(English & Español)
by Raimer Rojas
Discipleship • The Four Great Callings of God's People
The Cultural Mandate: God’s Design for Human Flourishing • The Cultural Mandate as a Reality Check • The Cultural Mandate Stewardship Checklist
I had lived long enough to recognize patterns. People. Disputes. Exhaustion. Authority. Order. Chaos. These things repeat themselves in every tribe, every nation, every generation. You don’t need a vision from heaven to recognize when life is being worked against.
So when I arrived at the camp of Israel, I didn’t need to ask many questions. I only had to watch. From morning until evening, Moses sat alone. One man. Endless lines. People waiting for hours—sometimes all day—just to be heard. Frustration simmering quietly. Confusion multiplying. Needs piling up. And there was my son-in-law. Anointed. Called. Faithful. And visibly wearing himself out.
I noticed my daughter too. She didn’t complain, but I could see the toll this was taking. This pace was not sustainable—not for Moses, no for their mariage, not for the people, not for the future.
Moses believed he was serving God well—and in many ways, he was. He listened to God. He judged faithfully. He cared deeply. But care alone does not create order. And sincerity does not cancel reality.
What alarmed me most was not Moses’ workload—it was the structure. Everything depended on him. If Moses rested, the people waited. If Moses was overwhelmed, the nation stalled. If Moses collapsed, everything collapsed. That is not how life is meant to work.
So I said what needed to be said—not spiritually, but truthfully: “What you are doing is not good.” Not sinful. Not unfaithful. But definitely not good. Because leadership that exhausts the leader and delays the people is already broken, even if God’s name is spoken all day long. “You will certainly wear yourselves out,” I told him. “You and these people with you.”
Moses thought he was carrying the burden because God had called him. But the calling was never meant to work this way. So I spoke from experience—life experience. “Teach the people God’s ways. Show them how to live. But do not do everything for them.”
Find capable people. Trustworthy people. People who fear God and hate dishonest gain. Give them real responsibility. Let them carry what they can carry. This was not rebellion. It was wisdom. I was not taking authority from Moses. I was protecting it. And to his credit—Moses listened.
What Jethro saw was not theological error—it was creational misalignment. Moses was deeply anointed, but his leadership practices were out of sync with how God designed life to function. Exodus 18 is not primarily about delegation; it is about honoring the cultural mandate in leadership.
The cultural mandate (Gen. 1:28; 2:15) calls leaders to:
cultivate life,
steward people wisely,
set boundaries,
order what is chaotic,
and build systems that lead toward flourishing.
Moses was violating every one of these—not because he lacked faith, but because he lacked structure aligned with design. This is why Jethro does not challenge Moses’ spirituality. He challenges his practice.
Jethro’s advice aligns perfectly with the cultural mandate:
Order what is chaotic → “You must organize the people and appoint leaders over groups of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens.”
Set boundaries → “You cannot do this alone; the load is too heavy for you.”
Steward people wisely → “Choose capable men—those who fear God, are trustworthy, and hate dishonest gain—and place them in responsibility.”
Design systems that sustain life → “Let them handle the everyday cases, and bring only the difficult matters to you, so you will endure.”
Multiply leadership capacity → “If you do this, the people will go home satisfied, and you will be able to stand.”
This is not merely good advice. It is creation-aligned leadership.
God did not design leadership to flow through one exhausted individual. He designed it to multiply through shared responsibility. When Moses changed his structure, Israel flourished—not because the anointing increased, but because leadership finally honored reality.
The Moses–Jethro story exposes a danger that still lives in the Church.
We can become so enamored with:
anointing
charisma
spiritual intensity
visible achievement
that we fail to honor God by living according to His Word as revealed since creation.
Leaders can be:
sincere
gifted
prayerful
anointed
…and still build systems that exhaust people, bottleneck growth, and prevent flourishing.
The cultural mandate forces the Church to ask questions that spirituality alone often avoids:
Are our leaders overloaded?
Are people being formed into responsible leaders—or kept dependent?
Are our systems multiplying capacity—or centralizing control?
Are we cultivating life—or merely managing activity and events?
Just as with Moses, God expects leaders to honor how He designed leadership to work, not just to work harder or pray more.
The cultural mandate is fundamentally a leadership mandate, and Exodus 18 shows that even the most anointed leaders can miss God’s design if they ignore stewardship, structure, and sustainability.
Moses’ story teaches us that:
God cares how leadership functions, not just who is leading
intimacy with God does not cancel responsibility to lead wisely
flourishing requires alignment with creation-level wisdom
leadership that ignores the cultural mandate will eventually exhaust people—even when intentions are pure
This is not a rebuke of spirituality. It is a call to lead in a way that honors how God designed life to work—then and now.