Year 4, Day 67: Exodus 18

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: 8-6-4 Principle

• 8-6-4 Principle: The 8-6-4 principle is a principle that speaks about the multiplication possible in discipleship.  If 1 person disciples 8 people, those 8 people each disciple 6 people, and those 48 people each disciple 4 people, then you have 8+48 + 192 = 248 people in discipleship.  The initial person could never have the time necessary to disciple by themselves all 248 people affected; but as a collective it is possible.

The 8-6-4 principle shows the multiplicative property of discipleship making.  1 person cannot possibly hope to disciple hundreds of people.  Even 8 people cannot hope to disciple hundreds of people.  But working together as a collective, a large group can be reached by everyone doing their part to reach a smaller subset of the larger group.

This is precisely what Jethro tells Moses to do in Exodus 18.  Jethro tells Moses that he cannot possibly hear the complaints of the hundreds of thousands of people that he led out of Egypt.  But if Moses can divide the whole assembly into groups of tens, then the leaders of the tens could report to the people over them.  Those leaders could report to people over them.  This would continue until Moses was hearing from the leaders of the leaders of the leaders.

If Moses can reach 10 people, those 10 can reach 100.  Those 100 can reach 1,000.  Those 1,000 can reach 10,000.  Those 10,000 can reach 100,000.  Those 100,000 could reach as many as 1,000,000.  All of this can be done with nobody needing to worry about more than 10 people.  1,000,000 people can be led intimately with nobody being more than 6 steps away from the central leader.  This is what happens when we let go of the myth that we must all touch the central figure in an organization for us to be important within the organization.

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