Did you know that you actually see everything upside down? As  quirky as this sounds, mechanically speaking our eyes see everything upside down due to the process of refraction. Every image we see is first filtered through the lens of our eyes and is refraxed (flipped or inverted) until it hits our retina completely upside down. Fortunately, it is our brains which are able to take the inverted image and turn it rightside up again. Without the power of our brains we would see everything upside down!

This was basically the accusation thrown at Paul and Silas when they arrived in the Greek city of Thessalonica and began to share the good news of Jesus. Their message threw the local synagogue into an uproar which then, spilled out in ugly violence and civil unrest in the city. The charge: “These people (the Christians) who have been turning the world upside down have here also!”

But is that true? Or is it that the message of the cross of forgiveness the Christians brought was really the corrective lens to see the world upright as God always intended, instead of the distorted and upside down world we live in? If that’s true then the question we want to ask this weekend in worship is this: “How do we live upright in an upside down world?”
As you prepare for worship, please read the following: Acts 17:1-9 – The founding church at Thessalonica. Mark 13:9-11 – Jesus warns his disciples they will face difficult times of persecution as well as political upheavals.