The Four Things Jethro Said to Look For Before You Trust Someone With Your Work

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Most leaders know they should delegate. Fewer know how to decide who to trust with what matters most. So they do one of two things: they hold everything close and wear themselves out, or they hand things to the wrong people and get burned. Neither teaches the right lesson.

Exodus 18:21 has sat quietly in the middle of one of the most important leadership passages in the Bible, and I think most people miss it. Jethro did not just tell Moses to delegate. He gave Moses a specific framework for selecting the people he delegated to.

"But select capable men from all the people — men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain — and appoint them as officials."

Exodus 18:21

Four criteria. They are not complicated. But applying them honestly to the people in your orbit will clarify a great deal.

1. Capable — Not Just Skilled

Jethro's first criterion is capability. But it is worth thinking about what capable actually means, because it is not the same as technically skilled.

A person can be skilled at a task and still not be capable of carrying responsibility. Capability includes resilience — the ability to stay steady under pressure and uncertainty. It includes problem-solving — not waiting to be told what to do when something unexpected happens. It includes the kind of judgment that makes decisions in the grey areas, not just the clear ones.

When I look for capable people in my teams — whether in the church context at Rhythm Church or in my businesses — I am not just asking "can they do the work?" I am asking: "Can they hold the weight of a role that is not always clearly defined? Can they function when I am not available to guide every decision?"

Technical skill is trainable. Capability is revealed over time, usually under pressure. It is worth observing before you appoint.

2. God-Fearing — The Foundation of Character

The second criterion is the one that most secular leadership frameworks skip: the person should fear God. In a business context, you may not be selecting people on the basis of shared faith, and that is a different conversation. But the principle underneath is essential regardless of context.

A God-fearing person is a person who makes decisions when no one is watching. They do not shift their standard based on who is in the room. Their integrity is not situational — it is a settled orientation toward what is right, regardless of the personal cost.

David Green built Hobby Lobby on this foundation. He did not require every employee to share his faith, but he built a culture of character from the top — one where honesty, fair dealing, and doing the right thing were not policies but values. The culture held across 50,000 employees because the people in positions of trust had been selected partly on the basis of character, not just competence.

If you appoint a capable person with weak character, you will eventually have a capable person running something you built — in a direction you did not intend.

3. Trustworthy — Consistent, Not Just Competent

The third criterion is trustworthiness. This is related to character but it is distinct. Trustworthiness is built through consistency over time, in small things first.

Jesus said it directly: "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much." (Luke 16:10) This is not a principle about spiritual maturity. It is a practical observation about human behaviour. The way someone handles the small things tells you something reliable about how they will handle the larger ones.

When I am thinking about who to trust with something significant — a leadership role, a financial decision, a client relationship — I ask myself: how has this person handled the smaller version of this responsibility? Have they been consistent, reliable, and honest in the things I can easily observe? If yes, that is data. If no, it is also data, and I should not pretend it is not there just because I like the person or need the help.

Trust is not given. It is earned incrementally. And the way you build it is by giving people increasing responsibility matched to their demonstrated reliability — and letting the track record speak.

4. Hates Dishonest Gain — The Integrity Test

The fourth criterion is the most specific, and it is the one that quietly disqualifies a large number of otherwise gifted people. Jethro says: select those who hate dishonest gain.

This is about what a person is willing to do to get ahead. Will they cut corners? Will they shade the truth to protect themselves or look better? Will they use their position for personal benefit in ways that quietly cost the organisation or the people it serves?

A person who hates dishonest gain is someone whose integrity does not have a price. They would rather lose a sale, accept a smaller outcome, or have a hard conversation than compromise the standard. That kind of person is rare. They are also the kind of person you can genuinely trust with something important — because you know the mission is safe in their hands even when the pressure is on.

In my experience, the greatest leadership failures I have seen — in churches, in businesses, in voluntary organisations — have almost always come back to this criterion being overlooked. The person was capable. They were reasonably consistent. But somewhere underneath, there was a willingness to bend things when it suited them. And eventually, it came out.

Applying These Four to Your Context

These four criteria work whether you are a pastor building a volunteer leadership team, a small business owner trying to decide who to promote, or a network builder selecting people to mentor and invest in. The context changes. The framework stays the same.

• Who in your team demonstrates capability under pressure, not just competence in calm conditions?
• Who makes the right decision when you are not watching?
• Who has been reliable and consistent in the smaller responsibilities you have given them?
• Who, when it would have been easy to cut a corner, chose not to?

Those are your people. Invest in them. Give them more. Build your structure around them. That is how Moses built a sustainable organisation in the wilderness. It is still how it is done.