quickly and completely blew their cover off. Both parties were shown to be exactly what they were. Moses did not give God any promise of allegiance but his zeal for God did not fail in the desert. The disciples gave Jesus their promise of allegiance but they abandoned him at the cross. Moses was not aware of God’s commendation for him until forty years later. The disciples were ashamedly aware of Jesus’ assessment of them rather quickly.
Again it shows that good inner quality requires a long span of time and consistent demonstration to be legitimate while less-than-desirable quality takes no time to be revealed. God wants us to take the time to groom our genuine devotion to him and to face up to our hypocrisy; he wants us to quickly deal with the discrepancy between our claim of devotion and the reality of our empty promise of allegiance. He wants us to see that we appear to be devoted to God, but beneath the surface we are self-serving and are using God for our personal gains.
Both Moses and Jesus’ disciples had their devotion to God strengthened when the reality of their devotion to God was revealed and recognized. Both parties were initiated into service to God because of their strengthened devotion. God does not initiate into his service only those who have been consistently showing devotion even in adverse situations; God also initiates into his service those whose devotion he could strengthen through their failure. The failure of the disciples turned out to be the best preparation for service in their circumstance. Ultimately the disciples did not shrink back from death though they had abandoned Jesus at the cross.
One party is not better than the other and one party is not
more valued by God than the other. In
fact Moses disobeyed God not long before he died and was not allowed to enter
It does not matter which category you belong in, there are
biblical examples for you to follow. The
Apostle Paul was yet another example of those who stumbled early but yet
demonstrated profoundly consistent devotion to the end. The only disciple who demonstrated unfailing
devotion from beginning to end was the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus
loved. In scriptures John always
conscientiously played second fiddle to those apostles who wanted to be
first. He was not driven to do
significant things for God in order to be significant because he knew he was
significant to God without all the personal accomplishments for God. He was secure in Jesus’ love for him and
there was nothing that could cause him to stumble. He was a child in God’s bosom and found his
significance in his being and not in his doing.
On the other hand it is clear that John has more direct impact on the
church down through the ages than the other leading apostles in
Workers who are not worshippers might appear to be zealous for God, but beneath the surface they are discontent and constantly strive to find fulfillment from personal accomplishments for God. They are in danger of stumbling because they may not be anchored in Jesus’ love for them. They strive to find significance in the things they do for God; they could easily stray away in adverse circumstances. So here is a pragmatic reason for workers who are invariably pragmatic to consider learning to be worshippers and to find contentment in God alone.
Mediocrity with contentment and godliness with contentment
are the two opposing themes among the content.
They are distinct from the discontent as the content. Moses was an example of godliness with
contentment. Those Israelites who came
out of
In Chapter 2 Moses was seen to be full of zeal in abiding by God’s covenant. In this chapter he was full of zeal in leading the flock to the far side of the desert to worship God for forty years, all without a single word from God. Hebrews 11:27 has this to say about Moses:
Heb 11:27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.
Somehow Moses was able to see God though God was invisible. He was a man driven by sight in what he did, yet he was most profoundly driven by what he could not physically see, and that for forty years in the desert. Moses was different from other biblical characters in that he took the initiative on his own to risk everything for God’s covenant without any prodding from God. Others were called by God, but Moses sought God out on his own initiative. He approached God instead of waiting for God to approach him.
In that regard Abraham was very different from Moses. It was always God who took the initiative to talk to Abraham, from initiating him to come to Canaan to demanding Isaac for a burnt sacrifice. Though Abraham had to be prodded by God all the time, he would always obey and would do exactly what God told him. The moment he heard from God, he would do it exactly as God had commanded. We can characterize the way Abraham conducted himself as obedience to God.
Regardless of Moses’ zeal for God, when God took the
initiative to approach Moses, Moses wanted to run away and refused to obey
God’s command for him to go back to
Abraham was on track in his journey of faith until he became impatient with God’s delay in making good the promise to give him a son. It was then that Abraham began to seek to do God’s will according to his own way. Doing God’s will according to his own way was at one point a problem for Abraham too even though it was not in his normal inclination to do so. So whether it is those who always have a tendency to obey God or those who always have a tendency to do God’s will according to their own way, doing God’s will one’s own way is a common problem for all.
Abraham needed God to prod him along every step of the way throughout life until he finally figured out that God wanted him to dismantle all the significant relationships in his life so that his descendants could become nations. It was then that he took the initiative on his own to send his other sons away from Isaac to the land of the east. So Abraham finally learned to take the initiative to do what God wanted him to do after a whole life of receiving prodding from God.
Unfortunately for Moses he failed to do God’s will according to God’s way even after forty years of doing God’s bidding in the desert - he was too stubborn to overcome his shortcomings. Usually people would manage to overcome their shortcomings toward the end of their biblical career, but Moses was an exception. Unlike Abraham who learned his lesson toward the end of his life, Moses did not. Moses was faithful in all God’s house but not necessarily obedient.
Moses might be obedient to God’s calling on his life to shepherd the Israelites; he was not necessarily obedient in the way he answered that calling. There is a difference between being obedient to God’s calling and being obedient in the way we answer that calling. The former has to do with doing God’s will; the latter has to do with doing God’s will according to God’s way. The latter is much harder and takes a longer time to attain. In the case of Moses it was a struggle to the very end. So having great zeal for doing God’s will like Moses is not necessarily an indication of great zeal for doing it according to God’s way. Abraham was by far a better example of obedience than Moses in doing God’s will and in the way he did it.
For people who are always obedient in doing God’s bidding, they need to learn to take the initiative on their own to do God’s will without being told to - lack of zeal in taking the initiative on their own is their problem. Abraham might have much zeal in getting up early in the morning to offer Isaac. But that was his zeal in obeying God and not his taking the initiative on his own to do God’s will. For people who are always zealous for God, they need to learn to submit to God - doing God’s will according to their own way instead of God’s is their problem. Like Moses they might find themselves struggling with that problem to the very end. But they should learn from Moses’ example and surrender their stubbornness to God.
Verse 2 says that the angel of the LORD appeared to Moses in flames of fire in a bush. Verse 4 says that God called him from within the bush. It is therefore legitimate to say that the angel of the LORD is God himself. Some say that the angel of the LORD is the Old Testament manifestation of Jesus. That is a legitimate claim because the Father always sends the Son. That is to say, the Father does not leave heaven; the Son does in doing the Father’s bidding. The angel of the LORD is sent by God to do God’s bidding. The angel of the LORD as God himself came down to earth to have a conversation with Moses. The angel of the LORD must therefore be Jesus himself.
Moses did not seem dismayed by the long stretch of desert he and the flock had to cross in coming to Horeb. Not only did Moses learn how to survive the harsh conditions in the desert, but he also learned how to care for the flock in the desert for forty years. Since he was alone in caring for the flock, Moses must be particularly vigilant in watching over it in order to avoid losses and to keep it intact. Forty years of taking care of the flock instilled in him a sense of responsibility for its welfare that had become deeply ingrained. That prepared him for the task of taking care of the Israelites in the desert for the subsequent forty years.
The long journey through the desert separated Moses from
human community; he would be dealing with sheep and goats only and would have
no human contact for long periods of time.
It was on one of those journeys to the far side of the desert most
distant from society that God appeared to Moses. According to the NIV footnote Horeb means “desert”.
Therefore Moses had come to a desert that was on the far side of the
desert. Horeb
was a most deserted place and a place the exact opposite of
Moses must have been to Horeb on
numerous occasions and was familiar with the place. Familiarity breeds contempt, so it is said,
and can make coming to the
Moses must have watched the burning bush for a while and was surprised by its tenacity to last. He would not have recognized that it was a strange sight until he had watched it long enough. At first glance even a supernatural event could look mundane and regular. It was when it had stood the test of time that it stood apart from what was truly mundane and regular. Sometimes what is supernatural about something is in its persistence and tenacity to last totally out of expectation. Unless we are keen in observation, we might miss some of the miraculous events that are taking place around us.
Moses’ curiosity about the burning bush drove him to go over to take a look up close. There was similar curiosity in his adopted mother eighty years before about the basket among the weed in which Moses was put. She was curious about it enough that she had it brought to her. There was similar curiosity in Moses forty years before about his own people that he went out to where they were to watch them at their hard labor. Curiosity seems to have played a significant role at critical moments in Moses’ life.
Verses 4-6
When he had Moses’ attention fixated on the burning bush, God called to Moses from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” In response Moses said, “Here I am.” Genesis 22:1 says,
Ge 22:1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied.
Because Abraham was given to hearing God’s voice, God drew Abraham’s attention by speaking to him. Because Moses was driven by sight, God drew his attention with a burning bush first and then called to him from within the bush. Since he was in the habit of taking the initiative to approach God, God provided the occasion for Moses to take the initiative to approach the burning bush where God appeared. God was aware of the individuality of each and dealt with each accordingly. Regardless of their individuality Abraham and Moses responded to God the same way by saying, “Here I am.”
Had Moses been given to hearing God’s voice, God would have simply spoken to him too without the need for a strange sight. It was when Moses was approaching the burning bush that God called out to him. As for Abraham, God simply spoke to him to get his attention before commanding him to offer up Isaac. Had God called out to Moses without a strange sight, Moses might not have heard God and given God his attention. God called Moses’ name twice just in case he did not hear it if said only once. Moses was not as given to hearing God’s voice as Abraham was since God could capture Abraham’s attention with none other than his spoken words. It was especially a problem for Moses since he was alone in the desert away from society and spoken words should have easily captured his attention.
In the last chapter Moses made no attempt to hear from the Hebrew slaves how they felt about their enslavement. In the same way Moses made no attempt to hear from God in regard to the matter. When God called to him from within the burning bush, it was the first time God had ever spoken to Moses. Without using a strange sight, God could not have captured his attention by simply speaking to him. We can draw some conclusion about the way Abraham and Moses conducted themselves based on their readiness to hear God’s voice. Abraham tended to be obedient and zealous in doing God’s bidding because he was given to hearing God’s voice. Moses tended to go off in a tangent on his own because it was not his customary practice to hear God’s voice. He was zealous for God in his own individualistic way without deferring to God.
It was easy for Moses to respond to God by saying, “Here I am.” But when God began to place a demand on his life, he refused to obey as can be seen in the next chapter. It was rather irrelevant what Moses said to God in response, it was how he acted in response that truly mattered. For someone who is not given to hearing God’s voice, obedience might be in short supply.
God knew Moses by name because God had been watching Moses
for forty years starting when he went out to where his people were to watch
them at their hard labor. Because he was
concerned about the Hebrews, Moses went out to where they were to watch
them. In a similar fashion Moses was
zealous for God and took the flock to the far side of the desert, to the
When God calls a person by name, it indicates that God has sought to know the person and has watched him for a while. In Moses’ case God had watched Moses in the desert for forty years. In Abraham’s case God had watched him in Canaan for ten years. God said in the second half of Genesis 15:1,
Ge 15:1 “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”
Abraham had reached a milestone of his obedience after ten years of obeying God and living in Canaan. God was appreciative of it and for the first time called Abraham by name. Moses had demonstrated unfailing zeal for God in the desert for forty years. God was appreciative of it and for the first time called Moses by name and spoke to him.
On the other hand, for God to know a person by name does not
necessarily imply that God is in favor of the person. Saul of Tarsus was traveling on the road to
Ac 9:4 “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
God called Saul by name when Saul was an archenemy of God. God had watched Abraham for ten years and Moses for forty before God would call them by name. God had watched Saul for a relatively short period of time and already called him by name because Saul was evil.
Consistency is the backbone of good quality. Good quality is not an occasional or incidental manifestation of virtue. Rather it manifests itself in the continuum of the devotion of a worshipper. Though he is capable of demonstrating good quality, a worker fails to demonstrate the consistency of his good quality. It is so because God will test him to the extent that he fails to persevere so that he would learn that reality about himself. Learning about our shortcomings is the first step toward overcoming them.
After ten years of obeying God and living in Canaan, Abraham wanted to receive some tangible benefits from God by way of having a son rather than just hearing promises from God that never seemed to materialize. God purposely delayed fulfilling what he had promised to the extent that Abraham could no longer contain his frustration. With his frustration spilling over, the attitude of worker Abraham plunged to the bottom and went off to do God’s will his own way. Thus he failed to establish the continuum in the devotion of a worshipper even after ten years of perfect obedience and strong showing. Abraham was in a spiritual stupor from the time Ishmael was born to the time Isaac was born. He did not recognize his shortcoming for well over a decade until the time of Isaac’s birth.
On the other hand it takes a relatively short period of time for evil to erupt into a humongous proportion and to establish its undeniable presence. Such was the situation with Saul of Tarsus. But just as quickly as evil erupted, transformation was wrought. On the road to Damascus God turned Saul, a worker of inequity, into Paul, a worker of the gospel. God worked a miracle and Saul started preaching the gospel within a matter of days. It appears that it does not take a tremendous amount of time for someone to turn from being a worker of inequity to being a worker of the gospel.
God spoke personally to Abraham and dangled a carrot of tremendous promise in front of him and Abraham immediately became a worker. God revealed Nebuchadnezzar’s dream to Daniel and Daniel immediately became a worker. Moses was an exception that God did not use a miracle to turn him into a worker - Moses was already a worker by nature because of his zeal for God. God would not hesitate to make a worker instantaneously through miracles, but God could not work a miracle to make a worshipper.
It took Moses forty years to become a worshipper. It took a similar amount of time for Abraham, taking into account the fact that Isaac was born after Abraham had lived in Canaan for twenty years and that Isaac was offered when he was a teenager. And it took Daniel about six decades to become a worshipper. In other words miracles are no substitute for the developmental process of a worshipper. While the making of a worker can be quickly precipitated by a miracle, the making of a worshipper is a long drawn-out process that takes decades. There is simply no miracle God could work to rush the making of a worshipper within a short time because consistency over a vast span of time is the backbone of good quality, the continuum in the devotion of a worshipper.
God gave Moses a long-standing test of forty years and Moses was not aware of it. The reality is that every single circumstance in the life of a believer is a test from God. God is constantly assessing the depth and width and height of our inner person. But we may not be inclined to take it that way because we don’t want to face up to the reality that is within us. It does not matter how much we know the bible or how much we have accomplished for God, the outcome of the tests God puts in our path is the exact gauge of what we really are. Unfortunately for us, we tend to seek merits in knowing the bible and doing things for God instead of accepting God’s assessment of the reality of our inner person.
A worshipper tends to stand a better likelihood of passing God’s tests for him because he is more mindful of every single situation in his life being a devotion to God. A worker tends to invest his time and effort in great and important things that he neglects the small and unimportant things. The reality is that it is in small and unimportant things that God gets to know us. Moses tending flock in the desert for forty years was an example of lowly and unimportant things that God used to plow the depth and width and height of Moses’ inner person. Because a worshipper is also a worker, the definitive test that distinguishes a worshipper from a worker is whether he is mindful of every single situation in his life being a devotion to God. A person who takes such an approach to living his life is a worshipper whom God knows.
God was introducing himself to Moses and wanted Moses to get to know him. The first thing God wanted Moses to know about God was his holiness. To be holy is to be set apart. Being God is being set apart from everything else. And where God is, that becomes holy ground. Moses might have come to Horeb on many occasions. But on this occasion it was holy ground because God was there.
Before the conversation proceeded in earnest God set down the boundary between him and Moses. Moses needed to know the protocol in approaching God and in coming into his presence - he must not get too close and must put aside what was unclean. In other situations in the Old Testaments, when people got too close to God and looked, they were not warned and they were struck dead. They were not warned because they came uninvited. But here God warned Moses because God invited Moses into his presence.
After forty years of tending flock in the desert, Moses had given up the idea of delivering the Hebrews from their Egyptian bondage. His passion was dissipated like a natural bush that was burnt up by fire and no longer there. But a natural bush would not burn up at all even in desert climate if God was in it. Though Moses had used God as the rallying point to rescue the Hebrews forty years before, God was not in that particular rescue attempt. So it dissipated by itself and amounted to nothing. But when he came closer to the burning bush, Moses realized that the bush had not burnt up because God was in it.
God not only said that he was the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, but also that he was the God of Moses’ father. In saying that God made it clear that he had not stopped being the God of the Hebrews though he might seem to have forgotten them. On hearing that he was the God of his forefathers, Moses hid his face and was afraid to look at God. Moses was at a point as close to God as God would allow. He came face to face with God and was afraid.
Verses 7-10
God told Moses about his seeing the misery of the Israelites, hearing their crying out because of their slave drivers and being concerned about their suffering. It was God’s own testimony of his compassion for the Israelites. Driven by compassion he had now come down to rescue them. God’s words reminded Moses of what happened forty years before; God was describing how he felt and what he was going to do in a way that Moses could easily identify with. Moses too had seen the misery of the Israelites and had been concerned about their suffering and had left Pharaoh’s palace to rescue them. God had on his mind what Moses had had forty years before concerning the Israelites, except that Moses made no attempt to listen to them the way God did.
Moses did not assess the state of mind of the Israelites before he attempted to rescue them; he had ignored their sentiments for the most part. Had he made an attempt to listen to them, Moses would not have heard any cry for help because they had not reached the point where they became desperate in their enslavement. Being totally ignorant about their state of mind, Moses failed miserably in the way he reached out to them. He made the subjective judgment that the Israelites must long for deliverance based on the misery he saw among them. But he failed to make an objective judgment of their sentiments by listening to them the way God did.
When he saw a situation of injustice, Moses would immediately seek to rescue the oppressed. God too would provide the rescue but not necessarily immediately. God would check if the oppressed wanted to be rescued by listening to and gauging the sentiments of the oppressed first. That was a more balanced way of providing rescue. When God told Moses what he was going to do for the Israelites, God did not say that it was because the covenant had come due. In fact the covenant was thirty years overdue. Rather God said that he had seen the misery of the Israelites and had heard their cry for help. That was the reason he was going to bring to fulfillment the covenant. Not hearing their cry for help was the reason why he had delayed fulfillment of the covenant for thirty years. It was also the answer for the question Moses had been pondering for forty years as to why God did not fulfill his covenant.
Unlike Moses God did not just make a subjective judgment of the misery of the Israelites when he saw it; he also confirmed it by the objective judgment of hearing their cry for help. Until they cried out for help, God would not be able to help the Israelites. God had certainly seen their misery, but until they considered themselves needing help, God was not in a position to help them, not even when God had promised to help them. God would fulfill his promise only when they wanted it fulfilled. Not even with the sovereignty of God would God impose his will on the Israelites. God would not rescue them just in the name of doing them good, nor just for the sake of fulfilling the covenant made with Abraham.
So God did not strictly go by the terms of the covenant in dealing with the Israelites. The terms of the covenant alone did not compel God to bring to its fulfillment according to the timeline specified. In fact the terms of the covenant got overruled by the lack of anticipation of fulfillment of the covenant among the Israelites even though the covenant had come due. Essentially what was not mentioned in the covenant overruled what was. The covenant was observed more by the spirit of the covenant than the terms of the covenant.
Compassion brings forth participation. God was fair to the Israelites in demanding their participation in the covenant - he showed compassion for them by coming down from heaven to rescue them in response to their cry for help. Participation was a reciprocal requirement for the fulfillment of the covenant. God had offered the covenant to the Israelites; it awaited their proper response before God would do what he had promised. Even though the covenant was an entitlement from God, the Israelites needed to participate in it. An entitlement without any requirement for its beneficiary to participate in it corrupts the beneficiary and creates an attitude of 'laziness'. The beneficiary must participate in it and work at it. That was the attitude and heart condition God was looking for among the Israelites.
It is not just with this particular covenant; it is the same with our salvation. Jesus used the parable of the five wise and five foolish virgins to warn us against the attitude of non-participation, laziness and lack of anticipation for the bridegroom. An attitude of anticipation creates a sense of urgency for participation. By anticipating the possibility that the bridegroom might be late in coming, the five wise virgins began to participate in the process of waiting for the bridegroom, i.e., buying oil in advance. Waiting for the bridegroom was not at all a passive state of doing nothing until the time the bridegroom came; rather anticipation of his coming engendered the participation of getting ready for receiving him in a way that celebrated his coming. Jesus was not stipulating the exact participation; rather he was fomenting a sense of anticipation. With anticipation would come the proper participation for the situation at hand. For the five wise virgins it was buying oil in advance.
On the contrary the five foolish virgins had no sense of anticipation at all. Consequently they had no participation and did not buy any oil. When the bridegroom came, their lamps were out and they could not receive him in a way that celebrated his coming. Ultimately they were shut out of the banquet, i.e., heaven. You see, if these ten virgins were all guaranteed admission to the banquet regardless, all ten of them would have no anticipation of the bridegroom's coming. They would have no urgency for participation by way of buying oil in advance. And they would have no meaningful way of receiving the bridegroom and celebrating his coming when he showed up.
That is the problem of entitlement without participation. It is the same with salvation. If we are all guaranteed eternal life the moment we pray the sinner's prayer, we are given an entitlement without participation. We would have no anticipation of Jesus' return. Consequently we would not make preparation for his return by participating in what he has entrusted to us. When Jesus returns, we would have no way of receiving him and celebrating his coming. We would be shut out of heaven like the five foolish virgins were shut out of the wedding banquet.
Salvation as an entitlement without participation is false doctrine that has robbed many of their eternal life. Some people call it fire insurance against hell. On the contrary the Apostle Paul told us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. He was implying that salvation is not an entitlement without participation; we need to work at it lest we lose it. We work at it with fear and trembling not because we are afraid that we might lose it if we do not work at it hard enough, but because we might become arrogant in our position and our anticipation begins to wane. Lack of anticipation would deprive us of participation and ultimately spell our downfall. Jesus’ parable gave us a better understanding of salvation that it is not an entitlement without participation. Some people might argue that Jesus would never lose a single sheep because he is the good shepherd. But the reality is that Jesus does not want anyone to be his sheep if he does not prepare for his return.
With anticipation we will have participation of various kinds depending on the circumstance. A more concrete representation of participation is that we would bear fruit. Bearing fruit is how we participate in salvation. Entitlement without participation obviates the need to bear fruit. It repudiates the notion of repentance because repentance is a life-long labor of subordinating our desires to God. Entitlement without participation bypasses repentance and short-circuits fruit-bearing.
Salvation as an entitlement without participation is a false doctrine many have based their lifestyle on. They think that they have a fire insurance policy against hell when they are finished with their sinner's prayer. Many will perish in hell for buying into the belief that their fire insurance policy gives them the best of both worlds - the pleasures of this world and the security of eternal life in the one to come. They have made a confession of belief but they have eliminated repentance and fruit-bearing in their lives. They cannot inherit eternal life without participation in these as indicators of faith. It is a strange notion that they want to have no participation in God’s plan for them in this life and yet they want full participation in God’s plan for the life to come. The bible tells us how to live this life in preparation for the next and yet they choose to ignore it, thinking that they could inherit the life to come without proper participation in the present one. How convenient!
We can look at the covenant God made with Abraham in the same way that it was not an entitlement without participation. The covenant according to its terms was an entitlement without participation - it did not specify any kind of participation on the part of the Israelites. But God had made it clear that he was going to bring to fulfillment the covenant because he had heard the cry of the Israelites. In other words he would not bring to fulfillment the covenant until the Israelites anticipated it and hence wanted to participate in it. The purpose of the covenant was to introduce the God of Abraham to the Israelites. If they had no anticipation of God rescuing them, God was not going to unilaterally rescue them since then they would not be appreciative of what God had done for them. But if they wanted to be rescued and began to anticipate the rescue God promised in the covenant, they would gladly enter into a covenant relationship with God when God had rescued them.
Anticipation of the Israelites was essential because God was going to establish a covenant relationship with them through fulfillment of the covenant. Being rescued from slavery was not all there was in God’s promise for them; it was God’s design that they should joyfully enter into a covenant relationship with him after the rescue. Their rescue was just their entry point into that relationship. As with any meaningful relationship there must be a desire on both parties to maintain the relationship for it to flourish. Their desire to receive God’s promise was a step in the right direction. God was using the rescue to lead them in the direction of entering into a covenant relationship with him.
It is the same with our salvation that God demands to see our desire to be rescued from the fire of hell before he would rescue us. Our receiving God’s offer of salvation through Jesus is not the end but rather the beginning; it is the inauguration and formation of our relationship with God afterwards that truly matters in our salvation. On Judgment Day God is not going to give eternal life to those who profess to have received his offer of salvation at one point in their earthly lives. Rather God is going to give eternal life to those who have entered into an ongoing relationship with him upon receiving the offer of salvation. Receiving God’s offer of salvation is the entry point into that relationship. It is through that relationship that we are ultimately saved because we cannot be saved without a relationship with God.
People who look at salvation as a fire insurance policy might have expressed their desire to be rescued from the fire of hell, but they fall short of entering into an ongoing relationship with God. They will perish for lack of a relationship with God even though they profess to have accepted God’s offer of salvation at one point in their earthly lives. It is our relationship with God that ultimately saves us from the coming destruction and that is absolutely indispensable for salvation. Our receiving God’s offer of salvation amounts to nothing if we do not enter into a relationship with God as a result.
God referred to himself as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. That reference immediately brought up the subject of God making a covenant with Abraham to rescue his descendants from slavery. It was in accordance with the covenant that God had now come down from heaven to rescue them. He was appointing Moses as the human agent and sending him to their rescue. The street bully in the last chapter was questioning Moses as to who made him ruler and judge over the Hebrews. Moses had nothing to say in reply because he was self-appointed. By appointing himself agent of the rescue he was usurping God’s authority. It was God who made the promise to rescue the Israelites and it was God who initiated their rescue. No human agent can do it with his own initiation. No human agent can bring to fulfillment God’s covenant on his own because it would take miracles to do it. Just as God sent Moses to rescue the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage, God sent his Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins in order to delver us from bondage to sin. Only God was in the position to send his agent to rescue his people from bondage.
If it takes miracles to bring about the rescue, why then is there the need for a human agent? Why did God not just work the miracles and the Israelites would simply be rescued? There needed to be an association of miracles with God so that those who benefited from the miracles would get to know God. The human agent would be testifying to who God is – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. When he worked the miracles on behalf of God, the miracles confirmed the human agent’s testimony about God.
Forty years before Moses took to the streets to deal with
the Israelites in an attempt to rescue them.
This time God was sending him to Pharaoh to bring the Israelites out of
Not only was God compassionate toward the Israelites for
their misery, but he was going to be gracious to them and give them the
Joseph was providing a similar service to Pharaoh. Joseph took care of the Egyptians during the seven years of abundance and during the seven years of famine. The seven years of abundance gave Joseph glory and honor, power and fame. But the seven years of famine were treacherous for him because the Egyptians threatened him. In the same way rescue of the Israelites gave Moses glory and honor, power and fame, but the subsequent forty years of wandering in the desert were treacherous for Moses. From collecting grain for Pharaoh to reducing the Egyptians to servitude to Pharaoh Joseph was not derelict of his responsibility. He was faithful in all Pharaoh’s house and Moses was going to be faithful in all God’s house. The same could be said of the Apostle Paul. Paul did not just evangelize, plant a church and then leave it to its own devices. He was also concerned about its growth.
God mentioned ‘I’ seven times in sending Moses to bring the
Israelites out of
God was not lethargic but had now come down to rescue them in response to their cry. God used ‘I’ many times also to tell Moses that the initiative to rescue the Israelites had to come from God. The human agent would have to wait for God’s appointment before he went about the rescue. God is a person and not just some higher power Moses could garner for executing his personal agenda. God is not politically correct in that he would succumb to people’s accusation that he is inhumane or cruel or lacking in compassion, and that he would conform to people’s expectation.
Before he would do anything for the Israelites, God wanted them to know that he was driven by his compassion for them. Through what he was going to do for them and give them, God wanted them to come to an understanding of God’s person that he was compassionate and gracious. If the Israelites would worship God simply because of what he did for them and gave them, God would be nothing more than an idol. God’s intention was for the Israelites to come to an understanding of his personhood through what he was going to do for them and give them. God’s expression of his personhood was manifest in the seven statements of ‘I’ that he made about himself in introducing himself to Moses. The purpose was for the Israelites to learn to worship God because of God’s personhood and not just because of what God did for them and gave them. That was how God wanted the Israelites to distinguish him from an idol.
An idol is considered to be some sort of vending machine that the moment you furnish the right input, you will get what you are seeking. Interaction with an idol is rather mechanical and a worshipper is not dealing with an entity with personhood. The rule is that as long as you worship me, you will get what you want. There is no personhood of an idol that a worshipper would need to know about. On the other hand getting to know the personhood of God is the basis for forming an emotional bonding with him for who he is. The emotional bonding is bidirectional as in a personal relationship. What God does for us and gives us is intended for us to get to know the personhood of God – his mercy and grace – in order to build up our personal relationship with him.
On the contrary there is no personal relationship between an idol and its worshippers though there is a business relationship - a relationship marked by mutual benefits. Whenever the idol fails to deliver the expected benefits, its worshippers would abandon the idol. But it is not so for a worshipper of God. Even when Moses had been let down by God for non-fulfillment of the covenant, Moses continued to worship God for forty years in the desert. Thus Moses had formed a personal relationship with God that was no longer based on a business contract such as a covenant, however good a covenant might be.
Knowing the personhood of God is not just having some head knowledge about God that makes no difference in a person’s life. Instead it would change a person from the inside out because the person’s heart would be changed. It is about one person – God – changing another person – his worshipper. It is from person to person, from heart to heart. In order for us to understand the personhood of God better, Jesus came as a person and epitomized the personhood of God.
However good a covenant with God might be, it is still a business contract. In the Old Testaments God made various covenants because he went by the governance of law and so made covenants with man. In the process God portrayed himself to be holy and just and sin-hating more than anything else. That was why God told Moses not to get any closer when he approached the burning bush. In the New Testaments Jesus came to be the mediator for us to establish a personal relationship with God. In the process Jesus portrayed God to be personal – merciful, gracious and loving - more than anything else. We can draw near to God and are welcome by God through Jesus. And Jesus did not come to make yet another covenant between God and man, but rather to adopt us to be children of God so that we can have a personal relationship with God.
When he reached out to Abraham, God made a covenant with Abraham in order to establish a business relationship with him. Genesis 12:1-3 says,
Ge 12:1 The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your
country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show
you.
Ge 12:2 “I will make you into
a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will
be a blessing.
Ge 12:3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
All that God said to Abraham was what he was going to do for Abraham. God did not reveal his emotion in that conversation. It was a business conversation wherein a business contract was drawn up. God could only offer Abraham a business relationship because Abraham did not yet have a proven record that would qualify him for friendship with God.
But when God reached out to Moses, God introduced himself to Moses in a personal way in that he revealed his emotion of being concerned about the Israelites. When he reached out to a worshipper, God would do so in a personal way because a worshipper has the cherished ingredient of friendship – loyalty. A worshipper has proven himself to be loyal to God in the continuum of his worship regardless of circumstance, favorable or adverse. Moses was not upset with God for not fulfilling the covenant even though he had risked everything for its fulfillment. Instead he showed his unfailing zeal for God by leading the flock to the far side of the desert to worship God for forty years. He showed his zeal for God in the context of the insignificance of the career of a lowly shepherd. If he would do it in such a context, he would do it in all circumstances.
Thus God was assured of Moses’ loyalty regardless of circumstance, whereupon he took the initiative to introduce himself to Moses. He let Moses know of his compassion and concern for the Israelites just as Moses had compassion and concern for them forty years before. He revealed to Moses his emotion and let Moses know how he felt, so to speak. It was God opening himself up for Moses to get to know him, to let Moses into his inner circle. That is how God would approach a worker turned worshipper – with friendship.
When it comes to friendship, there is not such a thing as a minor prophet or a major prophet in the Old Testaments as though a minor prophet is less important than a major prophet. The reality is that God was willing to reveal his emotion to some of the prophets, both minor and major. It was so because God considered them friends and was willing to be vulnerable before them. God considered them friends because they went through a similar experience as God did (Consider Hosea as an example) and were able to identify with God in how he felt. When we consider a ‘major prophet’ to be more important than a ‘minor prophet’, it says something about ourselves that we have a tendency to ignore the personhood of God. We place what is great and honorable among men higher than friendship with God. The reality is that we treat God like an idol and never even try to identify with him in how he feels in our so-called ‘walk with God’.
Unlike Moses Abraham failed to prove his loyalty to God after
ten years of living in Canaan. Hearing
promises from God was not enough for him; he needed to see some tangible
benefits of having a son in order to continue his business relationship with
God. He failed to prove his loyalty to
God in an adverse situation where he considered God as having failed to deliver
the business benefits he had promised.
So God approached Abraham with yet another business contract which was
yet bigger than the previous one, and promised him numerous descendants and the
Abraham was in bondage and addiction to business benefits from God that God had to apply a greater dosage of business benefits just to keep the business relationship from rupturing. Abraham got his high from the higher dosage alright. But no matter how wonderful the covenant was, Abraham fell into a spiritual stupor right after the covenant was made and had a son with Hagar. He was content that he now had a son to inherit his estate and to multiply into numerous descendants as God had promised. He was content with staying at the business level with God - obeying God and then receiving the due reward for obedience. It is clear that he had a business relationship with God, neither more nor less.
Thus we see two different approaches God took in dealing
with Abraham and Moses. God would
approach a worker who is not a worshipper with a business contract and promise
of business benefits because that is what would get or keep the business
relationship going. On the other hand God
would open himself up to a worshipper for friendship and tell his friend how he
feels about certain things. God told
Moses how he felt about the Israelites being in bondage to Pharaoh in
As much as he is appealing to his friend to see things the way he does, God is also identifying with his friend in the way his friend sees things because they share the same mindset. God was concerned about the Israelites just as Moses had been concerned about them forty years before. People who share the same mindset would exhibit the same behavior in the same circumstance. So God came down from heaven to rescue the Israelites just as Moses left Pharaoh’s palace to rescue them forty years before. The friendship between God and a worshipper is a mutually-affirming relationship.
The approach God takes in dealing with a worshipper is friendship whence comes the business that is built on the friendship. There are both personal and business aspects in a worshipper’s relationship with God since a worshipper is also a worker. And there is priority in that relationship - it is friendship first and business second. A worshipper is driven to do what God wants him to do because he is driven by how God feels. On the other hand a worker is driven by what he sees coming his way in return for his service to God. His relationship with God is a one-dimensional relationship that does not go beyond business. He is not driven by how God feels because his primary concern is business benefits he would receive, not identifying with God in how he feels.
Matthew 26:36-46 records the event that took place in Gethsemane prior to Jesus’ arrest:
Mt 26:36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and
he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”
Mt 26:37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him,
and he began to be sorrowful and troubled.
Mt 26:38 Then he said to them, “My soul
is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with
me.”
Mt 26:39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the
ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from
me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Mt 26:40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them
sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter.
Mt 26:41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into
temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
Mt 26:42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it
is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will
be done.”
Mt 26:43 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because
their eyes were heavy.
Mt 26:44 So he left them and went away
once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.
Mt 26:45 Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are
you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is
betrayed into the hands of sinners.
Mt 26:46 Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”
Jesus was sorrowful and troubled when faced with the imminent prospect of drinking the cup of God’s wrath. He asked Peter and the sons of Zebedee to identify with him in how he felt and to keep watch with him. But instead of keeping watch with Jesus they fell asleep. Peter and the sons of Zebedee were workers who were not worshippers and who did not share in Jesus’ mindset. Consequently they were unable to identify with Jesus even when he had opened himself up to them. Jesus ended up being disappointed by his closest associates. These men had witnessed miracles upon miracles from Jesus. But unfortunately miracles were no substitute for the developmental process for worshippers. It is therefore not wise to impose the expectation for a worshipper on a worker. Doing so would only bring disappointment.
But a worshipper shares in God’s mindset and is driven by
how God feels in what he does for God. What he does naturally flows
out of God’s heart. That makes it
possible for a worshipper to do God’s will according to God’s way. David was a worshipper, a man after God’s own
heart. He put his own emotion in check
concerning all the trouble and distress Saul had put him through. He did not want to get out of his trouble and
become king over
On the other hand a worker is driven to do God’s will by how he himself feels. Abraham was rather upset and emotional when he complained to God about God not having given him a son as promised. Driven by his emotion Abraham proceeded to have a son with Hagar. Moses was upset about the way the Egyptians treated the Hebrews. In the heat of the moment he killed the Egyptian who beat a Hebrew. He was driven to drastic action by his emotion about the situation. A worker is driven by his own emotion and not God’s in doing God’s will.
It is God’s will for workers to learn to identify with God in how he feels. So we see God telling Abraham to offer up Isaac as a burnt sacrifice so that he could identify with how the Father felt about offering up his own Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. And we see God opening himself up to Moses concerning how he felt toward the Israelites in their misery. Ultimately Abraham learned to discern the heart and mind of God in sending all his other sons away from Isaac without God having to tell him. And Moses learned the principle on which God operated concerning the rescue of the Israelites that they must desire it before God would come to their rescue. For both the learning began with the non-fulfillment of God’s promise and the disappointment that came with it. If you are a worker and are experiencing disappointment and frustration with God’s non-fulfillment of his promise for you, you are on your way to learning to identify with God in how he feels. It is a sign that God is calling you to become a worshipper and to enter into a friendship with him.
Verses 11-12
Forty years before Moses attempted to play the role of God
among the Hebrews. He considered himself
fit to bring about what God had promised and attempted to do it at once and by
his own strength. He assumed that he
could take on God’s work and do it according to the way he saw fit. He put himself in God’s position and made
himself indistinguishable from God. That
was Moses’ problem. Forty years later
Moses made a distinction between him and God.
He described himself as a shepherd and a worshipper of God. There was no longer usurping God’s role. In fact when God told him to bring the
Israelites out of
By this time there was not a trace of the attitude of the
son of Pharaoh’s daughter in Moses. Totally
contrary to his grandiose self-image forty years before, Moses was full of
self-doubt about his authority in confronting Pharaoh concerning the
Israelites. Previously Moses positioned
himself to be Pharaoh’s antagonist and his equal; he was not afraid to stand up
to the king of
In response God assured Moses that he would be with Moses. It was only when Moses had been rid of his self-sufficiency and grandiose self-image that God could move in and find a vacated spot where he could stand with Moses. Moses’ self-sufficiency and grandiose self-image had effectively kept God at bay. With Moses’ change of attitude God was inviting Moses into a partnership with him in the task of rescuing the Israelites.
It was God’s work that God was appointing Moses to. God alone decided whether Moses was fit for the
appointment and when he would be ready.
The appointment for God’s work must be initiated by God himself. Those who enter into God’s service must have
been called by God - it is not a matter of volunteering. Being appointed by God they would not be doing
God’s work by their own strength. God
had come down to help his people. God
promised that he would be with Moses; Moses would not be rescuing the
Israelites by his own strength. God
being with Moses was all that Moses needed in order to do the work of God in
God said in verse 12 that he would give Moses a sign that it
was indeed God who had sent Moses.
Please note that the sign God would give Moses would not be fulfilled
until the Israelites had been brought out of
When God promised him that he would lead the Israelites to Horeb to worship God, God was telling Moses something
similar to what Jesus told Peter and the sons of Zebedees
in Luke 5:10: "From now on you will catch men (instead of
fish)." For Moses the equivalent
was: "From now on you will lead the Israelites (instead of sheep and
goats)."
It is human nature that a good reward is among the best motivators and most potent modifiers of behavior. Moses had the motivation to lead the flock to the far side of the desert to worship God. His behavior was driven by his desire. Forty years before Moses’ desire was to become the leader of a violent revolution among the Hebrew slaves. Forty years later Moses’ desire was to quietly lead the flock to the mountain of God to worship God. He no longer desired to be the leader of a violent revolution; he had filled the vacated void in his life with the things of God. He had learned to subordinate his desires to God.
God saw the motivation in Moses and promised that Moses
would lead the Israelites to Horeb to worship God if
Moses would go to Pharaoh and bring them out of
Worshippers are enticed by incentives just as much as workers are. Being a worshipper does not mean ceasing to be human. If a worker is enticed by incentives, so would a worshipper. The difference is that a worshipper would subordinate his desires to God rather than God to his desires. For a worker, if his desires and expectations are not met, he would be upset with God as Abraham was. For a worshipper, if his desires and expectations are not met, he would still persevere in worshipping God. Moses had already persevered in worshipping God for forty years though his desires and expectations had not been met. God knew that Moses would not subordinate God to his desires any more and so gave Moses incentives to encourage him. God offered both friendship and incentives to nudge worshipper Moses to get back on the track that worker Moses had left forty years before.
Having become a worshipper, Moses had the predilection to
lead the flock to Horeb to worship God. Worship permeates the life of a
worshipper. It is more of a lifestyle
than an event. If he would bring the
Israelites out of
Verses 13-15
Throughout his conversation with God Moses never showed any
concern how he was going to deal with the king of
Besides his self-doubt Moses was concerned about the Israelites’ rejection of his authority and legitimacy. Forty years before the Hebrew bully questioned Moses as to who made him ruler and judge over the Hebrews. That question must have haunted him for forty years because he had operated entirely on his own. God addressed Moses’ concern by having Moses tell the Israelites that ‘I AM’ had sent him. And God twice said that God had sent him in order to allay his fear. God’s description of himself as ‘I AM’ was intended to counteract Moses’ self-doubt in saying, ‘Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’ Moses’ going to Pharaoh had nothing to do with who Moses was, but it had to do with who sent him. The doubt of the Israelites about Moses’ authority and legitimacy was irrelevant as long as Moses would stay focused on who God was who sent him. God’s description of himself as ‘I AM” was an invitation for Moses to stay focused on the person of God and not on himself.
Moses did not think it was a good idea to directly ask God
for his name, so he took the roundabout way of asking on behalf of the
Israelites. The Israelites seemed to have
lost track of the name of the God of their fathers. From time to time Abraham called on the name
of the Lord in
When we want to get to know a person, the first thing we want to know about the person is his name. Moses’ asking God for his name showed Moses’ motivation to get to know God personally. Few asked God for his name. When asked, God did not say it except to Moses. Genesis 32:26-30 says,
Ge 32:26 Then the man said, “Let me go,
for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless
me.”
Ge 32:27 The man
asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered.
Ge 32:28 Then the man said, “Your name
will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and
with men and have overcome.”
Ge 32:29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your
name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
Ge 32:30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
Jacob asked the man his name but the man did not tell him. Instead of extending his friendship to Jacob God blessed Jacob. Jacob was asking the man his name only as a courtesy in response to the man having asked Jacob his name. And the man did not tell Jacob his name but blessed Jacob because Jacob had demanded blessing before letting him go. Jacob had no intent of getting to know the person of God because he was only interested in a business relationship with God. He was more interested in God’s blessings and what God would do for him.
Please note that God called Moses’ name before Moses was aware that he was having an encounter with God. God knew Moses by name because there was no barrier between Moses and God. On the contrary God did not know Jacob by name. Jacob was full of deceit and trickery for his selfish gains. There was a great deal of barrier between him and God. He told Isaac he was Esau in order to steal Esau’s blessings. This time Jacob said who he really was, so the man blessed him.
No one ever bothered to take the initiative to ask God for
his name until Moses. Everybody was just
concerned about what God would do for him and give
him; no one cared anything about knowing the person of God. Moses was different; he took the initiative
to ask God for his name. A worshipper is
fixated on the person of God. Though God
told Moses that he had come down to bring the Israelites out of
Instead of taking God up on the deliverance of the Israelites and the blessing of a land flowing with milk and honey, and asking him about the details, Moses quickly turned to getting to know the person of God. Moses did not venture to find out about the person of God uninvited. God had reached out to Moses as a friend and said that he would be with Moses going to Pharaoh. That was an invitation from God for Moses to get to know God. God issues an invitation to all who want to get to know the person of God and to have a personal relationship with him through his Son.
A worshipper would overcome all the roadblocks of God’s blessings and miracles and get to know the person of God unhindered. A worker would be so engrossed with the miracles he would do for God and the blessings he would receive from God that he has no desire to get to know the person of God.
In response to Moses’ enquiry about his name, God said, “I
AM WHO I AM.” The NIV footnote says that
the Hebrew for LORD sounds like and may be derived from the Hebrew for ‘I AM’. God could have said, “I DO WHAT I DO” or, “I HAVE
WHAT I HAVE.” Instead God said, “I AM
WHO I AM.” Each of these three
descriptions portrays God from different perspectives. The description ‘I AM focuses on the person
of God; the description ‘I DO’ on God’s power; the description ‘I HAVE’ on
God’s abundance. While God introduced
himself as ‘I AM’ to the Israelites, God demonstrated himself as ‘I DO’ through
all the miracles he was going to do in rescuing them. To the wandering Israelites in the desert God
seemed to purposely scale back on the description of abundance - ‘I HAVE’ -
until they obeyed and entered
These three descriptions of God represent three ways in which we relate to God. When ‘I HAVE’ is the dominant approach, we become idolatrous. When ‘I DO’ is the dominant approach, we become legalistic. When ‘I AM’ is the dominant approach, we become children of God. When we relate to God because God has lavished material abundance upon us, it is not unlike how a worshipper relates to an idol. As long as you bless me, I will worship you. When we relate to God because God is all powerful, it is not unlike how a slave is compelled to relate to his master. It is nothing more than coerced obedience.
When we were children, we loved mom because mom did this or that for us. When we have grown up, we no longer say that any more. Instead we love mom because she is mom. It is the same in our relationship with God. When we have yet to grow up, we love God because God does and God has. When we have grown up, we love God because God is. It is not to discredit loving God because God does and God has. Those are the necessary paths we take in growing up. It is when we refuse to grow up and continue our infantile attitude that it becomes a problem. Just imagine that we love mom because mom does and has and that remains the foundation of the relationship throughout life. We need to come out of that fetal position.
Regardless of what has been said we should still love God because God does and God has. God saved us from the destruction of hell and gives us air, water and sunshine to enjoy. We have every reason to love God for all those things. In fact God does all these things for us to lead us to come to the realization of the essence in the person of God. God gives air, water and sunshine to both the good and the evil, the righteous and the unrighteous, out of his gracious character. Jesus made self-sacrifice and gave up his own rights in order to save us from the destruction of hell and to give us eternal life. From his act of redemption we come to realize what love truly is; and from the justice of God in having to punish sins even when it comes to his own Son, we come to realize the holiness of God. Ultimately we come to realize the perfect harmony in God’s nature that he loves sinners to the utmost and hates sins to the utmost. So we come to realize the essence in the person of God through what God does and has to offer.
But if we do not grow in our knowledge of the person of God through these, we remain infants. We focus so much on receiving that we totally ignore the person of God. Therefore we need to depart from our infantile attitude and learn to love God because we have seen the essence in the person of God through what God does for us and offers us, i.e., we love God because God is, not just because God does and God has. It is only when we have come to realize the essence in the person of God that we begin to mimic it for it to become part of the person in us. That is exactly what God intends for us to do. He intends for us to take after him because we are his children. Being children of God is not just for receiving an inheritance from God; it is also about being like God. If we are not like God, we are not his children. There is no greater expression of our appreciation of him than wanting to be like him.
The Israelites came to relate to God because God did powerful miracles to rescue
them. They had no trouble coming to a realization of the power of God – God
DOES. On the other hand God denied them
the pleasures of
If an abundance of miracles and the promise based on them did not cause them to trust in the words of God, God was compelled to take the opposite approach to turn them around. Therefore God took the approach of scarcity and want in dealing with them in the desert. While in the desert they often did not have water to drink, they had only enough food for the day and they ate the same food for forty years. God did not shower abundance on them but gave them what they needed, sometimes after a period of deprivation. The shortage of water was used as a tool of discipline for them to learn to subordinate their desires to God – it was a brute-force approach on God’s part.
The intention was for them to come to the realization of
God’s faithfulness in provision. Had God
showered abundance upon them, they would have taken God’s provision for granted
and treated God like an idol. But if
they looked forward to God’s provision on a daily basis and God faithfully
provided for them for forty years, they would come to realize God’s
faithfulness in provision. It was then
that God could establish his trustworthiness among the Israelites. An abundance of miracles did not do it;
causing them to hunger and thirst did. Coming to the realization of the
trustworthiness of God’s words was the outcome of the Israelites wandering in
the desert for forty years. They
ultimately learned that man does not live on bread alone by on every word that
comes from the mouth of God. They did
not come to realize that God HAS until they entered
When we describe ourselves, we always use something else as the reference. That is to say, we are not self-sufficient; we always need something else to derive our significance. Though we do that, we are inclined to use ourselves as the absolute reference for reality and truth. Herein lies our hypocrisy. On the one hand we acknowledge our insufficiency in the way we describe ourselves; on the other we make ourselves the absolute measure for right and wrong, truth and reality. In other words we acknowledge that we are not God, yet we behave like God. We are willfully overdrawn in conducting ourselves in a capacity we do not measure up to.
The name ‘I AM’ portrays the self-sufficiency of God. It points directly to the intrinsic value of God that God is eternally-existing and does not need to be defined in relation to anything else and does not derive his significance from anything else. John 8:58 says,
Jn 8:58 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”
Jesus was proclaiming his deity by referring to his intrinsic value as God. This statement from Jesus points to his deity more than any other statement in scriptures. Jesus is said to be ‘the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being (Hebrews 1:3).” ‘He is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15).’ These statements define Jesus in relation to God and do not directly point to the intrinsic value of Jesus as God. The reality is that Jesus is the self-sufficient, eternally-existing God who does not need to be defined in relation to anything else and does not derive his significance from anything else. Therefore Jesus’ proclamation - ‘I AM’ – is a stronger statement of his deity than any other statement in the entire bible.
On the other hand Jesus submits to the Father in his relationship to the Father. Jesus said in John 14:28,
Jn 14:28 “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.
This is a statement of Jesus’ positional value in relation to the Father. When Jesus puts himself in the context of his relationship to the Father, we would see Jesus’ submission to the Father. Therefore the positional value of Jesus in relation to the Father is not equal to that of the Father although the intrinsic value of Jesus as God is the same as that of the Father. Please note that Jesus’ submission to the Father comes from his attitude toward his relationship to the Father. He voluntarily takes on a lesser status in the relationship because he is willing to obey the Father and always ready to do the bidding of the Father. How Jesus chooses to relate to the Father has no bearing on the intrinsic value of Jesus as God. His submission is not a reflection of the lesser intrinsic value of Jesus in comparison to the Father; rather it is a reflection of the humble attitude of Jesus in relating to the Father.
Being both divine and human Jesus has the intrinsic value of both God and man that can never change. On the other hand Jesus can choose where to place his positional value. Jesus is the self-sufficient God yet chooses to submit to the Father in absolute obedience and to make himself the servant of all men. He not only placed his positional value lower than that of God and of angels, but also the lowest among men. He is Lord of all yet made himself servants of all. He created heaven and earth yet could tire. He created all things yet often went without food. He receives all the angelic worship in heaven yet was rejected by men. He is almighty God yet was nailed to a cross. He is sinless yet bore the sin of the whole world. He is the author of life yet was killed. His positional value hit rock bottom when he bore the sin of the whole world while hanging on the cross – the occasion when he exercised his humility and self-denying to the utmost.
The attitude of humility and self-denying determines where Jesus would place his positional value regardless of his intrinsic value. If we are followers of Jesus, we would adopt his attitude and place our positional value accordingly. That is exactly what Philippians 2:5-8 teaches us:
Phil 2:5 Your attitude should be the same
as that of Christ Jesus:
Phil 2:6 Who,
being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be
grasped,
Phil 2:7 but made himself nothing, taking
the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
Phil 2:8 And
being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to
death—even death on a cross!
Phil 2:9 Therefore God exalted him to the
highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
Phil 2:10 that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
Phil 2:11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus has the highest intrinsic value yet places his positional value at the lowest. From this springs the paradoxical nature of Jesus which is fertile ground for heretic beliefs about the lesser status of Jesus. Our narrow human mind simply could not get beyond the confusion arising from that humble quality of Jesus placed in the context of his deity. And so some consign Jesus to nothing more than a mere man, the lowest at which Jesus has placed his positional value. The reality is that the intrinsic value of Jesus as God does not change regardless of where Jesus would place his positional value. Being a man does not degrade the deity - the intrinsic value of Jesus as God - at all.
Jesus voluntarily places his positional value lower than that of the Father in relating to the Father. And so some ascribe to Jesus a status lesser than that of God. They confuse the positional value of Jesus in relation to God with the intrinsic value of Jesus as God. As the Son of God, the positional value of Jesus is less than that of God the Father just as you are less than your father relationally speaking. On the other hand the intrinsic value of Jesus, i.e., the deity of Jesus, is equal to the intrinsic value of God, the deity of God, just as you are intrinsically equal in terms of humanity to your father. In terms of intrinsic value Jesus is no less than God and God is no greater than Jesus; in terms of humanity you are no less than your father and your father is no greater than you. When we have sorted out the entanglement of the positional value of Jesus in relation to God and the intrinsic value of Jesus as God, we are in a better position to answer those heresies.
There are two facets to a person’s positional value: the one he places himself at and the one others place him at. It is not the one he places himself at that matters; rather it is the one others place him at that does. The following passage is quoted from Luke 14:7-11:
Lk 14:7 When he (Jesus) noticed how the
guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable:
Lk 14:8 “When someone invites you to a
wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished
than you may have been invited.
Lk 14:9 If so,
the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this man your
seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place.
Lk 14:10 But when you are invited, take
the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend,
move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all
your fellow guests.
Lk 14:11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Jesus made it clear that the real positional value is not the one we pick for ourselves; rather it is conferred upon us by others. He used the setting of a dinner to which guests were invited by their host to illustrate how real positional value was given and not chosen. The host had a view of the positional value of the two guests that one was more distinguished than the other. That was determined even before they set foot in his house. Therefore the real positional value of the guests had been determined at the time of invitation and was not an issue to be settled at the dinner. However the guests did not know exactly whom the host had invited. It was left up to each guest to decide which seat to pick for himself, i.e., what positional value he thought he held in the sight of the host in relation to other guests the host might have invited. It turned out that most of the guests had a bloated perception of their positional value that they just picked the places of honor at the table.
Being humble can be a very hypocritical and super-spiritual thing. But humility according to Jesus’ description of the dinner guests is to intentionally lower one’s positional value. Jesus’ teaching was consistent with the way he placed his own positional value. Being prideful is to have a bloated perception of our positional value. The outcome of humility is being exalted, i.e., being elevated to a higher positional value, and the outcome of pride is being humbled, i.e., being consigned to a lower positional value.
We all have the same intrinsic value as children of God but we do not all have the same positional value. Jesus is telling us that the way to increase our positional value before God is to intentionally lower it. In fact it does not take a person with distinguished positional value to be exalted - whoever humbles himself will be exalted. The fact is that the moment you intentionally place yourself at a positional value lower than what others confer upon you, you are destined to be exalted. So it is not true that only those with distinguished positional value can be exalted.
In reality you might have distinguished positional value and yet be humbled if you have a bloated perception of your already distinguished positional value. Isn’t that true of Satan that he was the most distinguished of all God’s angels, yet he had a bloated perception of his already distinguished positional value that he cannot be content until he attains the positional value of God? He is not content with the intrinsic value of an angel and so seeks the positional value of God. Because he exalted himself, he was thrown out of heaven and down to the earth, having his distinguished position before God taken away from him.
Jesus intentionally places his positional value lower than that which corresponds to his intrinsic value. That testifies to his humility and self-denying. Satan places his positional value higher than that which corresponds to his intrinsic value. That testifies to his pride and self-indulging. Out of pride and self-indulgence Satan tries to maximize his positional value. It is likewise for many people that they are not content with who they are intrinsically, so they seek to elevate what they are positionally. We need to be very careful whom we are really following.
Our intrinsic value is who we are; our positional value is what we do and what we have. When we are not content with who we are, we will seek to increase our positional value through what we do and what we have. It can translate into the passion of a worldly believer for pursuing the things and pleasures of this life. It can also translate into the drive of a worker for accomplishing something significant for God. It boils down to the same underlying problem for both that they are not content with their intrinsic value as children of God and who they are in Jesus. They seek to find fulfillment from enhancing their positional value through what they do and what they have. They have not developed a sense of security and contentment in knowing the length and breadth and height and depth of the love Jesus has for them as children of God.
Moses appointed himself deliverer of the Hebrew slaves; he placed himself at a positional value he had not earned, i.e., conferred upon him by God. So God made him tend flock, which was at a very low positional value according to the Egyptian culture. It was only when Moses had become content with the positional value of being a lowly shepherd that God elevated his positional value and appointed him deliverer of God’s people. Moses thought that he was rescuing slaves but they were really God’s people. God’s appointment was actually one step up from the positional value Moses had placed himself at forty years before.
On the other hand Moses placed his positional value at the level of the Hebrew slaves even though he was the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, just as Jesus placed his positional value at the level of men even though he is the Son of God. Both Moses and Jesus voluntarily lowered their positional value. That is a mark of spiritual leadership. Mark 10:43-45 says,
Mk 10:43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become
great among you must be your servant,
Mk 10:44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.
Mk 10:45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Moses was to tell the Israelites that the LORD was the God
of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of
Jacob. They were to be reminded that God
did not become the God of their patriarchs and then abandoned them; God was
also the God of their fathers who went into slavery in
Had God revealed his name to the Israelites long before, God’s name would have come up very empty since they would not have been able to come to any understanding of the person of God, since God had not manifested himself among them for four hundred and thirty years. But when God revealed his name to them through Moses, God also began to do wonders among them and to give them great blessings. God chose a time of crisis to introduce himself to the Israelites so that they would appreciate God’s goodness in coming to their rescue. Then they could come to an understanding of the person of God through what God did for them and gave them. Consequently they would never forget his name. God’s name would be remembered among the Israelites from generation to generation.
Verses 16-22
God called himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and
the God of Jacob because these patriarchs were faithful in their walk with
God. God was pleased to be their
God. But God did not call himself the
God of the Israelites. When God said
that he had watched over them and had seen what was done to them in
God told Moses to assemble the elders of
God assured Moses that the elders of
God forewarned Moses that the king of
God said that the Israelites would not leave