A Plague of Poor Mental Health
Scarcely a day passes by without news of some survey highlighting an increase in mental health issues in the West.
Not all, but many of them are connected to isolation. The latest example was news of the sharp rise in eating disorders and self-harming among teenage girls that took place during the isolation of the recent pandemic.
Although there are other causes of anxiety and depression, loneliness stands out as a - perhaps the - major contributor.
We don't need experts to tell us that.
Here are seven Biblical reasons we all need a group of people around us.
#1 We have been made in the image of a Social God
First and foremost, we've been made in the image of a Social God. "Let US make man in OUR image..." is how the Bible opens. By the end of the Bible it has become clear that God is Triune: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Three Persons, One God. Easy to state impossible to understand, but full of profound implication for those made like him.
God did not create mankind because he was lonely, for he has always existed in a Trinity of Divine and loving Persons.
And when he made us in his image he made us social beings too. We were not created to be on our own, to survive on our own, to exist on our own.
Which is why one of the severest punishments of Iron Curtain Communist Russia was solitary confinement. To be deprived of other being contact for long periods of time is among the greatest tortures that can be inflicted on a human soul.
#2 We were created for other human beings
Oh, but someone will say, I have God in my life, so I don't need people.
Or, I have a pet in my life, so I don't need humans.
Adam had both God and the animal kingdom before him, but, shocking as it may seem, he also needed another human. Made on the same day as the animals and sharing so much with them, he was also distinct from them for they were not made in the image of God. And so animals are not enough.
Not for any deficiency in God himself - forbid - but because of the way Adam was created, he also needed another, Eve, who would compliment him; he was a half needing to be made complete.
Genesis chapter two teaches us that even a believer who has God on his side needs other human beings.
The highest expression of our need for human beings is found in God's provision of a marriage partner who compliments us.
(In the New Testament we read that God gives to some people the gift of singleness - and to those who have this gift we must urge the deliberate forging of friendships to compensate for the lack of a marriage partner.)
#3 We were created for more than one "other"
Marriage is not enough! God has created us with the capacity, if he should grant the gift, of family, of children, of sons and daughters. Here in the family we meet and love people of different ages. The family is God's invention, not a sociologically chance arrangement.
One person in our lives can never bear the burdens of all our social needs. This truth, not so clear in Genesis 2 comes to fulllight in the pages of the New Testament.
Thus if we do not have family members, we need to reach out beyond the one person God has given to us as husband or wife, to people of all ages.
#4 The Perfect Man sought out Twelve
Our ultimate model of social mankind, of course, is the Lord Jesus Christ. Not married and partially estranged from his flesh-and-blood family, he sought out Twelve men with whom to travel during the most demanding three years of his ministry.
He chose them "so that they might be with him" (Mark 3:14) we read. If the Perfect Man, with the Perfect Relationship with God could not do without human friends, then neither can I and neither can you.
#5 The Church as a Body reveals our neediness
It is surely significant that the dominant image of the church used in the New Testament is the human body, with Jesus as the Head and every believer as a body part.
(It's very likely that the idea of the multi-dependant church was in God's mind first, from all eternity, and the human body was designed, in time, to reflect the church).
A hand can't function without an ear, an eye or a foot. The only body parts you find on their own are dead ones. There is a world of profundity just there.
The radical interdependance of the parts of the body is a reflection of the radical interdependence of God's people. Put simply, since I don't have all the gifts to make it (metaphorically sight, hearing, etc.) I need others.
And since they don't have what I have, they equally need me.
#6 Iron Sharpenth Iron
The sixth reason I need people around me is that The Fall has made me profoundly unbalanced. We are all twisted by the Fall, curtailed by our tribe, circumscribed by our upbringings, limited by our nationality and restricted by our tiny knowledge.
I need people around me, people fom other tribes, nations, experiences and ages to round me out, to sharpen me and to question me.
Our personal algorithims are likely to lead us away from truth, not towards it, and most likely to turn us into redneck, hillbilly, idisosyncratic yokels - unless we surround ourselves with loving mirrors.
#7 The Scriptures assume Community
Supremely, I need community because the Scriptures everywhere assume a Christian will be attached to a church (a word, by the way, which has nothing to do with bricks, but everything do do with people.)
Jesus not only had twelve close friends, he told those friends to do for the world exactly what he had just done for them - gather folks together in more small groups, the Bible word for this gathering in small groups is "disciple."
The first Christians met in homes - small groups in small gatherings.
The majority of the letters Paul writes are to churches, rather than individuals, small groups meeting together.
The New Testament refers to Christians as brothers and sisters, using the family as a model.
The vision of heaven John saw was a community of people from across the world, all together. Heaven is communal; none of this "me in my small corner and you in yours."
The Challenge
The fall of mankind, documented in Genesis 3, tore community apart. Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent. Sin has ruined community: you in your small corner, and me, miles away, in mine. Or if we must meet, it'll just be birds of the same feather, thankyou.
But the great effect of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to bring people together who have nothing else but Jesus Christ in common, and to unite them in bonds of love and to encourage them to use the gifts they have been given to help one another, so that the Kingdom of God be built.
That Conference
At the church I am privileged to be a part we place a very high premium on the small weekly group. In fact, unless there are reasons beyond their control, we don't really regard someone as a full part of the community until they join a small group. (This is not harsh, it's wise - we know that no-one can survive on their own, end of, fullstop).
A few months ago I attended a conference on the Bible and Mental Health and over the many lunchtime conversations with people from many churches I found myself so grateful that our church had weekly home groups - safe spaces where all can share and carry one another's burdens.
Why was I glad? Because as a result of this radical insistence on the small group, we find believers in our fellowship - to God be all the glory and praise - are better adjusted and equipped to handle the woes of life, less subject to ailments of the mind which arise so often from isolation.
God has made us to be in fellowship with others.
Are you in fellowship? Why not?!
Wise words, Amen to that.
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