Slow of Speech

Exodus 4:10, "And Moses said unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue."

Moses was not skillful as a speaker, so God let Aaron be the mouthpiece.

Acts 7:22, "And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds."

Moses was trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but don’t tell me that they didn’t know how to be great orators. Perhaps this training was intentionally omitted.

My brother and I were talking the other night about the economic oppression caused by the prevalence of debt. Yet it is so pervasive that the few who rebel against the debt lie are still bound to it’s influence. The only chance of massively changing the world, of fixing the problem, is to do what Dave Ramsey did: to exercise free speech and persuade people of the more excellent way.

Like the ants in Bug’s Life, the voices of visionaries can spur the masses to stand up for themselves and relieve the oppression. In America we have the right to free speech. Egypt was not so gracious, and they certainly didn’t want their Hebrew adopted prince to be ready to lead an uprising. So maybe they didn’t teach him speech. Maybe they taught him that he was a bad speaker, or made fun of him when he tried to wax eloquent.

Aaron didn't have that fault in his education. He was an excellent speaker. But Moses could have been a good speaker if he would have relied on God, who promised to be with His mouth. Tonight at Awana we were studying the faith of Moses. This is the seventh in a series of heroes of faith we have been studying. A few weeks ago we looked at Nehemiah, an excellent leader. The quiz at the end of the lesson included a question on what made Nehemiah such a good leader. My student had written that He was a good leader because he had God's help.

So I asked, "Does that mean you can be a good leader?" Typically, I got the answer "No. I don't know. I guess. Maybe."

What is God calling and equipping you to be?

To God be all glory.