19th September 2025

19th September 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Exodus 18:1-27 focus v13-27)


Message (Alan Burke)


The longer I’m about the more I realise just how important good church government is yet I also know that no matter how good it is with fallen sinful people it is never going to be perfect. Like if you are in an independent fellowship and something goes wrong with the leadership then you have no where to go to, maybe get an independent review of what has gone wrong but that is really up to the leadership. If you are an Anglican or a Roman Catholic if there are problems and maybe it goes up as far as the Bishop who is always right. But with Presbyterianism if you have a problem in the local church it goes to the Presbytery, then to the judicial commission if the decision of the Presbytery is appealed. At every step it is not just one person making the decisions it is a plurality of elders.


As we come to this passage we see that Presbyterian form of church governance being enacted, the only biblical form of church governance there is. Here the Lord uses Jethro a friend of God to advise his son in law Moses the leader of the congregation of God’s people should be governed. After seeing the sheer weight of what Moses was trying to undertake, how he was trying to deal with the 2 million people of God in the wilderness, dealing with all the disputes that came, while informing them of God's decrees and laws. 


Moses was to teach the decrees and laws to the people, to show them the way to live and the duties that they were to perform. At this stage while the decrees and the law was yet to be given to the people but there were portions that were already known to the people, that had been passed down and also given to Moses from the Lord himself. Moses was to teach but he was to delegate, to choose men who were qualified to do the role that he did, he was to remain as their mediator, teaching the people, but those who were qualified were to rule over the people and only in difficult cases was he himself to be involved. 


What we see in this is the Presbyterian form of church governance, Moses set aside to teach the people and to appoint those who would rule over the people. Look at the qualifications for these men that Moses was to choose, v21 …men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain. Those who fearing the LORD fear him more than this world, more than what man can throw at him or offer him. Those whom Moses is to choose must be trustworthy and hate dishonest gain. It’s doesn’t take a Phd to figure out that those whom Moses was to pick were those who could be relied upon to do the right thing, those who were trustworthy.


These are the kind of leaders we need not only in the church but in society, and I know this isn’t the trust of the passage before us but there is a sense in which we have a responsibility in whom we vote for should be likewise those of good moral stature, who don’t say one thing and then do something else, who show qualities like these and pray that God would give us leaders like this in this society. In the end Jethro departed, the Lord had used him, who had know the hope of Christ because of the household of faith and used him in the life of the congregation of faith. God cares not only about our eternal destiny but also about how his church, the bride of Christ is ordered and governed, let us seek to have those who fear the Lord, who are trustworthy, who hate dishonest gain to rule over us and submit to their rule in Christ.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q78 What is forbidden in the ninth commandment?
A. The ninth commandment forbiddeth whatsoever is prejudicial to truth, or injurious to our own or our neighbours good name.
​