Exodus 18:7-12 comments: Jethro honors God

Exodus 18:7 ¶  And Moses went out to meet his father in law, and did obeisance, and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare; and they came into the tent. 8  And Moses told his father in law all that the LORD had done unto Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, and all the travail that had come upon them by the way, and how the LORD delivered them. 9  And Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness which the LORD had done to Israel, whom he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians. 10  And Jethro said, Blessed be the LORD, who hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh, who hath delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. 11  Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them. 12  And Jethro, Moses’ father in law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God: and Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses’ father in law before God.

Here we have some Near Eastern customs. Moses honors his father-in-law with honor and a kiss and polite conversation. There are cultures on earth today where it is not uncommon for men to great each other with a kiss on the cheek. Paul references such a greeting even though it is not customary in America, as we prefer a handshake. A chaste and non-sexual kiss is a form of greeting.

Romans 16:16  Salute one another with an holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute you.

1Corinthians 16:20  All the brethren greet you. Greet ye one another with an holy kiss.

2Corinthians 13:12  Greet one another with an holy kiss.

1Thessalonians 5:26  Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss.

Let that be a warning to you not to let cultural customs in the Bible become spiritual dogma. I doubt a young man would ever get married if he insisted on waiting for a young woman to water his camels, as in Genesis 24, as a sign that God had sent her to him. Nor does a hair-style determine a woman’s relationship to God as an out-of-context reading of 1Corinthians 11 might suggest to the fundamentalist of today.

Moses did something for his father-in-law that the children of Israel failed to do for their children. He related what God had done for the children of Israel. This was something that the children of Israel did not do.

Judges 2:10  And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.

Here Jethro worships and honors Jehovah God as greater than all gods. This is the key element of Hebrew and Christian worship and understanding, and all of the monotheistic religions. It is a belief that the adherent is worshipping the supreme God of all. Then, the difference comes to arguments over His nature, His revelation of Himself, and His expectations of the obedient man or woman. But, here, even the pagan Jethro acknowledges that the God of the Hebrews is actually THE God. He has vanquished the gods of the Egyptians who had no power to withstand Him. In fact, He conquered not only any efforts they could have made, if they really existed, but He conquered the idea of gods, the concept of unseen theoretical entities that allow things to have mass or substitute dead particles such as photons for God’s Light, and all the vain imaginations of mankind.

Jehovah, the LORD, all capitals, whom Strong’s translates as, “the existing one,” is greater than all spiritual beings and all things real or imagined by men and women.

 1Kings 8:60  That all the people of the earth may know that the LORD is God, and that there is none else.

Isaiah 45:5  I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: 6  That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.

We learned earlier that God simply is, and that is His name, I AM THAT I AM, or simply I AM. Science requires that if you put forth a proposition, a statement of presumed fact, that you should be able to make certain predictions from it. Genesis 1:1 says that God created the universe. So, one could logically assume that since an intelligent entity created everything that a certain degree of design and order must be present in it as in our experience order does not come from disorder without intelligent guidance. This is, indeed, the case. Physicists are looking for a unifying “theory of everything.” Well, it is right here in front of us. He is the God of the Bible. His existence explains everything.

Who is God? He is the uncreated person and entity who created all that is. He simply is, as He said Himself, I AM THAT I AM.

Exodus 3:13  And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? 14  And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

It is a nonsensical question to ask who created God. Such a question is a philosophical absurdity. It is like asking; could God create a rock so heavy He could not lift it? Such questions are the pure gibberish of the skeptic whose mind is blinded by the god of this world, Satan.

God is the source of all reality; seen and unseen. In Job God states that everything from dust forming into a clod of dirt in a farmer’s field to lions catching their prey, with the movements of distant galaxies to rain happening in places on earth where there is no man are all direct results of His direct actions. Read Job, chapter 38. God is not a watchmaker winding up the clock and walking away or standing to admire His work. He makes the hands move and the tick-tock sound is part of His second-by-second control of all events. So, Modernism, even with Christians since Isaac Newton, by reducing God to the ultimate first cause without an active role in every moment of our existence, is just simply one of the things that is in error about man’s thinking. Nothing happens by itself without direction, meaningless and pointless, a result of blind chance. Absolutely nothing.