The Land of Good For Nothing

In 1 Kings 9, Solomon gives Hiram, king of Tyre payment for his help in constructing the Lord's temple. The payment consists of 20 cities in the region of Galilee.
1 Kings 9:11 (ESV) and Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold, as much as he desired, King Solomon gave to Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee.

When Hiram goes to check them out, it reads very negatively:
1 Kings 9:12–13 (ESV) But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, they did not please him. 13 Therefore he said, “What kind of cities are these that you have given me, my brother?” So they are called the land of Cabul to this day.

Cabul is hard to translate but commentators call it, "good for nothing." Now there's also some more description to this region given to us in this passage that you may be tempted to skip over. Doing so misses a powerful point. Looking later in the chapter it reads:

1 Kings 9:20–21 (ESV) All the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the people of Israel— 21 their descendants who were left after them in the land, whom the people of Israel were unable to devote to destruction—these Solomon drafted to be slaves, and so they are to this day.

So you have a mixture of people from the nations that should have been given to destruction mingling with Israel. Yes, they are listed as forced slaves here but you have to know that intermarriage would be right around the corner, the human condition betrays this throughout history.

Why do I mention these details? Because Galilee may have been considered "good for nothing" in Solomon's day but it will be the very place from which Jesus will come as a grown man and inaugurate His ministry. Galilee is also the place from which Jesus will gather 11 of his 12 disciples. The only disciple NOT from Galilee? Judas. 

Remember that when Jesus began His ministry, He deliberately determined to go straight into this area:

John 1:43 (ESV) The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”

What's the point? The point is this. Galilee was considered "good for nothing" by a noble king in Solomon's day. AND it was also intermarried with many of the nations during the ages of the kings DUE TO Israel's failure to drive out the nations. So what you had was a mixed-breed area that the important people considered worth nothing! The FAILURE of Israel will be used by God to reach the nations. 

Now the truth is, Galilee will reject Christ in large part as well, but the important point is that Jesus saved people out of that area and established men from that area as His Apostles. The Lord takes what we think is good for nothing and makes them anointed for anything. Further, the intermarriage of the Galilean area would have made the Jews there much more open to different kinds of people (albeit only slightly from scripture's record of the disciple's attitudes). Still, the decision of Jesus to start and recruit from there was intentional with the larger scope of what the Kingdom was about in His mind - all nations coming to God.

So maybe you are the kind of person who others (the "important" people in your world) think are good for nothing. Can I tell you Christ thinks you are both valuable and useful. Follow Him and He will make you what HE wants you to be. 

Amen.