Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 27-29.

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When God told Moses that he would be gathered to his people after viewing the land that God had given to the people of Israel, he asked God to appoint someone to lead the people in Moses’ place.  Before I go into the difference between the authority over the people which God gave Joshua, Moses’ successor, and that which He had given Moses, I want to focus in on that phrase, “the land that I have given to the people of Israel.”  God did not tell Moses he would see, from the mountain, the land which He was going to give to the people of Israel.  God told Moses that He had already given it to them.  The people of Israel were not yet living in the land, but God had already given it to them.  It was just up to them to move into it and occupy it.  In the same way, through Christ, God has given us citizenship in the kingdom of God.  We just need to move into it and begin to live our lives there.

Now, while Moses led the people of Israel, he spoke to God directly and God directed him as to what His will was for the people of Israel.  In Moses, the spiritual and secular leadership was combined into one person.  However, God separated those roles when He replaced Moses with Joshua.  Joshua was in charge of leading the people, but he was to have Eleazar inquire of God for guidance from God.  To me that seems to give us a model for leadership of the organizations we create to carry out the mission which God gives us.  When God gives a vision to someone to create an organization, He will often give that person the gifts to make decisions to lead that organization with full authority over it.  However, when that founder passes leadership on to the next generation, the next generation of leaders should have someone (or more than one someone) who can hold them accountable.  As I understand this passage, Joshua was to decide what he thought the people of Israel should do, whether it was tactics and strategy or where they should camp, then bring it to Eleazar for Eleazar to seek God’s guidance using the Urim as to whether Joshua had decided according to God’s will.  So, Eleazar did not have authority to make decisions, but he had a sort of veto over Joshua’s decision. I will note that I think what I just wrote is an oversimplification of the relationship of the power of Joshua and Eleazar.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.