After Pentecost Devotional - Day 17

“Joshua was there helping Moses, as he had done since he was young. And he said to Moses, 'Sir, you must stop them!' But Moses replied, “Are you concerned what this might do to me? I wish the LORD would give his Spirit to all his people so everyone could be a prophet.'” Numbers 11:28-30

It is very easy for us to become protective of position, prominence, and prestige. We like power and its secondary effects. We like being related to people of power. We like the special access and deference paid to those of us in power or who are close to them. It is in this situation that we find Joshua in the passage above.

Joshua was jealous for Moses over the fact that some in the camp of Israel who had not come to the Tabernacle were acting as prophets for Yahweh. He did not want Moses' position diluted. He did not want his own position in relation to Moses diluted. He wanted to conserve a sense of hierarchy and established authority among the nation. He did not want anything to interfere with that, especially anything that would legitimize any voice other than Moses as speaking for Yahweh.

This attitude was not merely one of protecting power and authority, but also one of keeping the lines that gave structure to the people intact. Joshua wanted to keep clear who were the authorized voices speaking for Yahweh. He wanted a visible structure for the society they were building. He wanted well-defined roles and positions. He wanted all to know who was in charge. He wanted Yahweh's word and will to be bound to a specific person and those who served under that acclaimed leader. He wanted a visible, tangible structure of authority. He wanted to know where he stood. He wanted the nation to know where each one of them stood in relation to the leadership structures. He wanted the security that comes from having defined roles, leaders, and structures of power.

The problem with all that was that neither Moses nor Yahweh were as invested in those visible political structures as he. Sure, Moses was the visible, acclaimed leader of the people. He was known to speak for Yahweh. There had been issues of others vying for power and prominence. There had been voices seeking to depart from Yahweh's demands and directions. There were threats to the structure and very survival of the surging nation.

Neither Yahweh nor Moses was as invested in a political structure, however. Moses had not lived under any such structure. Joshua was of the first generation that had grown up with any such structure, a structure still in fledgling formation.

It was not the structure that Moses wanted, however. He wanted dependence upon Yahweh and Yahweh's direction. He wanted the people to enter into the quality of relation he had with Yahweh. He wanted Yahweh to speak directly with the nation as a whole. It would seem that was also Yahweh's will, but the people would not have it. They wanted to depend upon a political structure rather than God. They wanted visible leaders who would tell them what to do, rather than assume direct responsibility before Yahweh.

Are you too invested in the structures of faith and politics? God wants to relate directly with you. A true prophet of God simply wants to point the way.


"Lord, help me relate to you directly and be willing to seek you beyond the intermediaries on whom I would rely."

—©Copyright 2016, Christopher B. Harbin
http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/ 
My latest books can be found here on amazon

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