Big Buts of the Bible

Read Isaiah 9:1–7 & Matthew 4:12–22

Sometimes familiarity causes us to miss the wonder.

Jesus walks beside the Sea of Galilee and sees Simon and Andrew casting their nets. “Come, follow me,” He says. Farther along He finds James and John working with their father, and He calls them too.

We’ve heard the story so many times that perhaps we’ve stopped asking the obvious question: Why them?

For that matter, when we consider the people God has called His own throughout history, perhaps an even better question is: Why us?

Matthew tells us that Jesus began His public ministry in Galilee—and that this wasn’t incidental. He reaches back centuries to the prophet Isaiah:

“In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations…”

There’s our big but. In the past … but in the future. Something is changing.

Isaiah continues: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” Matthew announces that this is that moment. The Light has arrived.

But notice where.

Galilee wasn’t the place you might have expected God to choose for the launching of Messiah’s ministry. It was ethnically mixed, culturally suspect, removed from the religious center of Jerusalem. Even the expression Galilee of the Gentiles carried some of that baggage.

Yet God had promised: I will honor Galilee. The place associated with darkness would see the Light. The overlooked place would become the place where Jesus walked. The place others might have dismissed would become holy ground beneath the feet of the Son of God.

That’s worthy of some wonder. 

When we read who He chose, we see the pattern continues. Jesus could have begun assembling His disciples from among the religious elite. He could have gone looking for the most accomplished scholars or the most impressive spiritual résumés.

Instead, He walked along the shoreline and found fishermen. Working people. Simon and Andrew were casting a net. James and John were repairing theirs. Jesus found ordinary people doing ordinary things and said, “Follow Me.”

And eventually He entrusted these people with His Gospel.

They weren’t always particularly impressive disciples, either. They misunderstood Him, argued among themselves, asked foolish questions, wanted positions of importance, fell asleep when He asked them to pray, and ran when He was arrested. Peter denied even knowing Him. These were flawed people.

But Jesus chose them.

After His resurrection, He entrusted these same people with taking the news of His salvation to the world.

That’s where this becomes personal for me. I’m amazed that God saves people like us. But I’m sometimes even more amazed that He uses people like us.

We know ourselves too well. We know the things nobody else knows—the failures, fears, weaknesses, and chapters we’d rather remove from our stories. We know how often we’ve stumbled after promising ourselves—and God—that this time we’d do better.

Yet Scripture tells us that those who belong to Christ aren’t merely tolerated by God. We are His beloved children—chosen, adopted, redeemed, loved.

And then, as though that weren’t wonder enough, Jesus turns around and entrusts us with His message. You tell them. You love them. You serve them. You show them.

You tell the brokenhearted about grace because you know something about needing grace yourself.

God places the treasure of the Gospel into very ordinary, sometimes trembling, frequently imperfect hands.

Ours.

Maybe that’s why Galilee matters so much. God seems to delight in putting His light where people least expect to find it: a disregarded region, a fishing boat, an ordinary person, a broken story.

Perhaps that should change the way we look at ourselves and one another. The question isn’t whether we’re impressive enough for God. The wonder is that Jesus calls people who have nothing impressive to offer Him except themselves—and then transforms them as they follow.

“Come, follow me.”

Three simple words. But behind them is an astounding truth: the God of heaven wants us near. The Savior of the world calls us His own. And the One who certainly doesn’t need our help chooses to involve us in what He is doing.

May we never become so familiar with grace that we lose our wonder over this: He chose us. And then He said, “Follow Me.”