What Moses and Paul Tripp Are Teaching Me About Parenting

As excited as Jeff and I are to meet our little guy (in just 6 weeks, give or take!), when I think about the actual task of parenting, it can feel overwhelming. God used a passage of Scripture I read recently—along with some wise words from author and speaker Paul Tripp—to give me perspective, comfort, and hope.

Exodus chapter 18 makes me think of our role as parents. Here’s the context: Moses is in a vast desert with about 30,000 people. He recently led them out of Egypt (after God freed them from their enslavement to the Egyptian people), and now he is their leader, judge, and effectively, their priest.

The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening. When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, “What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?” 

Moses answered him, “Because the people come to me to seek God’s will. Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God’s decrees and instructions.”

Moses’ father-in-law replied, “What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him. Teach them his decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave. But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied (Exodus 18:13-26, emphasis mine).

Moses was spending all day sitting and listening to the many disputes of the Israelites, and it was getting to be too much for him, Jethro observed. So Jethro comes up with a plan, which involves three elements: (1) Moses would appoint impartial, just leaders (not swayed by money) to judge lesser disputes/matters; (2) Moses would continue to represent the Israelites by bringing their larger disputes (which the judges could not resolve—the issues that had less to do with civil and moral law, perhaps, and had to do more with spiritual discernment) before God—and (3), Moses would continue to teach the people God’s laws and model how to follow them.

The whole plan is quite brilliant, from a business perspective: it spreads out the work load through delegation, capitalizes on the strengths of multiple individuals, and makes the whole process more efficient. What struck me most, however, was not so much Jethro’s third suggestion (delegating), but his first two: You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him. Teach them his decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave (19-20).

Isn’t this a lot of what parenting is about? Mediating? From my experience substitute teaching, at least, kids (especially in the lower grades) are continually “bringing disputes” before me—and I’m sure it’s no different as a parent. Fortunately or unfortunately, however, parents don’t have the opportunity to refer disputes and issues to a “lower court”—unless its referring the issue to a spouse—“talk to your dad!” The buck stops with us.

Each time we see and have an opportunity to address an aspect of a child’s brokenness, it is not an interruption or a burden, Tripp argues, but grace.

Not only tiring, but annoying. Paul Tripp, author of Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family, helps reframe the way we see each of these instances requiring mediation. Each time we see and have an opportunity to address an aspect of a child’s brokenness, it is not an interruption or a burden, Tripp argues, but grace. In a seminar series that Jeff and I have been watching, Tripp says it this way, “The whole plan is for you to get exposed to all that stuff [sin] to get exposed to God’s love. Because He loves those children so deeply, you’ll get exposed to their sinfulness every day, because God put those children in your family, and that itself is overwhelming love. Be thankful. Be thankful! Be thankful! God loves your child! This little one needs rescue. It’s a beautiful thing.”

The beautiful thing, also, is that we’re not responsible to do the rescuing.

The beautiful thing, also, is that we’re not responsible to do the rescuing. As Aaron urged Moses, “Teach [the Israelites] [Yahweh’s] decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave.”  We are responsible to teach, and to model. Not to try and force an outcome, not to control or change behavior, not to change the heart.

Here is the release: our parental role is primarily to guide our children to the ultimate teacher and Saviour. “Your job is to take these little moments [when your children sin],” Tripp says, “and begin to lead you children to the ultimate Father.” One of the most important, most powerful ways we teach our children to run to the Savior is by running to Him ourselves. We lead a life of dependence, perhaps chiefly through prayer.

While we cannot necessarily refer issues to a lower court like Moses did, we can bring these issues to the highest court. Through intercessory prayer, we can represent our children (or students, or nephews/nieces, or neighbors) before God, just as Moses did with the Israelites. We have the privilege, in the words of Exodus, to “bring [our children’s] disputes to God”. And when we do this, we can have “confidence . . . in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15).

The man Moses—who grew weary, flopped into his tent at night after a long day of holding court, and fell into a deep sleep—foreshadowed the God-man Jesus, who never sleeps, and “always lives to intercede for [those who come to God through him]” (Hebrews 7:25).

We love our children, but God loves them so much more.

We model and teach; God molds hearts.

Not only can squabbles be opportunities for showing grace to our little ones, but opportunities for seeking and receiving grace ourselves. God doesn’t leave us alone to perspire and strive single-handedly for our children’s hearts—or our own. One of my very favorite verses in Scripture says, “…the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans” (Romans 8:26).

While we are interceding for our kids, Jesus’ Spirit is interceding for us.

We shepherd our children, but God the Father shepherds us.

What comfort. What relief.

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