Open Your Tent: A Missional Reading of Exodus 18

We typically don’t think of the Exodus story when we hear the word Mission. Usually, Mission is associate more with the New Testament. However, when we use missional hermeneutics, we can see the Mission of God at work even in the second book of the Hebrew Bible.

First, let me clarify. When I say Mission, I am not referring to the work of God’s church in the world to bring about his purposes. That is missions. Mission refers to the purpose of God itself.

It is God’s Mission to bring about the redemption of the whole world. The pattern we see in scripture is that God redeems a people, gives him his presence, and then uses them to bless the nations. We can see this pattern in God’s choosing of Abraham’s seed, the story of the Exodus, and of course, the Church.

Missional Hermeneutics is looking at the scripture with this lens in mind, in the same way that many readers of the Bible study the scripture with a Christological lens. This quick article will describe my missional reading of Exodus 18 using missional hermeneutics.

The Purpose of the Exodus

In the story of the Exodus we have a beautiful picture of redemption that the New Testament authors seem to pick-up on as well (1 For 10:1-17, the entire book of Mathew is filled with Exodus type language).

The descendants of Abraham, the ones who were supposed to be as numerous as the stars and who were supposed to be God’s agents of blessing to the nations, are in slavery and it appears that they have forgotten who they are.

“During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.” God saw the people of Israel and God knew.

Exodus 2:23-25

We don’t get the sense that the Hebrew people necessarily prayed to God, but we do see that God hears their groaning and crying. Even though Israel was unable to save itself and unaware of who God was, God was still working to rescue them for himself.

When he calls Moses he tells him his name and directs him to go to Egypt.

“Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”

Exodus 6:6-7 ESV

God will reveal himself to the Israelites through his act of redeeming them. It is in the story of the Exodus that the Israelites understand the character of God.

God intends to rescue his people and so he sends Moses to Pharaoh. God tells Pharaoh, through Moses…

“For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”

Exodus 9:14-16 ESV

Not only will God show Pharaoh who he is, but God will also reveal himself to the world. Through the Exodus of Egypt, God will showcase that he is God and that all the gods of Egypt are not. He will show the world how he treats those who are covenanted with him. The deliverance of the Israelites will become a message to the nations.

You probably know the rest of the story. God sends plagues, brings them out of Egypt, and then takes them to Mt Sinai, the same mountain that God told Moses he would bring them to.

Jethro and Moses at Mt Sinai

This brings us to Exodus 18, at the foot of Sinai. It is here at Sinai that the Children of Israel learn who they are redeemed to be.

Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel his people, how the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt. Now Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, had taken Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her home, along with her two sons. The name of the one was Gershom (for he said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land”), and the name of the other, Eliezer (for he said, “The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh”). Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness where he was encamped at the mountain of God. And when he sent word to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons with her,”

Exodus 18:1–6 (ESV)

So who is Jethro?

To put it succinctly he is a pagan priest who is also Moses’s father-in-law.

We get no inclination that he worships God, in fact, he probably worships many gods. I wonder if when Moses, before he left for Egypt, told him that God had spoken to him and told him to go rescue his people, I am sure Jethro thought, “Which god?” And “How will this god rescue his people when he has already lost to Egypt? Pharaoh has enslaved Moses’s people, surely Pharaoh and his gods are greater than Moses’s god!”

The Exodus happens, the Israelites go to Sinai, and Jethro hears about the Exodus and comes to Moses.

Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him. And they asked each other of their welfare and went into the tent. Then Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardship that had come upon them in the way, and how the Lord had delivered them. And Jethro rejoiced for all the good that the Lord had done to Israel, in that he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians.

Exodus 18:7–9 (ESV)

In Moses’s Tent- A Place of Mission

They enter the tent and Moses shows him hospitality. In the tent, Moses bears witness to what God has done for his people. Israel was passive. Israel did not deserve it. Yet God in his love stepped in and brought them out of Egypt.

I love that Moses tells him about the hard times as well. There is an honesty there that I think is telling to the relationship they had. Moses could tell the good and bad and yet still show that God was faithful.

Jethro is a priest who believes that the gods are at war and the stronger god always wins. He hears from Moses unmistakable evidence to the supremacy of Moses’s God.

If Jethro stands in the place of the nations then Moses stands in the place of the People of God. This is who the People of God are supposed to be, a living testimony of the goodness of God to the nations. If Israel would be loyal to the covenant, God would bless them and make his name great. Israel was redeemed, not because she was worthy, but because God had elected her for his purposes. His Mission is fleshed out by their existence. His Mission becomes their Mission. Israel would be a kingdom of priests, a kingdom that would represent God to the nations and the nations before God.

This is who the People of God are supposed to be, a living testimony of the goodness of God to the nations.

Jethro said, “Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh and has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people.” And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and sacrifices to God; and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God.

Exodus 18:10–12 (ESV)

Like numerous examples in the Old Testament (Rahab, Ruth, the mixed multitude that left Egypt) we see that membership in the People of God is not based on ethnicity, but faith.

Jethro joins Moses and the people of Israel and is mentioned several times as living with the people of God even up to the land of Canaan (Numbers 10:29, Judges 1:16).

When we use missional hermeneutics to read this passage we see the pattern of the People of God being used by God for his Mission. By bearing witness to what God has done for them, God uses them to bless the nations.

The Church and the New Exodus

God has done a New Exodus in the person of Christ. The Cross was our Red Sea. We didn’t deserve it, we couldn’t ask for it, but God stepped into history to redeem us. And now, his Mission has become our Mission.

Peter says this…

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

1 Peter 2:9 ESV

Now, we bear witness to the works of God to the nations!

How?

The same as Moses…

We open up our tent.

We open up our lives to our family. Our lives our opened to our neighbors. We open our lives to our friends. We show great hospitality and we declare the faithfulness of God and declare his wondrous works.

In a Western context, this can be tough. We rarely know our neighbor’s name, and yet God calls us to be his ambassador to those that don’t know him. We don’t have to just go across the ocean to participate in God’s Mission, we also need to go across the street.

So, how about next time someone asks you, “How are you doing?” or “What’s new?”

Why not tell them what God has done? What would happen if you would open your tent and see what God can do? Why not be like Moses and make God’s Mission your Mission.

Resources on Missional Hermeneutics

Here are some great resources about this subject!

The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative by Christopher Wright

Wright does a great job of laying out a Missional Hermeneutic but also has some great sections on Exodus.

The God Who Makes Himself Known: The Missionary Heart of the Book of Exodus by W. Ross Blackburn

This is a fuller treatment of a missional reading of the entire book of Exodus. I highly recommend it!

Here is another great article from our collection!