God’s Downside-Up View of the World
- Tom Faletti
- Mar 22
- 4 min read
Our society sees through the eyes of billionaires and influencers. God sees from the perspective of the people at the bottom. A comparison.
Our society today gives outsized attention to the people with the most power, money, and influence even when their values are skewed. Influencers check their social media traffic more carefully than they fact-check their posts. Musicians get rich writing songs dissing other musicians. Politicians kowtow to leaders with greater power, even when they don’t agree. Billionaires are allowed to remake the country according to their limited vision.
The people at the bottom receive little attention and even less concern.
Not so with God.
Throughout the Bible, God takes a downside-up view of the world. Jesus’s perspective is often diametrically opposed to prevailing societal perspectives regarding what is important, or valued, or expected, or right.
Christians are called to see as God sees. If we want to have His perspective, we need to train ourselves to look at things from the bottom, not the top.
We need to reject the ways of the world and adopt the downside-up approach to life.
God’s downside-up view: a Biblical view of the world
A downside-up view focuses on the people at the bottom of the social scale. It directs its concern toward those who have little power, meager resources, and scant influence – the people Jesus calls the “least” among us (Matt. 25:40, 45).
The downside-up view asks the people with power, money and influence how they are treating the least, the lost, the lowly, the left-out, and the left-behind. It asks them to see the world from the perspective of those who are usually ignored by people of means.
Jesus took this approach through his ministry:
His most famous sermon began with, “Blessed are the poor” (Luke 6:20).
He told us we can’t serve both God and money (Matt. 6:24).
He quoted the anti-foreigner prejudice of his day and then rejected it by praising a foreign woman and responding to her need (Matt. 15:21-28).
He told us the greatest must become like a child (Matt. 18:1-5) and those who wish to be first must be the servant of all (Matt. 20:20-28).
He told us to forgive those who hurt us (Matt. 18:21-35) and to love our enemies (Matt. 5:43-48).
He warned that wealth makes it hard to be saved (Matt. 19:16-30).
He said that those who feed the hungry and welcome the stranger are blessed in His kingdom (Matt. 25:34-35).
Jesus said he came to fulfill the Old Law. The social teaching of the Old Testament is clear:
· God called us to support the poor (Lev. 25:35).
· David sang of the obligation of the person in power to defend the oppressed (Psalm 72:3/4).
· God asked the powers how long they would judge unjustly and commanded them to provide justice to the lowly and the destitute (Ps. 82:3-4).
· God told the people to treat immigrants no differently than they treat native-born people (Lev. 19:33-34).
You can find more about God’s downside-up view of the world here: God Takes a Downside-Up View of the World.
God’s view does not fit the priorities of our society today
Compare this biblical view of the world to the prevailing views in our society today. The messages coming from the top of our society today explicitly reject those at the bottom of the social ladder, advance the wealthiest people to the most powerful positions, attack immigrants, and reject efforts to fight injustice for those who have been wronged in the past. In today’s society:
Your worth is measured by how many “likes” you get.
Billionaires are invited to make the decisions for society at large, even decisions that affect their own businesses.
Jobs and benefits are doled out based on the most wealthy people’s definition of “merit.”
The law is deployed to attack one’s opponents of and allow one’s supporters to go free.
People who are different from the majority are not welcome in positions of power. They are assumed to be unqualified if they have reached such positions in the past, and their stories of success in the face of discrimination are devalued.
Programs that seek to fight injustices in how women, minorities, workers, consumers, and people with disabilities are treated are gutted and cancelled.
Immigrant strangers are hunted and expelled, not welcomed.
Programs that help the poorest people in our world are defunded.
These priorities are so different from God’s priorities that it forces Christians, and all people of good will, to ask ourselves some tough questions:
Do we think we can build a better society if we reject God’s clear social teachings?
How can we promote a world of justice, virtue, and love if we are supporting leaders and influencers who are rejecting the teachings of Jesus as to what such a world should look like?
Where is our place in God’s eternal kingdom (and would we even be comfortable there), if we have not tried to see the world from God’s downside-up perspective?
Can we support priorities now that are so different from the priorities in God’s Word, and claim that we belong to God?
We need to train ourselves to see differently, to see as God sees
Jesus lived and taught from a perspective that is, in many ways, diametrically opposed to the perspective of our society today.
It is not easy to swim against the tide. Our society’s priorities do not reflect God’s priorities. Our society’s treatment of those at the bottom of the social heap does not honor their God-given dignity. It is not consistent with God’s clear instructions throughout the Bible.
Since what we are absorbing passively from our society contradicts God’s downside-up perspective, we can only embrace His approach if we make a conscious effort. But it’s worth it.
The downside-up view is the only view worthy of the name of Christ.
See more at God Takes a Downside-Up View of the World.
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