Reading through Acts is an incredible apologetics experience. I once heard an ex-atheist interviewed on the Side B Stories podcast say it was reading through Acts that brought him to faith. He said there was no way it could be made up, and of course I agree! One of my goals in writing Uninvented was to encourage Christians to read the Bible with an apologetics mindset. This is especially crucial in our secular age. We need to understand how the Bible presents itself as true history, not as myth, fairy tale, or fiction as critics have insisted for 300 years. When you read it, it reads real. It breathes out verisimilitude on every page. Acts is especially powerful in this regard because Luke, the author (also of the gospel) is such a careful chronicler of events. Even non-Christian scholars have to admit he is an excellent historian. We also have much to learn from Acts about the world-transforming nature of the faith that has once for all been delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3).
This piece was specifically inspired by a sermon I heard at our church earlier this year as the pastor was making his way through Acts. Paul and his companions were in Thessalonica, and as usual causing a stir by preaching the risen Lord Jesus. We read in Acts 17 how some Jewish religious leaders were none too happy and formed a mob to take out the trouble makers.
6 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, 7 and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.”
Exactly! There is another king named Jesus! And Caesar doesn’t like that one bit.
Having read the NIV translation of the Bible since I became a Christian in 1978, I didn’t know this verse said what the ESV correctly translates as, “turned the world upside down.” The NIV says, “These men who have caused trouble all over the world . . . ” and that doesn’t do justice to the Greek. That morning I couldn’t help feeling a thrill at this passage, especially connecting king Jesus to turning the world upside down by turning it right side up! According to Strong’s, the extended meaning reads like this:
anastatóō (literally, “change standing from going up to down“– properly, turn something over (up to down), i.e. to upset (up-set), raising one part up at the expense of another which results in dislocation (confusion); to unsettle, make disorderly (dis-orderly).
These Jewish leaders didn’t realize how right they were! God’s created order distorted at the fall was turned upside down, everything potentially becoming the inversion of what God created to be. The mess that we see all around us and observe in history, not to mention our own lives, was the result. But God from before the world was even created was going thwart the devil’s plans, and it started the very day of the disaster created by man’s rebellion. That fallen world is what the Apostles were turning upside down, and God through his Holy Spirit and His word and His people is still doing it.
Fighting The Fall
I first heard this phrase when I was a young Christian, and the moment I heard it I said to myself, yes, that is what I want my life to be! That desire was actually planted some years before I became a Christian. When I was 16 my Catholic grandmother gave me a book for Christmas called The Robe about the centurion who oversaw the crucifixion of Christ. When they cast lots to see who would get his robe, he got it, and it had a deep emotional and psychological impact on his life, eventually transforming this Roman pagan into a Christian. Having rejected his life as a Roman military professional, he wandered throughout Judea trying to figure out this new life, and wherever he went he made a positive impact on the people he encountered. He helped turn anger and bitterness and jealousy and dysfunction into joy and peace and harmony. When I heard this “fighting the fall” phrase, I thought back to the centurion and the vision it gave me of what I wanted my life to be.
Just as the curse which sin brought affects everything, so the righteousness Christ came to bring seeks to reverse those affects in everything. It starts with the greatest commandment, loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. That sets the foundation because the gospel the Apostles preached was a ministry of reconciliation. To reconcile means to restore harmony in a relationship, and God in Christ came to restore harmony to our relationships to other people and creation. The fall brought chaos, and salvation brings order. At Babel (Gen. 11) God thwarted man’s hubris, and started the process of reversing the fall in choosing Abram (Gen.12) through which he would bless all the peoples on earth. The blessings started when Christ fulfilled the promise and succeeded where the first Adam failed. On the cross he purchased a people to carry it out, and guaranteed its ultimate fulfillment when he ascended to the right hand of God to reign over all powers in heaven and earth (Eph. 1:18-23).
Christ also began the reversal of Adam’s failure to fulfill what is called the dominion mandate (Genesis 1).
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Reconciliation extends beyond relationships, the foundation, but also to creation. Instead of letting weeds grow in the garden, we pick them. Instead of letting dust and dirt settle in the house, we clean it. Instead of living in huts, we build houses. We live in an area of Florida bustling with growth and dynamism. Every time I see a new development spring up out of the dirt I think, the fall is losing! Or when a new road is built to allow traffic to flow more smoothly and safely I think, the fall is losing! We are “taking dominion” by building, cleaning, fixing, fighting entropy (the inevitable nature of things to wear down unless we do something about it). We are created in the image of God to be co-creators with the raw material He has graciously provided.
Goodness, Beauty, and Truth and Christ’s Reign
Those familiar with classical education hear these words often. In a world full of evil, ugliness, and lies, God has given us the mission, as Paul says, to “not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21). Living by site, Christians are easily driven to pessimism. I started pushing back on this natural tendency when I decided to believe what the Bible tells me is true about the nature of reality, that Christ reigns over all of it. Not some of it, not ninety-nine percent of it, but all of it. How in the world could we ever think that man or Satan could act outside of the express will of the king of the universe? We can’t know how this works; we don’t have to do the math, but simply accept and trust God’s revelation of his sovereign reign in Christ over all things. If you really believe this, it will transform your life and how you view everything. Reading through Romans recently, I was struck in this regard by Paul’s words about Abraham (4:17):
He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.
Think about it. The God who created everything out of nothing, calls things that don’t have existence into being. That means by His power (Zech. 4:6) through His people transforming everything the devil distorts and tries to destroy into goodness, beauty, and truth, wrapped up in a big red bow of love. Of course all of it driven by the one on the cross who paid it all that we might have life that is really life. Many Christians think Christ’s reign won’t be fully realized until he returns, but that is not at all the biblical witness.
Psalm 2 introduces the king God has installed on Zion, His holy mountain. What do kings do? They reign, and this Messianic Psalm points to Christ. And notice the following verses in other Psalms declaring the reign of this Almighty king:
- God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne. Psalm 47:8
- The Lord reigns; he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed; he has put on strength as his belt. Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved. Psalm 93:1
- Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns! Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.” Psalm 96:10
- The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! Psalm 97:1
- The Lord reigns; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake! Psalm 99:1
- The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord! Psalm 146:10
And in Psalm 110, a Psalm of the reign of the Messiah, we’re told that Christ is at God’s right hand until He makes Christ’s enemies a footstool for his feet. We know the operative word is “until” because in I Corinthians 15:25, Paul echoes these exact words, but adds the word “must.” So Christ “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” And we know what these enemies include because the final enemy to be defeated at his return is death; so any evil, ugliness, and lies, and anything associated with sin must be defeated before Christ returns to defeat death. I know, that is very hard to believe when we live by site, but that is the clear declaration of the word of God.
Dominion and the Triumph of Christianity
From a human perspective, what do you think the odds of Christianity taking over the Roman Empire were in the first century? How about when Jesus’ disciples were cowering in fear while their supposed Messiah lay in a tomb after having been brutally killed on a Roman cross? Or when those crazy Galileans (i.e., Jewish hicks and hayseeds) were running around Judea claiming this Jesus of Nazareth had come back from the dead? How about the odds being zero because nobody in their right mind would have even dared think such a thing could happen, especially Christians. But three hundred years later it did. Eventually Christianity defeated the pagan world and gave us the modern world. It is still transforming lives, which transforms families, communities, and eventually nations. That’s the whole point.
British historian Tom Holland wrote a wonderful book called Dominion about how the only explanation for the modern world is Christianity. Holland, not yet a Christian, is an historian of the ancient world. He loved the pagan Greeks and Romans, but over time he realized he had nothing in common with those people. He started asking why, and Dominion was the result. While early Christians could never envision the world becoming Christianized that is exactly what happened, and I would argue precisely the point of the gospel. Why do I say that? Because Jesus did! In the Great Commission, Jesus said he was given all authority “in heaven and on earth” specifically that “all nations” would be discipled. Most Christians believe this means individuals will become Christians by the preaching of the gospel, and whether it has influence on the culture of a nation is beside the point. No, that is the point! And I recently learned that Paul ends Romans confirming exactly this:
25 Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages 26 but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith.
I like the way my NIV translates this as, “so that all nations might believe and obey him.” That is dominion, and there is no way transformation of civilizations happens because of a lie. It only happened and will happen because Jesus rose from the dead, ascended to the right hand of God, and sent his Holy Spirit to extend his reign on earth, advance his kingdom, and build his church.
Having listened to a lot of testimonies over the last several years, I am convinced there is no way psychology alone can explain the transformation of people’s lives. If Christianity is a lie, then that’s all it is, nothing more. But it is in fact the power of the Living God as Paul tells us (I Cor. I:18):
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
That power is the word from which we get our English word dynamite. God’s power blows up the works of the devil and transforms lives and does exactly what the Apostles were accused of doing 2000 years ago—turning the world upside down!
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