Jesus and Loneliness

This article is an extract from Futureproof by Stephen McAlpine. In the book, Stephen examines secular narratives about purpose and authenticity, connectedness and progress, and compares them to the promises made by the Bible. He shows that the Bible offers a more satisfying, more realistic and more hopeful vision of the future.

For all of the bad press about the church in recent years, it is the church’s ability (at least theoretically) to deal with conflict through the forgiveness of the gospel that is missing from other forms of community. For relationships to be maintained—indeed, for them to strengthen and flourish over time—we need more than common external interests drawing us together. We need something deep, and something that is beyond our capacity to manufacture, because anything we can manufacture has the habit of wearing out or breaking.

The church founded by the apostle Paul in the city of Ephesus got off to a rocky start. You can read the story in Acts 19. Paul’s evangelistic endeavours were working well—too well. The townsfolk were turning to Jesus and away from pagan idolatry, and this was starting to affect the local idol-manufacturing business. The manufacturers had to act. They brought charges against Paul of fracturing the city’s unity—and in a sly move, the leader of the agitators, Demetrius, played the religious card:

And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited; and the goddess herself, who is worshipped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty. (Acts 19 v 26-27)

The mention of Artemis—also known as Diana of the Ephesians—fanned the flames that Demetrius had fuelled. The temple of Artemis was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The idol of her image was the temple’s main drawcard.

This wasn’t simply a case of cultural or artistic pride. Temple worship was the social glue of the ancient world that enabled economic relationships to flourish. Cultural cohesion was necessary to ensure the city hummed along smoothly and flourished financially. In Acts 19, Demetrius pulled the piety lever for self-interested economic reasons. He knew he would see the city’s fortunes decline if Artemis was honoured less than she used to be and Jesus was honoured more. It’s nothing personal, Paul, it’s just business!

The outrage engendered by Paul’s supposed discrediting of Artemis brought a united reaction—a zealous, vocal, violent, united reaction—from the mob. Like a football crowd at a derby match, they cried out for two solid hours, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (v 34). Only the city’s Roman leadership and its love of good order was enough to avert a riot. Not long after, Paul left the city.

A Better Community

Yet, daringly, when Paul later wrote to the Ephesian church, he was not shy to pull out temple language—using it to describe the motley crew of Christians living in the shadow of one of the ancient world’s biggest tourist drawcards (2 v 19-21). It’s as if Paul was saying, I see your pagan religious community, and I raise you a better one. The letter to the Ephesians dives deep into what only the gospel can do for relationships. In 2 v 11-17, Paul describes how Jesus’ death on the cross resolved both the broken vertical relationship between God and humans and the broken horizontal relationship between humans and humans. And the key term is this: “For he himself is our peace” (v 14).

In other words, the way in which true relationships are formed, and the manner in which unity is achieved, is not through a quest by us to find some external common interests with others. It is something done for us by the very one who is declared to be “peace”. It’s not for no reason that Isaiah’s famous prophecy about Jesus labels him “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9 v 6).

Radical Unity

Paul’s description of what happens is radical. In contrast to how our culture tries to bring differing factions together, the gospel doesn’t just create a space where different people can mingle and somehow find common purpose together. What Jesus does is nothing less than a work of new creation—“one man in place of the two” (Ephesians 2 v 15, ESV). We aren’t different anymore but fundamentally the same. This allows for a new level of relationship that can only be a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. He forms an intimate bond not only between those who already have common interests but even between those who previously shared a common hostility towards one another.

But it gets really radical when Paul uses temple language to describe how this works:

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (v 19-22)

These building stones merge and head heavenward as a living building comprising a new humanity. It’s a daring claim. Paul looks at the temple of Artemis, then back at the people of God, and says, Actually, you are where the real temple and worship work is going on in Ephesus.

To get how preposterous this must have seemed, let’s update the example a little bit. There are not grand pagan temples doing a roaring trade in the Western world these days. We worship other gods. Gods such as sport. So let me take you to Tranmere Rovers.

Bound Together by Love

Tranmere Rovers is a small, struggling team in the lower leagues of English football. Their home ground is just down the road from—and in full sight of—Anfield, the home ground of the mighty Liverpool Football Club. Liverpool has great history, a huge supporter base, and a bank balance that could buy Tranmere Rovers outright many times over. Which club is the powerhouse of English football? It’s obvious, isn’t it? Yet it’s as if Paul is saying, Forget about Liverpool. Tranmere is where football’s future lies! Only the most ardent Rovers fan could agree.

Paul goes on in his letter to the Ephesians to unpack what relationships look like in this new living temple. The joys, the pains, the costs, the benefits. It won’t be easy. But the key is this: the Ephesian Christians are not joining together for merely transactional reasons. The common interest of the Christians is to be bound together in holy love. To live distinctive lives together, showcasing the goodness of God and the sweet self-sacrifice of Jesus. And to exhibit the astounding diversity of a people who, having little in common on the surface, are bonded by their love of Jesus. These Christians are not called to attain a unity that they have built themselves but to maintain a unity that the Holy Spirit has already created (4 v 3). They will need to weather serious relational storms and deep cultural and social differences—but they already have all they need to do so (see 4 v 7-16). 

A pastor and church planter for thirty years, Stephen McAlpine now writes and speaks on issues of theology, culture and church, in particular the increasing pressures on religious belief in the secular public square. He is married to Jill, who runs a clinical psychology practice in Perth, and they have two children.