Numbers 27 - Leadership

¹⁸ So the LORD said to Moses, “Take Joshua son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit of leadership, and lay your hand on him.¹⁹ Have him stand before Eleazar the priest and the entire assembly and commission him in their presence. ²⁰ Give him some of your authority so the whole Israelite community will obey him. ²¹ He is to stand before Eleazar the priest, who will obtain decisions for him by inquiring of the Urim before the LORD. At his command he and the entire community of the Israelites will go out, and at his command they will come in.”

So as the God brings the people to the land that has been promised them, God has Moses pass the mantle of leadership on to Joshua. But notice, that Joshua will not walk in the same authority or relationship with God. Two things of note inj God's instructions are :

²⁰ Give him some of your authority so the whole Israelite community

²¹ He is to stand before Eleazar the priest, who will obtain decisions for him by inquiring of the Urim before the LORD. 

Joshua will not have the same authority as Moses and will not speak to God directly. And yet, Joshua will be a powerful leader for the Israelites. Joshua will lead them to take the land they have been promised. So why does God change the system of how this leadership will work? Is it because leadership such as Moses had is not necessary? Is it because God doesn't want to set that as typical?

I beleive that God has molded the people to have a new attitude of fear of the Lord and trust. The people are not the walking wounded that the previous generation was and does not need the signs and miracles that the previous generation did. Also, God is bringing separation between the spiritual leadership and the other leadership. God has designed it that they will work hand in hand, but no one person will be the sole leader.

The interesting thing is that throughout the time to come, and even today, there will be conflict between those sides of the coin generally with one side trying to be more powerful than the other and we have seen periods of history where both governmental leadership and spiritual leadership have been figureheads of the other.

Is it possible to get back to the balance of Joshua and Eleazar? A time when governmental leadership is clearly directed by God and governmental leaders value spiritual leaders? I believe that it is possible and we see glimpses of it now and then. Things do become further confused today by the number of spiritual leaders though. Our nation does not have a spiritual leader which all people look to. So what do we do? We pray. pray that God will bring forth both spiritual leaders and governmental leaders that are clearly ordained for their positions. And we watch, so that we can recognize these leaders when they arrive.