When Moses called seventy elders of Israel to prophesy outside the camp, which was laid out in the form of a square, Joshua heard that two men were prophesying inside the camp. “Moses, my lord, forbid them,” he urged.
But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? (Numbers 11) Oh, that all the LORD’S people were prophets and that the LORD would put His Spirit upon them!” Moses was able to think inside as well as outside the square.
It was not as though the two men were numbered among the seventy and had disobeyed the command of Moses to come outside. We should expect such things from those who do the same things in their own ways. Not because they are rebellious but rather because they are exceptional.
If only more leaders were as magnanimous in such matters as Moses was in this particular instance! Government is good but mature pastors are alert for exceptions to the general rule, and when the Spirit of God is moving, they “go with the flow” in that they see the big picture.
Paul took this view with some spiritual ‘hotshots’ in the church at Corinth who were preaching Christ freely while he was imprisoned in Rome. “Nevertheless, Christ is preached” wrote the big-hearted Paul. Although bound in a small cell, he kept his eyes on the big picture.
“The devil is in the details,” they say, and in pastoral work and in teaching that may be so: small problems left unattended can soon become big ones. But apostles, prophets, and evangelists are more visionary and so keep their eyes on the big picture because they are not agents of influence but agents of change.
Whether “inside the camp” or “outside” in the time of Moses didn’t matter because both were doing as either directed or moved by the Spirit of God — and it’s the same today.