In Exodus 18, Jethro instructs Moses on the importance of delegating authority. He advises Moses to find reliable people to assist him and ease the burden he is facing as Israel's human leader (verse 22).
Shared governance is also important for Christian congregations. When Paul leaves Titus in charge of Christian communities on the island of Crete, he directs Titus to appoint elders who are ethical and trustworthy (Titus 1:5-9).
He goes on to tell Titus that qualified elders might not be so easy to find, quoting a famous Cretan (Epimenides) who said that "Cretans are always liars" (verse 12). Paul affirms that Epimenides' statement is true!
Here is another example illustrating that "all" in the Bible is often not a mathematical "all." If every single thing uttered by a Cretan is untrue, we are faced with a paradox (known as the Epimenides paradox). If Epimenides' statement is true, then it is false as the statement of a Cretan. On the other hand, if Epimenides is liar, then his statement is true.
But there is no paradox if Cretans are just often unreliable rather than always unreliable.
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