“Why fixate on these four qualities when God can use anybody He chooses.”
It is true. God can indeed USE anybody. To be consistent one must stipulate that if God can use anybody that includes not only your partisan candidate preference of questionable character, but also the even more questionable candidate of the other party. If God can USE anybody, then why is the Lord bound to your pragmatic choice of the lesser evil (in your eyes) rather than the paradoxical choice of the greater evil?
It’s an important question which challenges our consistency.
Jethro, the priest of Yahweh and father-in-law to Moses, told him to select men with certain qualities for civic leadership. Notice, he told Moses to SELECT these specifically designated people. He did not tell Moses to choose just anyone because God can use anybody, but rather SELECT those who demonstrate certain qualities.
This is important.
God can USE anybody, but He never instructs us to SELECT just anybody…
We are to CHOOSE obediently and He will USE sovereignly. That’s the deal.
And the first expectation or standard is the candidate must fear God.
What does “fear” mean?
The Hebrew transliteration is YARE. The Hebrew language can be tricky to translate and there are 5 ways YARE might be understood. I will spare you from enduring all the lexical rabbit trails and simply boil it down to the most obvious possibilities.
Some scholars maintain the translation is the usual meaning of reverence and awe. This probably isn’t the meaning of YARE in the verse. Proper recognition of God’s power, majesty and holiness is the kind of fear we all need, no doubt. It’s possible that Jethro had this in mind, but since this is supposed to be true of all of God’s followers, this characteristic wouldn’t set these men apart. We will have to look deeper.
It can also mean formal religious worship. When I come into the house of God, there is a certain quality of fear that I bring with me. His house is a special place, reserved for honoring Him. It’s not the local meeting hall or the Bingo parlor. It’s a place of eternal encounter. But Jethro isn’t talking about formal worship.
There is one more meaning that fits this verse. It is a word for righteous behavior. That’s what Jethro has in mind. Men who fear God are men whose lives are committed to righteousness. They live by the divine code. They are guided by the Law. These are men worthy of authority. We shouldn’t be surprised by Jethro’s qualification. The Hebrew worldview places far more emphasis on right action than it does on right thinking. In the Hebrew world, I want a leader who obeys God, not a leader who has all the correct beliefs but none of the corresponding obedience. In fact, I am better off following a follower of the Lord than I am following the world’s greatest visionary who lacks godly character. God’s leaders are His obedient servants.
Is this too great an expectation? Surely not.
More to come…
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