These Who Have Turned the World Upside Down

When Jim Elliot was a junior at Wheaton College in 1948, he started writing personal journals. He wrote volumes of entries about his struggles as a college student, musings about faith, love, and his work preparing and eventually becoming a missionary. In Ecuador, Jim and four other missionaries set up camp in the dangerous and uncivilized territory of the Aucas Indian tribe. On January 8, 1956, all five missionaries were killed. Jim was 28 when he became a martyr.

Jim left behind an incredible legacy of writings about living the Christian faith. His journals became a book,The Journals of Jim Elliot. Why do I mention Elliot and his journals? Because like Paul, Elliot didn’t measure the cost of preaching the Gospel in unfamiliar surroundings and he too died fearless. And his journals contain timeless entries regarding the Christian faith.

Paul’s practice was to travel the Roman roads and go to the major cities to preach the Gospel. At the beginning of Acts 17, Paul and Silas pressed further into Roman territory regardless of their personal and physical cost. Paul and Silas traveled 100 miles to get to Thessalonica. Luke writes in Acts 17:2, “As was his custom,” Paul went to the synagogue to “reason” [converse or argue] to convince the Jewish faithful that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah foretold in the scriptures. Some who heard Paul’s arguments were persuaded and became believers, while unpersuaded Jews became jealous and provoked a riot against the followers of Christ.

Elliot wrote in his journal, “Let me not be a milepost on a single road, make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.”

The rioting mob described the Christ-followers as “These who have turned the world upside down.”  The early believers’ minds were always on preaching the Gospel and engaging the culture. They didn’t care about the personal costs including dying for their faith. Paul, Silas, and the other believers were not a milepost on a single road regarding their lives and faith but were a fork, Christ’s bold witnesses, who challenged the culture and people to make a life-changing decision regarding Jesus as his or her Savior. They transformed the world and societies.

The American Church has now become a milepost on a single road enveloped in comfort. We, as the church, must become a fork that Elliot described and willingly embrace the personal cost and ridicule to stand with Jesus Christ before this society, this culture, this world. We, too, must become“These who have turned the world upside down.”[1]

Jim Elliot also wrote,“Constant dwelling in the words of the Lord can dye a person’s soul.”

Acts 17:11 described those “more noble” in Berea readily received the word and searched the scriptures daily.  We, too, can learn the importance of pursuing, searching, and investigating the truth of God and His word revealed in the Scripture with great eagerness. With the understanding, the truth of God and His word has no end and is unfathomable.

Our daily responsibility can include devotions, group activities like small group bible studies, and attending the worship services.  This willing desire to constantly dwell in God’s words will dye one’s soul, which leads to noble pursuits and changed hearts to help turn the world upside down. A world that desperately needs to heal and be rescued by Jesus Christ, our Savior.

-Dan Nickel

[1] Lorenzo Albacete, “The Prophet is Always Someone Sent” an essay from his book The Relevance of the Stars