The world needs upside down people with an upside down message.

‘And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also.”’ (Acts 17:6 )

When I was a teenager attending a small village church, there was an elderly man who used to get up and speak on occasion. I used to love listening to him pray because he prayed as a man who knew God! One day he stood up in the prayer meeting and he prayed, ‘Lord we need turning upside down and putting on our feet.’ That’s a mixed metaphor but I think he was right.

In the Book of Acts, the reputation the apostles had in Thessalonica for turning the world upside down was because they were upside down people (they had just suffered beating and imprisonment in Philippi and carried on without a care for themselves); with an upside down message (‘defying Caesar’s decrees, saying there is another king, Jesus’ v.7) about an upside down Messiah (who ‘had to suffer and rise from the dead’ v.3); in an upside down manner (in the Jewish synagogue, where a crucified Christ was a stumbling block).

It’s not that they were turning the world upside down - they were turning it right side up. The Gospel is not an abnormal ingredient in life: it is putting back what is missing and equipping us in the crazy upside down world to live the right side up – to live normally!

Living the right side up in relationship with God and according to His truth may appear to be upside down to the world around us.

Bible in one year: Psalm 49 | Numbers 12-13