Welcome to the Compass, navigating the public square together with faith, truth and conviction
Debbie Wuthnow Welcome to the Compass, navigating the public
Rick Beggs square together with faith, truth and conviction. Well, we'd like to welcome you all in, today to be with us on the compass. And as always, Debbie, what now is my, co host with me? Say hey, Debbie.
Debbie Wuthnow Hey. Hey, Rick.
Rick Beggs so what direction on the compass do you want to go today?
I'd love to discuss this scripture with you. Read on. Well, I think there is a scripture that is frequently discussed
Debbie Wuthnow Well, I think there is a scripture that is one that I talk about frequently, and I just like to have a conversation with you about it.
Rick Beggs Read on.
Debbie Wuthnow Okay, so this is from Exodus, chapter, Wait, what chapter am I in? Chapter 18, verse 21. And the verse says, furthermore, you shall select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain, and you shall place these over them as leaders of thousands of, hundreds of 50s and of tens. So what do you think?
Rick Beggs Interesting. Well, tell me why this is important to you. What do you think this represents to you?
Debbie Wuthnow Well, when I give presentations about ivoterguide and what we do, this is where I point to, how God created government at every level, how we have representatives at every level, and the qualifications for those people that become those leaders.
Rick Beggs Well, this is such an interesting verse because there's a bigger context here as to what happened. So if you want to kind of walk through that with me, I'd love to do that with you.
Debbie Wuthnow Love to. Yes, love to.
Chapter 18 is really the reuniting of Moses with his family
Rick Beggs Well, where do we start? I don't. Well, I don't know. I'm probably at verse one in chapter 18. Because it is incredibly fascinating how this whole thing came about. When we're reading this verse of furthermore, of course, in your mind, when you read Scripture, like when you see the word therefore, you're wondering what is there for. Yeah. Okay, so you went to the same Bible school I did. So the next one would be. Would be Furthermore. So if it's furthermore, so what was the more before the further. And so that's really what I kind of want to discuss here because it's important. Yeah, it is. And in chapter 18, this is really the reuniting of, of Moses with his family. A lot of people don't understand or know that Moses had sent his wife off with his father in law to live in Midian. He was a priest in Midian. And, while he was. While they were there with him, of course, being separated from Moses, Moses goes through the whole Exodus, they cross the
Debbie Wuthnow Red Sea, all the Pharaoh stuff. Right?
Rick Beggs That's right. And so. And all the plagues and. And so when they're on the other side, this is sort of the reuniting of Jethro bringing, Zipporah and the two boys to come be with Moses again.
Debbie Wuthnow So other side. Do you mean the Red Sea?
Rick Beggs On the other side of the Red Sea after the Exodus. So I honestly, I have no idea how in the world Jethro finds, Moses. I mean, how many thousands and tens of thousands of people are, are here with all the different tribes, but now they have reunited. It's not like anybody had GPS at the time or some, way to find each other.
Debbie Wuthnow Yeah. Ah, you know what? I just. Maybe he followed the footprints of all those people.
Rick Beggs Well, he had to come from. Probably had to come from the north. you know, this is something I probably should have studied a little more geography, wise. Wise, where was Midian as compared? But I do know that it was probably at least 200 miles away from them. And so when you consider how far they had to come to find each other, I don't know even how you get directions.
Debbie Wuthnow Yeah, so anyway, there's no find my phone kind of thing going on back there.
Rick Beggs No, there's not. So they, they end up finding each other. And now Jethro's there, able to watch Moses as he leads the children of Israel. and in this case, Moses every day sat on a judgment seat to make decisions on what was going on with disputes between tribes, between people in tribes. And so he would sit basically from, you know, sunrise, to sunset, and listen over and over and over. Did I say over?
Debbie Wuthnow Can I imagine the line of people? It'll be. It'd be like Black Friday at Best Buy,
Rick Beggs only. Yes, only everybody's complaining, which, by the way, that usually happens at Best Buy too. So anyway, yes, so he's doing this over and over again. And now his father in law is watching him do this. And I can't, I can't imagine having your father in law watch you as you worked, from sunrise to sunset. But that's what's happening here. And he's watching and listening to all this activity, all this grumbling, all the frustration, all the, all the, all the, whatever you want to include there. It was continual.
Debbie Wuthnow And you got to remember he's brought Moses wife, right. Which is his daughter, and he's looking at the situation that she's now being placed back into, as well as his grandsons.
Rick Beggs Yeah. So that's why Jethro speaks up to him and says to him. Actually, he says it in verse 17. It says, Moses's father in law, Jethro said to him, the thing that you are doing is not good. You will surely wear out both yourself and these people who are with you. For the task is too heavy for you and you cannot do it alone. So Jethro is now going to make a suggestion, while he's watching Moses judge. And he's going to say, you got it? You got to change the way things are, are going. Now maybe it was a little selfish because he was concerned about his daughter in law and his grandsons, right, which makes sense. But now he's telling him that you have to find other people to help you. So he says, as a father in law may say to a son in law, I'm not sure how I would have taken this, but under God's direction, this is how it went down. He says, now, listen to me. This is Jethro talking to Moses. I will give you counsel and God will be with you. You be the people's representative before God and you bring the disputes to God. So what do you have to do, Moses? You have to teach them the statutes and the laws and make known to them the way in which they are to walk and how they are to work together. So fascinating because Moses thought he was supposed to do this, I don't know, for eternity until God took him home. But now Jethro said, I see the answer. And if you'll trust me on this, then what I would like you to do is begin to break the people down into groups. They're already in tribes, but now you need to teach others about God's statues and laws. Now I'm sure at some point Moses had been doing that for a while, but now he had to be very intentional about having them some knowledge.
Debbie Wuthnow Well, and it makes me wonder, the purpose for teaching them the laws and the statutes is so that they would walk in them and work in them and potentially having fewer disputes, do you think?
Rick Beggs Yeah, or actually getting rid of the smaller ones. And then the things that had to do with God or God, intentionally he would take before God himself. But to me it really gives me a modern day picture. if you look at the church today, that's really what church and pastors, ministers of the gospel, are doing when they teach their people, they're teaching the statutes, the laws of God. But even more so now in the new covenant, they're also discussing with them, the whole idea of, forgiveness, the resurrection, what it means to follow Christ, you know, everything that had and surrounded Jesus, which was the new covenant for us. Now we have pastors and churches leaders, deacons and elders who come alongside the people of the church so that they can, they can teach them all those statutes.
Debbie Wuthnow Is another word for this to make disciples.
Rick Beggs Well, yeah, there you go. That was the whole idea. That's when Jesus left, he said, this is what I'd like you to do. Yeah, but a lot of it training.
Debbie Wuthnow Training to know the statutes, to know the laws, the know, that's right, the way you're supposed to walk. That is discipleship without giving it the word here in Exodus.
Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over people
Rick Beggs Right. So I, I'm guessing when Jethro said to Moses, now listen to me, it's exactly what he did. Because after the verse that you read, the furthermore verse, Moses listened to his father in law, this is at verse 24, chapter 18, and did all the, that he had said. Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people. Leaders of thousands of hundreds, of 50s, of tens. They judged the people at all times. The difficult dispute they would bring to Moses, but every minor dispute, they themselves would judge. And so now there was a system in place that allowed for the children of Israel to go through in regards to disputes, complaints, frustrations, whatever. And there was now a hierarchy of doing that.
Verse reminds me of our government
Which sort of brings us to the whole idea of what you started with. When I asked you about the verse, you said, well, this kind of reminds me of our government. And though I'm not, I'm not 100% positive, although I know there were faithful men who started this country, but they would have used and know and understood what Moses went through as the great giver of law, how they were now going to form our country and begin to set up a governing body for us.
Debbie Wuthnow Well, I remember hearing Bill Federer give some fabulous presentations and he talked about that our founders really based, the model of the American constitutional republic on ancient Israel, but the Israel before the time of the kings. So there wasn't a king who ruled, it was the people who ruled, you know, through Moses. And then setting up these levels of leaders, you know, when I hear of tens, I think city council, school board, smaller, you know, home closer to your home, closer to community. 50s, you know, maybe that's a little bit bigger. Hundreds could be your state legislature, thousands could be, you know, the federal level of government. I see this at all levels of how, we're supposed to govern ourselves, but this is the way the government was set up, that there's a hierarchy to it and that gives order as long as all of them know the statutes and the laws and the way that we should walk so that we live righteously well.
Rick Beggs And what is the Constitution? How does it start?
Debbie Wuthnow We the people.
Rick Beggs The people. So it's already presumed that it's we the people. And this is kind of what gets messed up in our country.
Rick Beggs Is that we vote these people in. They forget that they represent the people. they may think that they represent themselves or some special interest group. And now we have a government that isn't serving the people. It's really they go to Washington or to the capitals of any state and they represent us in, in those entities.
Debbie Wuthnow And so they're also supposed to be accountable to us.
Rick Beggs Well, amen. Yeah, amen. So when you tie this back to what we do at I voter guide, you can see the natural progression of why this is worthy of our, our talking. Because if as Christians we want to make sure that we're basing what we do, I voter guide being one of those entities on biblical understanding.
Debbie Wuthnow Exactly.
Rick Beggs And I, and I do believe our forefathers really took that into consideration when they put our country together.
Debbie Wuthnow They did. And in that, in this system, in this hierarchy, it's not the system of government that's really in charge. Somebody I heard a pastor say and he described it as. If you looked at the org chart of the American constitutional system, the person at the top is the people, it's the voters. and we really need to understand our role in all of that. and it really comes from this conversation that Jethro had with Moses.
Rick Beggs Well, it tells you how important it is, to us, why it's important that we vote and why we should take serious and not just slough it off or maybe vote for somebody that because you saw a lot of yard signs for them, but really do a deep dive on somebody because these people are speaking for us in regards to things that we think are important. And of course as believers, you know, morality issues, ah, sanctity issues, the issues of understanding and coming together as groups, not as party differences, but as we support things that hopefully our legislators, our representatives are really listening to us, the people, and then going to act accordingly.
Debbie Wuthnow Exactly. Yeah. No, and you know, in that in the scriptures here Jethro actually gives qualities to look for.
Rick Beggs yeah, back to the. Furthermore.
Debbie Wuthnow Yep, yes, exactly the type of people that we should select out of all the people. well, the able man, the men of. Shall I.
Rick Beggs Okay, yeah, yeah, read it again because this is kind of Breaks it down as to what we're looking for.
Debbie Wuthnow Yeah. So furthermore, you shall select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain, and place them over. Place these over them as leaders of thousands of hundreds of 50s and of tens.
Rick Beggs And I don't want to dismiss either. In today's world, that would include men and women who are in those positions. Yeah, that would, who would fear God, be of truth, hate dishonest gain, and, be placed over as leaders of all these people. It gives us a lot to think about. It's very sobering, actually.
Debbie Wuthnow It is. And sometimes it can be hard to determine those things. I mean, that is the challenge to, you know, and even defining what all those terms mean. And then how do you evaluate those things? I know. M. That's something that we'll spend a lot of time coming back to, because it's important to understand what it means to be able men who fear God, men of truth, who hate dishonest gain.
iVoterGuide helps Christian voters find out about potential candidates
So where do you want to go next?
Rick Beggs Well, when you think of this verse for yourself, especially leading I voter guide, this really is the crux of why we put together sort of the systems to find truth, Even repeating a little bit about what we've gone over the last, several shows. And that's why we do what we do at iVoterGuide.
Debbie Wuthnow Well, I mean, as a, you know, as somebody who wasn't a political insider or even activist, I was just a, you know, a soccer mom, Christian voter. how do I find information about, you know, to determine that on the people that I vote for? How do I just not be voting off of yard signs or voting off of flyers? And the. The research that I voted Guide was created to do is. Is. Is key. Were you gonna say something?
Rick Beggs Yeah. Well, I was gonna say that's why we want to find men and women of truth. I mean, that's what we're, accumulating all this information in one place so people can actually go find it.
Debbie Wuthnow Well, and we want men of truth on our staff and as our volunteers so that we can share the truth as we seek to find out about the candidates. So, honestly, vetting is. Is at all levels of everything is just such an important thing that each of us should do well.
Rick Beggs Especially when you look. When you look at this list, that is spoken of in the. Furthermore, you go, well, wait a minute. There are so many people that I feel like haven't measured up to these things. When we go to Vote. And I know we're probably going to take the next show to kind of break these, each one of these things down specifically, but this is really how we should be searching out candidates.
Debbie Wuthnow Well, and obviously it's what God tells us to do, right, to look at those qualities. So I don't think we have enough time to get into that today. But it is important that we all understand that what God calls us to do, he will equip us to do. And I think he's created I voter guide to help equip, American voters with that information. He's given us his word to equip us to know the truth, to know his statutes, to know his laws, to know, our responsibilities to be salt and light and how do we go about doing that and even what does that mean, to be salt and light? Is that just in my family? And it's yes. Is it just in my church and my community? Yes. but it includes government. God created three institutions, the family, the church and the state and the state's politics. And we need to be salt and light in all of those. Not just leading our families, not just being involved in leading our church and Sunday school teachers and elders and deacons, but we need to be involved in the state. And it's clear through this scripture we've been talking about today that we all have roles to play and voters are, I mean even if all you do is vote, that's an important aspect of it. You know, God may be calling you, and saying, are you the able man who should be one of those representatives?
Rick Beggs That'll be a whole another thing to talk about. Yes. Yeah. I mean, in some respects somebody may be listening to this man, or woman who may think, wait a minute, God has been really kind of touching my heart about this stuff and I, I, I think maybe I ought to consider that. And I know we have several groups that do candidacy training. we won't talk about that here today, but if somebody really wanted to know about this, they could write us on our new now, [email protected] and they may say, I'm interested in that. Could you send me who I should go see or who I should go talk to if I wanted to be one of those able bodied people who hate to step in this game, who want to lead and God's calling them.
Debbie Wuthnow It's a scary world, but it's an important world that we shine light. If Christians aren't involved, who was left? It's the ungodly. And we don't want, our silence to give more authority and more power to the, to the ungodly. So if God's nudging you, I think that's the Holy Spirit. And I have learned when he nudges you, your best response is, here I am, Lord, send me, what do you want me to do? And I vote or guide us here to equip you. If that's where you feel God is leading you, but you don't even know where to start, I would encourage you to email [email protected] We've got a team that can direct you or point you to some fabulous groups out there. there's quite a few of them let you know, you know, the training that's available. Because when God calls you, he will equip you. And he actually likes to work through those who are weak and, and he wants to. He doesn't call the equipped, he equips the called. So, we would love to play a role if, in helping you be. Become equipped, if that's what you feel like God is calling you to do. So reach out. We'd love to hear from you.
Rick Beggs Yeah, we would. We would love to hear from you. I also want to say at this point, you know, not everybody who runs or, maybe let me restate it, not everybody we're looking at will have pastor qualities. I mean, sometimes I think even as Christians, we get a little bit, Well, I want them to be this, I want them to be that in regards to their spiritual walk when we're all at different places. And so, you know, I hear people say, well, we're not, we're not hiring a pastor to run our state. I would love pastor qualities in somebody who wants to run for an office. That's why I think we're. We're really reaching out to believers even today to say, hey, if this is you get a hold of us. But I also want to state that just because you don't think you're the pastor type, that that's not necessarily what we're talking about here. Pastors are in churches. Yeah.
Debbie Wuthnow There's different job descriptions. Right. The, the role of a pastor is, you know, to be the shepherd, to be the teacher, the role of a elected official. You know, it changes, it's different. It's your, your fighting for good legislation. We. So honestly, what I would look for is those men of God, the, The biblical worldview. Do you have a. Do you know where you stand in God's kingdom. Do you understand your role and do you understand his laws and his statutes such that, you would be a good ruler over maybe just tens, but, you know, you never know where God's going to lead from there.
Rick Beggs Well, and this goes down to, you know, city, municipalities, it goes to the, you know, the school board races, those things even to test that you would be over some smaller group before you went for something larger. We always talk about that. The other side, of the spectrum, those who don't believe in, you know, Christian worldview, biblical worldview, that they, you know, they're, they think that they ought to be able to rule. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't have somebody that we put up that wouldn't be in the same position to want to do it. And you may not feel qualified. That's not the case.
Debbie Wuthnow Probably don't. Yeah, exactly.
This coming Tuesday, June 9th, there are primaries in Maine
Rick Beggs Hey, listen, you know what that sound is? We are, we're going to talk about, election updates for what's coming this coming week. And so I'm sure you have a list, Debbie, I. Exhaustive of what is going on in regards to primaries.
Debbie Wuthnow Well, you know, we're in the midterm year, so, you know, there's elections going on and they're happening almost every week. this coming Tuesday, June 9th, there are going to be primaries in Maine, you got an important Senate primary on your ballot. Polls open at 6am they close at 8pm North Dakota, your primary is going on on the 9th. And I voter guide is covering your school board candidates in Bismarck, in Fargo and Grand Fork. So if you live in those areas, check out ivoterguide and share it with your friends, your church, get them educated and turning out to vote. So few votes will make a difference. Your Polls open at 7am they close at 9pm In Nevada, you also have a primary. And I voter guide's covering the school districts in Clark, in Lyon, and in Washoe counties. So your Polls open at 7am Close at 7pm Check out iVoterGuide and, and, then South Carolina, your poll, your primaries on this day, polls are 7am to 7pm and Georgia, you're having a runoff election, so few people turn out to vote. Really important you get to the polls 7am to 7pm and then there's also states where you can, have early voting going on. In California, you can start dropping off your ballots for the special election in Congressional District 14 today. Oklahoma, early voting is going on the 11th through the 13th for your primary. That's on June 16th. And then in Maryland, early voting starts on the 11th and your primary is on the 23rd. In Utah, early voting starts on the 10th for your primary on the 23rd. And in Colorado, early voting starts on the 12th for your primary on the 30th.
Special elections are so important because it will decide what we're looking at for November
So much going on, Rick. I think it's time to wrap this one and move on.
Rick Beggs It sounds like you mentioned every state. My goodness. it, it's unbelievable what goes on at this time of year. And primaries are so important, so important for you to get out. Special elections are so important because it's going to decide what we're looking at for November. As always, we want to encourage you. If you, want to know more about, American Family radio, go to afr.net you can actually find us and the show there. But also if you got, if you downloaded the app, the AFR app, American Family Radio app. You can find our show on there. Of course, the compass.
Welcome to the Compass, navigating the public square together with faith, truth and conviction
Debbie Wuthnow Welcome to the Compass, navigating the public
Rick Beggs square together with faith, truth and conviction. Well, we'd like to welcome you all in, today to be with us on the compass. And as always, Debbie, what now is my, co host with me? Say hey, Debbie.
Debbie Wuthnow Hey. Hey, Rick.
Rick Beggs so what direction on the compass do you want to go today?
I'd love to discuss this scripture with you. Read on. Well, I think there is a scripture that is frequently discussed
Debbie Wuthnow Well, I think there is a scripture that is one that I talk about frequently, and I just like to have a conversation with you about it.
Rick Beggs Read on.
Debbie Wuthnow Okay, so this is from Exodus, chapter, Wait, what chapter am I in? Chapter 18, verse 21. And the verse says, furthermore, you shall select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain, and you shall place these over them as leaders of thousands of, hundreds of 50s and of tens. So what do you think?
Rick Beggs Interesting. Well, tell me why this is important to you. What do you think this represents to you?
Debbie Wuthnow Well, when I give presentations about ivoterguide and what we do, this is where I point to, how God created government at every level, how we have representatives at every level, and the qualifications for those people that become those leaders.
Rick Beggs Well, this is such an interesting verse because there's a bigger context here as to what happened. So if you want to kind of walk through that with me, I'd love to do that with you.
Debbie Wuthnow Love to. Yes, love to.
Chapter 18 is really the reuniting of Moses with his family
Rick Beggs Well, where do we start? I don't. Well, I don't know. I'm probably at verse one in chapter 18. Because it is incredibly fascinating how this whole thing came about. When we're reading this verse of furthermore, of course, in your mind, when you read Scripture, like when you see the word therefore, you're wondering what is there for. Yeah. Okay, so you went to the same Bible school I did. So the next one would be. Would be Furthermore. So if it's furthermore, so what was the more before the further. And so that's really what I kind of want to discuss here because it's important. Yeah, it is. And in chapter 18, this is really the reuniting of, of Moses with his family. A lot of people don't understand or know that Moses had sent his wife off with his father in law to live in Midian. He was a priest in Midian. And, while he was. While they were there with him, of course, being separated from Moses, Moses goes through the whole Exodus, they cross the
Debbie Wuthnow Red Sea, all the Pharaoh stuff. Right?
Rick Beggs That's right. And so. And all the plagues and. And so when they're on the other side, this is sort of the reuniting of Jethro bringing, Zipporah and the two boys to come be with Moses again.
Debbie Wuthnow So other side. Do you mean the Red Sea?
Rick Beggs On the other side of the Red Sea after the Exodus. So I honestly, I have no idea how in the world Jethro finds, Moses. I mean, how many thousands and tens of thousands of people are, are here with all the different tribes, but now they have reunited. It's not like anybody had GPS at the time or some, way to find each other.
Debbie Wuthnow Yeah. Ah, you know what? I just. Maybe he followed the footprints of all those people.
Rick Beggs Well, he had to come from. Probably had to come from the north. you know, this is something I probably should have studied a little more geography, wise. Wise, where was Midian as compared? But I do know that it was probably at least 200 miles away from them. And so when you consider how far they had to come to find each other, I don't know even how you get directions.
Debbie Wuthnow Yeah, so anyway, there's no find my phone kind of thing going on back there.
Rick Beggs No, there's not. So they, they end up finding each other. And now Jethro's there, able to watch Moses as he leads the children of Israel. and in this case, Moses every day sat on a judgment seat to make decisions on what was going on with disputes between tribes, between people in tribes. And so he would sit basically from, you know, sunrise, to sunset, and listen over and over and over. Did I say over?
Debbie Wuthnow Can I imagine the line of people? It'll be. It'd be like Black Friday at Best Buy,
Rick Beggs only. Yes, only everybody's complaining, which, by the way, that usually happens at Best Buy too. So anyway, yes, so he's doing this over and over again. And now his father in law is watching him do this. And I can't, I can't imagine having your father in law watch you as you worked, from sunrise to sunset. But that's what's happening here. And he's watching and listening to all this activity, all this grumbling, all the frustration, all the, all the, all the, whatever you want to include there. It was continual.
Debbie Wuthnow And you got to remember he's brought Moses wife, right. Which is his daughter, and he's looking at the situation that she's now being placed back into, as well as his grandsons.
Rick Beggs Yeah. So that's why Jethro speaks up to him and says to him. Actually, he says it in verse 17. It says, Moses's father in law, Jethro said to him, the thing that you are doing is not good. You will surely wear out both yourself and these people who are with you. For the task is too heavy for you and you cannot do it alone. So Jethro is now going to make a suggestion, while he's watching Moses judge. And he's going to say, you got it? You got to change the way things are, are going. Now maybe it was a little selfish because he was concerned about his daughter in law and his grandsons, right, which makes sense. But now he's telling him that you have to find other people to help you. So he says, as a father in law may say to a son in law, I'm not sure how I would have taken this, but under God's direction, this is how it went down. He says, now, listen to me. This is Jethro talking to Moses. I will give you counsel and God will be with you. You be the people's representative before God and you bring the disputes to God. So what do you have to do, Moses? You have to teach them the statutes and the laws and make known to them the way in which they are to walk and how they are to work together. So fascinating because Moses thought he was supposed to do this, I don't know, for eternity until God took him home. But now Jethro said, I see the answer. And if you'll trust me on this, then what I would like you to do is begin to break the people down into groups. They're already in tribes, but now you need to teach others about God's statues and laws. Now I'm sure at some point Moses had been doing that for a while, but now he had to be very intentional about having them some knowledge.
Debbie Wuthnow Well, and it makes me wonder, the purpose for teaching them the laws and the statutes is so that they would walk in them and work in them and potentially having fewer disputes, do you think?
Rick Beggs Yeah, or actually getting rid of the smaller ones. And then the things that had to do with God or God, intentionally he would take before God himself. But to me it really gives me a modern day picture. if you look at the church today, that's really what church and pastors, ministers of the gospel, are doing when they teach their people, they're teaching the statutes, the laws of God. But even more so now in the new covenant, they're also discussing with them, the whole idea of, forgiveness, the resurrection, what it means to follow Christ, you know, everything that had and surrounded Jesus, which was the new covenant for us. Now we have pastors and churches leaders, deacons and elders who come alongside the people of the church so that they can, they can teach them all those statutes.
Debbie Wuthnow Is another word for this to make disciples.
Rick Beggs Well, yeah, there you go. That was the whole idea. That's when Jesus left, he said, this is what I'd like you to do. Yeah, but a lot of it training.
Debbie Wuthnow Training to know the statutes, to know the laws, the know, that's right, the way you're supposed to walk. That is discipleship without giving it the word here in Exodus.
Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over people
Rick Beggs Right. So I, I'm guessing when Jethro said to Moses, now listen to me, it's exactly what he did. Because after the verse that you read, the furthermore verse, Moses listened to his father in law, this is at verse 24, chapter 18, and did all the, that he had said. Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people. Leaders of thousands of hundreds, of 50s, of tens. They judged the people at all times. The difficult dispute they would bring to Moses, but every minor dispute, they themselves would judge. And so now there was a system in place that allowed for the children of Israel to go through in regards to disputes, complaints, frustrations, whatever. And there was now a hierarchy of doing that.
Verse reminds me of our government
Which sort of brings us to the whole idea of what you started with. When I asked you about the verse, you said, well, this kind of reminds me of our government. And though I'm not, I'm not 100% positive, although I know there were faithful men who started this country, but they would have used and know and understood what Moses went through as the great giver of law, how they were now going to form our country and begin to set up a governing body for us.
Debbie Wuthnow Well, I remember hearing Bill Federer give some fabulous presentations and he talked about that our founders really based, the model of the American constitutional republic on ancient Israel, but the Israel before the time of the kings. So there wasn't a king who ruled, it was the people who ruled, you know, through Moses. And then setting up these levels of leaders, you know, when I hear of tens, I think city council, school board, smaller, you know, home closer to your home, closer to community. 50s, you know, maybe that's a little bit bigger. Hundreds could be your state legislature, thousands could be, you know, the federal level of government. I see this at all levels of how, we're supposed to govern ourselves, but this is the way the government was set up, that there's a hierarchy to it and that gives order as long as all of them know the statutes and the laws and the way that we should walk so that we live righteously well.
Rick Beggs And what is the Constitution? How does it start?
Debbie Wuthnow We the people.
Rick Beggs The people. So it's already presumed that it's we the people. And this is kind of what gets messed up in our country.
Rick Beggs Is that we vote these people in. They forget that they represent the people. they may think that they represent themselves or some special interest group. And now we have a government that isn't serving the people. It's really they go to Washington or to the capitals of any state and they represent us in, in those entities.
Debbie Wuthnow And so they're also supposed to be accountable to us.
Rick Beggs Well, amen. Yeah, amen. So when you tie this back to what we do at I voter guide, you can see the natural progression of why this is worthy of our, our talking. Because if as Christians we want to make sure that we're basing what we do, I voter guide being one of those entities on biblical understanding.
Debbie Wuthnow Exactly.
Rick Beggs And I, and I do believe our forefathers really took that into consideration when they put our country together.
Debbie Wuthnow They did. And in that, in this system, in this hierarchy, it's not the system of government that's really in charge. Somebody I heard a pastor say and he described it as. If you looked at the org chart of the American constitutional system, the person at the top is the people, it's the voters. and we really need to understand our role in all of that. and it really comes from this conversation that Jethro had with Moses.
Rick Beggs Well, it tells you how important it is, to us, why it's important that we vote and why we should take serious and not just slough it off or maybe vote for somebody that because you saw a lot of yard signs for them, but really do a deep dive on somebody because these people are speaking for us in regards to things that we think are important. And of course as believers, you know, morality issues, ah, sanctity issues, the issues of understanding and coming together as groups, not as party differences, but as we support things that hopefully our legislators, our representatives are really listening to us, the people, and then going to act accordingly.
Debbie Wuthnow Exactly. Yeah. No, and you know, in that in the scriptures here Jethro actually gives qualities to look for.
Rick Beggs yeah, back to the. Furthermore.
Debbie Wuthnow Yep, yes, exactly the type of people that we should select out of all the people. well, the able man, the men of. Shall I.
Rick Beggs Okay, yeah, yeah, read it again because this is kind of Breaks it down as to what we're looking for.
Debbie Wuthnow Yeah. So furthermore, you shall select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain, and place them over. Place these over them as leaders of thousands of hundreds of 50s and of tens.
Rick Beggs And I don't want to dismiss either. In today's world, that would include men and women who are in those positions. Yeah, that would, who would fear God, be of truth, hate dishonest gain, and, be placed over as leaders of all these people. It gives us a lot to think about. It's very sobering, actually.
Debbie Wuthnow It is. And sometimes it can be hard to determine those things. I mean, that is the challenge to, you know, and even defining what all those terms mean. And then how do you evaluate those things? I know. M. That's something that we'll spend a lot of time coming back to, because it's important to understand what it means to be able men who fear God, men of truth, who hate dishonest gain.
iVoterGuide helps Christian voters find out about potential candidates
So where do you want to go next?
Rick Beggs Well, when you think of this verse for yourself, especially leading I voter guide, this really is the crux of why we put together sort of the systems to find truth, Even repeating a little bit about what we've gone over the last, several shows. And that's why we do what we do at iVoterGuide.
Debbie Wuthnow Well, I mean, as a, you know, as somebody who wasn't a political insider or even activist, I was just a, you know, a soccer mom, Christian voter. how do I find information about, you know, to determine that on the people that I vote for? How do I just not be voting off of yard signs or voting off of flyers? And the. The research that I voted Guide was created to do is. Is. Is key. Were you gonna say something?
Rick Beggs Yeah. Well, I was gonna say that's why we want to find men and women of truth. I mean, that's what we're, accumulating all this information in one place so people can actually go find it.
Debbie Wuthnow Well, and we want men of truth on our staff and as our volunteers so that we can share the truth as we seek to find out about the candidates. So, honestly, vetting is. Is at all levels of everything is just such an important thing that each of us should do well.
Rick Beggs Especially when you look. When you look at this list, that is spoken of in the. Furthermore, you go, well, wait a minute. There are so many people that I feel like haven't measured up to these things. When we go to Vote. And I know we're probably going to take the next show to kind of break these, each one of these things down specifically, but this is really how we should be searching out candidates.
Debbie Wuthnow Well, and obviously it's what God tells us to do, right, to look at those qualities. So I don't think we have enough time to get into that today. But it is important that we all understand that what God calls us to do, he will equip us to do. And I think he's created I voter guide to help equip, American voters with that information. He's given us his word to equip us to know the truth, to know his statutes, to know his laws, to know, our responsibilities to be salt and light and how do we go about doing that and even what does that mean, to be salt and light? Is that just in my family? And it's yes. Is it just in my church and my community? Yes. but it includes government. God created three institutions, the family, the church and the state and the state's politics. And we need to be salt and light in all of those. Not just leading our families, not just being involved in leading our church and Sunday school teachers and elders and deacons, but we need to be involved in the state. And it's clear through this scripture we've been talking about today that we all have roles to play and voters are, I mean even if all you do is vote, that's an important aspect of it. You know, God may be calling you, and saying, are you the able man who should be one of those representatives?
Rick Beggs That'll be a whole another thing to talk about. Yes. Yeah. I mean, in some respects somebody may be listening to this man, or woman who may think, wait a minute, God has been really kind of touching my heart about this stuff and I, I, I think maybe I ought to consider that. And I know we have several groups that do candidacy training. we won't talk about that here today, but if somebody really wanted to know about this, they could write us on our new now, [email protected] and they may say, I'm interested in that. Could you send me who I should go see or who I should go talk to if I wanted to be one of those able bodied people who hate to step in this game, who want to lead and God's calling them.
Debbie Wuthnow It's a scary world, but it's an important world that we shine light. If Christians aren't involved, who was left? It's the ungodly. And we don't want, our silence to give more authority and more power to the, to the ungodly. So if God's nudging you, I think that's the Holy Spirit. And I have learned when he nudges you, your best response is, here I am, Lord, send me, what do you want me to do? And I vote or guide us here to equip you. If that's where you feel God is leading you, but you don't even know where to start, I would encourage you to email [email protected] We've got a team that can direct you or point you to some fabulous groups out there. there's quite a few of them let you know, you know, the training that's available. Because when God calls you, he will equip you. And he actually likes to work through those who are weak and, and he wants to. He doesn't call the equipped, he equips the called. So, we would love to play a role if, in helping you be. Become equipped, if that's what you feel like God is calling you to do. So reach out. We'd love to hear from you.
Rick Beggs Yeah, we would. We would love to hear from you. I also want to say at this point, you know, not everybody who runs or, maybe let me restate it, not everybody we're looking at will have pastor qualities. I mean, sometimes I think even as Christians, we get a little bit, Well, I want them to be this, I want them to be that in regards to their spiritual walk when we're all at different places. And so, you know, I hear people say, well, we're not, we're not hiring a pastor to run our state. I would love pastor qualities in somebody who wants to run for an office. That's why I think we're. We're really reaching out to believers even today to say, hey, if this is you get a hold of us. But I also want to state that just because you don't think you're the pastor type, that that's not necessarily what we're talking about here. Pastors are in churches. Yeah.
Debbie Wuthnow There's different job descriptions. Right. The, the role of a pastor is, you know, to be the shepherd, to be the teacher, the role of a elected official. You know, it changes, it's different. It's your, your fighting for good legislation. We. So honestly, what I would look for is those men of God, the, The biblical worldview. Do you have a. Do you know where you stand in God's kingdom. Do you understand your role and do you understand his laws and his statutes such that, you would be a good ruler over maybe just tens, but, you know, you never know where God's going to lead from there.
Rick Beggs Well, and this goes down to, you know, city, municipalities, it goes to the, you know, the school board races, those things even to test that you would be over some smaller group before you went for something larger. We always talk about that. The other side, of the spectrum, those who don't believe in, you know, Christian worldview, biblical worldview, that they, you know, they're, they think that they ought to be able to rule. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't have somebody that we put up that wouldn't be in the same position to want to do it. And you may not feel qualified. That's not the case.
Debbie Wuthnow Probably don't. Yeah, exactly.
This coming Tuesday, June 9th, there are primaries in Maine
Rick Beggs Hey, listen, you know what that sound is? We are, we're going to talk about, election updates for what's coming this coming week. And so I'm sure you have a list, Debbie, I. Exhaustive of what is going on in regards to primaries.
Debbie Wuthnow Well, you know, we're in the midterm year, so, you know, there's elections going on and they're happening almost every week. this coming Tuesday, June 9th, there are going to be primaries in Maine, you got an important Senate primary on your ballot. Polls open at 6am they close at 8pm North Dakota, your primary is going on on the 9th. And I voter guide is covering your school board candidates in Bismarck, in Fargo and Grand Fork. So if you live in those areas, check out ivoterguide and share it with your friends, your church, get them educated and turning out to vote. So few votes will make a difference. Your Polls open at 7am they close at 9pm In Nevada, you also have a primary. And I voter guide's covering the school districts in Clark, in Lyon, and in Washoe counties. So your Polls open at 7am Close at 7pm Check out iVoterGuide and, and, then South Carolina, your poll, your primaries on this day, polls are 7am to 7pm and Georgia, you're having a runoff election, so few people turn out to vote. Really important you get to the polls 7am to 7pm and then there's also states where you can, have early voting going on. In California, you can start dropping off your ballots for the special election in Congressional District 14 today. Oklahoma, early voting is going on the 11th through the 13th for your primary. That's on June 16th. And then in Maryland, early voting starts on the 11th and your primary is on the 23rd. In Utah, early voting starts on the 10th for your primary on the 23rd. And in Colorado, early voting starts on the 12th for your primary on the 30th.
Special elections are so important because it will decide what we're looking at for November
So much going on, Rick. I think it's time to wrap this one and move on.
Rick Beggs It sounds like you mentioned every state. My goodness. it, it's unbelievable what goes on at this time of year. And primaries are so important, so important for you to get out. Special elections are so important because it's going to decide what we're looking at for November. As always, we want to encourage you. If you, want to know more about, American Family radio, go to afr.net you can actually find us and the show there. But also if you got, if you downloaded the app, the AFR app, American Family Radio app. You can find our show on there. Of course, the compass.
💬 Show Notes
In this episode, we navigate the complexities of leadership and governance through the lens of Exodus 18:21. Join hosts Rick and Debbie as they explore the biblical principles of selecting leaders who fear God and uphold truth. They discuss the significance of Jethro's advice to Moses and how it parallels modern governance structures. Discover how these ancient guidelines can inform today's political landscape and the importance of Christian involvement in civic duties.
Chapters:
(00:00) Welcome to the Compass, navigating the public square together with faith, truth and conviction
(00:40) I'd love to discuss this scripture with you. Read on. Well, I think there is a scripture that is frequently discussed
(02:01) Chapter 18 is really the reuniting of Moses with his family
(10:18) Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over people
(11:24) Verse reminds me of our government
(17:28) iVoterGuide helps Christian voters find out about potential candidates
(25:18) This coming Tuesday, June 9th, there are primaries in Maine
(27:12) Special elections are so important because it will decide what we're looking at for November
✍️ Episode References
iVoterGuide
https://ivoterguide.com
American Family Radio
https://afr.net
Bill Federer
https://billfederer.com
Exodus (Bible)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+18%3A21&version=NIV
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