And the LORD said unto Moses, Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee. Numbers 11:16
Moses was overwhelmed. The weight of the responsibility that he felt was too much for him, and he had a heart-to-heart talk with the Lord about it. The breaking point for him came as the people he was leading rose up in a general complaint about the manna that God had provided to sustain them in the wilderness. Mind you, the Lord did not like the people’s complaints anymore than Moses did. But the Lord did have an answer for Moses in his cry against the heavy burden he was bearing. His answer was to provide Moses with a large company of good men who would share the burden with him. Even today, God does not leave the burden of caring for the Lord’s people to one man.
Moses had a genuine and deep care for the Lord’s people, the children of Israel. He longed for all that was best for them, and he sought to guide them in the way that the Lord would have them go. The Lord appreciated Moses’ care for His people, just as He appreciates the care of those who seek to lead and shepherd His people today. And the Lord assured Moses that the seventy elders who would assist him would have the same spirit as Moses did. What a relief for Moses! What a great help those seventy would be! That many elders would be much more effective and would provide a much more intimate link with the people than one leader ever could. It is a principle that still works.
Companies of the Lord’s people do not gather in numbers as large as the one million plus Israelites who were marching through the wilderness. So we don’t need seventy elders to care for them. But we do need the burden to be shared. Elders who shepherd our Assemblies need the support of each other to keep the burden from becoming too great. They also need the support of each other to maintain the same spirit of caring for the Lord’s people. And they need the support of each other to avoid enabling one elder to exercise unchristlike domination of the Assembly as we read of Diotrephes doing in the third epistle of John.
Our Lord is kind in providing elders to serve and lead His people. And He is also kind in giving those elders the support they need to be the servants and leaders His people need. – Jim MacIntosh