Saturday 23 January 2010

My servant Moses

I speak with him face to face, Even plainly, and not in dark sayings; And he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid To speak against My servant Moses?" - Numbers 12v8

There is an interesting family squabble here. First Moses marries this Ethiopian woman. His big sister and his brother apparently don’t like this. Then they start thinking about how Moses gets all the attention and they get nothing. The ugly monster of jealousy rears its ugly head.

‘Why does Moses get to speak for God? What about us? Why don’t we get the prestige? He always gets to be the ‘go to guy. What about us?’

God’s response was clear. He had chosen to speak with Moses. That is why Moses spoke for Him. Why were Aaron and Miriam not afraid about speaking against God’s choice?

I think there is a picture here for us. I want to preface this with the statement that this is not accusatory, but one of those ‘if the shoe fits statements.’

I wonder how often criticism for other men of God is motivated not by a true desire to expose error or defend the faith, but instead are made out of jealousy like Aaron and Miriam? Someone else has more prestige or recognition than we do so we find a way to be critical and to justify our criticism.

I suspect that we need to be very careful about speaking against the servants of God and mae sure of our motivation when we have to do so.

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