Oluwole did not leave the church in anger. That is what he wanted me to understand when he first told me the story. He left quietly, the way a man steps out of a crowded room to take a phone call and simply does not come back.
There had been a painful season in the congregation he grew up in. A dispute among the leaders over money and appointments had split the workers into camps, and Oluwole, who led the drama ministry, found that every conversation after service had become a test of loyalty. Whose side are you on? Why were you seen talking to him? When the church finally divided, he was too tired to follow either half. He took a new job on the island, rented a self-contained flat in Lekki, and told himself he would worship at home for a while.
For the first few months it felt like freedom. On Sunday mornings he made tea, set his laptop on the dining table and watched a well-known preacher from Abuja. Nobody asked him to stay back for a meeting. Nobody needed him to rehearse anything. He could close the browser when the sermon ended and spend the afternoon resting. “I told myself I was still growing,” he said. “In some ways I thought I was growing faster, because I was hearing better preaching.”
Then came the week in his second year when malaria put him on his back. He lay in the flat for four days with a fever that would not break. The generator ran out of diesel on the second night. His phone was full of contacts, and he scrolled through them twice, but he could not think of one person he felt free to call and say, “I am not well. Can you come?” He finally dragged himself to a pharmacy on the main road and came home with a nylon bag of drugs and a bottle of water, and he remembers sitting on the edge of his bed and thinking, If I died here, who would know before Tuesday?
“Nobody had hurt me in two years,” he said. “But nobody had held me either.”
PunchlineI have thought about that sentence many times. Spiritual isolation rarely announces itself as danger. It usually feels like safety.
Why being alone can feel so safe
We should be honest about why so many believers drift into isolation, because they are not all lazy, and very few of them have stopped loving Jesus. Some have been wounded by leaders who used the pulpit to settle personal scores. Some have moved city for work or study and never found their way into a new fellowship. Some are introverts who find large gatherings draining. Some have had to keep a secret, a struggle, a debt, a marriage under strain, and staying away seemed easier than being seen.
In every case, isolation offers something real: relief from conflict and protection from exposure. Nobody can disappoint you if nobody is close enough to matter. And with a smartphone, a believer can now hear excellent teaching, sing along with excellent worship and read excellent books without ever having to sit beside an irritating brother or forgive a careless sister.
Here is the problem. The Christian life was never designed to be received like a broadcast. It was designed to be lived inside a body. Teaching can come through a screen, and thank God for every faithful message that reaches a hospital bed or a remote village. But the New Testament knows nothing of a believer who intends to follow Christ permanently on his own. When the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost, He did not produce three thousand private spiritualities. He produced a church.
A new way into the holiest, and a people gathered
The letter to the Hebrews was written to believers under pressure. Some of them had endured public abuse and the loss of property for their faith (Hebrews 10:32-34). Some were tempted to drift back toward the old system of temple, priesthood and sacrifice, which at least had the advantage of being familiar and socially respectable. The writer spends ten chapters showing them that Jesus is the better high priest, offering the better sacrifice, under the better covenant. Then, at the hinge of the whole letter, he turns from doctrine to life.
He begins with what Christ has opened: “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us” (Hebrews 10:19-20). And he gives the first response that access invites: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:22). Notice that the access is entirely the work of Jesus. Our boldness rests on His blood, not on our record of attendance. Fellowship with other believers does not earn our place before God. It flows out of the place He has already given us.
Then the writer continues:
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is ; but exhorting one another : and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
Look at the three “let us” phrases running through the passage. Let us draw near to God. Let us hold fast our profession. Let us consider one another. The first faces upward, the second holds firm in the middle, and the third turns outward to the people beside us. The writer does not seem to imagine that a believer could keep the first two while abandoning the third.
The word consider means to fix the mind upon, to observe carefully. Believers are to study one another, not with suspicion, but with the attentiveness of someone looking for ways to help. And the purpose is surprising: “to provoke unto love and to good works.” The Greek word behind provoke is the root of our English word paroxysm. It usually describes irritation or sharp disagreement; it is used of the quarrel between Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15:39. Here the writer takes that strong word and turns it to a holy use. We are to stir one another up, to rouse one another, toward love.
You cannot do that from a distance. Encouragement needs proximity. You need to know a brother well enough to see when he is tiring, and you need to be known well enough that someone notices when you have gone quiet.
Then comes the sentence many believers know by heart: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is.” Already, within the first generation of the church, there were people who had developed the habit of staying away. The writer does not respond with a threat. He responds with an alternative: “but exhorting one another.” The opposite of forsaking the assembly is coming with the intention of strengthening someone. And the urgency increases “as ye see the day approaching.” The nearer the return of Christ, the more His people need each other, not less.
The access Christ has opened is never meant to be enjoyed alone. The same blood that brings you near to God brings you into a family of brothers and sisters who need you, and whom you need.
One body with many members
Paul uses the most vivid picture of all. Writing to a church in Corinth that was divided by rivalry and status, where some members were boasting of their spiritual gifts and others felt that they hardly belonged, he describes the church as a human body. He has already said that “by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13). Then he develops the picture:
For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.
Paul addresses two opposite errors here, and isolated believers are often caught in one or the other.
The first is the voice of the foot that says, “Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body.” This is the believer who withdraws because he feels insignificant. He does not sing in the choir. He does not preach. He cannot pray long, eloquent prayers at the vigil. So he concludes that the church will not miss him, and he slips away. Paul’s answer is blunt: “is it therefore not of the body?” Your feelings of smallness do not change the fact of your membership. God “set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.” You were placed. Your presence was His idea.
The second error comes a few verses later:
And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked: That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.
This is the voice of the eye that says to the hand, “I have no need of thee.” This is the believer who withdraws because he feels superior, or simply self-sufficient. He has his own Bible study routine, his own favourite teachers online, his own prayer life, and he has concluded that the ordinary congregation has little to offer him. Paul says that this is impossible. The eye cannot see without the rest of the body to carry it. And the parts that seem weakest are precisely the ones Paul calls “necessary.”
Notice the purpose God has in tempering the body together: “That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.” Care is meant to move in both directions. You give it and you receive it. Some believers are very willing to give care, and they serve tirelessly, but they will not allow anyone to care for them. Others are always ready to receive and rarely notice anyone else’s need. Both have misunderstood the body. A healthy body is one where care circulates.
And then the beautiful sentence: “whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.” Think of Oluwole in his flat with the fever. In the body as God designed it, his suffering would have been felt by others. Someone would have noticed his empty seat. Someone would have brought pepper soup and diesel. And when, a year later, he received a promotion at work, someone would have danced with him. Isolation robs us of both. It leaves us to suffer alone, and it leaves us to rejoice alone, which is a strange and hollow thing.
Paul closes the paragraph with a statement of identity, not an instruction: “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular” (1 Corinthians 12:27). You do not become part of the body by joining a church. You are part of it already, through faith in Christ. Fellowship is the expression of what you already are.
What the first church did with its days
Luke gives us a picture of the church in its first weeks, and it is worth reading slowly:
And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men , as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.
“They continued stedfastly.” The word suggests persistence, holding on with determination. These believers did not attend when it was convenient. They gave themselves to four things: the apostles’ doctrine, fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayers.
The word for fellowship is koinonia, which means sharing, partnership, having something in common. It is the word Paul uses for the “fellowship of his Son” into which God has called us (1 Corinthians 1:9). It is far richer than a handshake at the door. It describes people whose lives have become genuinely bound up together.
Notice how ordinary much of it was. They met in the temple courts, and they also met “from house to house,” around meals. They ate “with gladness and singleness of heart.” Some sold possessions to meet the needs of others, voluntarily, as Peter later made clear to Ananias (Acts 5:4). Their fellowship had a large-gathering dimension and a small-table dimension, and both mattered.
Notice also the fruit. “The Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” The love of believers for one another was itself a witness. People looked at this community and saw something they wanted. Jesus had said exactly this: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35). A Christianity that is entirely private loses this witness. Nobody can see the love of a body that never gathers.
Being known means being corrected
Here is the part of fellowship that many of us would prefer to skip. Being in the body means being known, and being known means that people may see what we would rather keep hidden.
The writer of Hebrews puts it sharply:
Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
“Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” Sin is deceitful. It rarely presents itself honestly. It persuades us that we are the exception, that our circumstances justify what we are doing, that nobody else would understand. The remedy the writer gives is not a private discipline but a shared one: “exhort one another daily, while it is called To day.” We need other people speaking truth into our lives, regularly, because we are very poor judges of our own hearts.
James says something similar: “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed” (James 5:16). This does not mean confessing everything to everyone. It means having at least a few people with whom you can be honest about your struggles, and who will pray with you rather than gossip about you. Paul adds, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). You cannot bear a burden you do not know about.
A believer who lives in isolation can avoid all of this. He can listen only to the teachers who say what he wants to hear, and quietly develop habits and doctrines that nobody ever challenges, because nobody is close enough to notice. The danger is not that he has stopped hearing sermons. The danger is that nobody is allowed to apply them to him personally.
That is why the gentle correction of a trusted brother or sister is one of God’s gifts to us. It may sting. It may be clumsy. But it is far kinder than the alternative, which is to drift slowly into hardness while telling ourselves we are fine. Solomon understood this long ago: “woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up” (Ecclesiastes 4:10).
What isolation does to the way we see
There is a moment in the life of Elijah that shows what isolation does to perception. He had just seen fire fall from heaven on Mount Carmel. Then Jezebel threatened his life, and he ran. He left his servant at Beer-sheba and went on alone, a day’s journey into the wilderness, and sat under a juniper tree asking to die. After the angel had fed him, he travelled forty days to Horeb, and there he hid in a cave.
And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
“I, even I only, am left.” It is a heartbreaking sentence, and it was not true. A few verses later, God corrects him: “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal” (1 Kings 19:18). Seven thousand faithful people, and Elijah thought he was the only one.
NuggetNotice the sequence. Elijah separated from his servant, then from everyone, and the further he went from other people, the smaller and darker his picture of reality became.
Isolation does this to us. Alone, we lose perspective. Our wounds grow larger in the dark, our suspicions go unchallenged, and our judgement of other believers hardens, because we only see them from a distance.
Notice too how gently God dealt with His exhausted prophet. He did not shout at Elijah. He let him sleep. He fed him twice. He asked him a question. Then He sent him back, and one of the first things He gave him was a companion: Elisha, who would walk with him until the end. If you are in the cave right now, God is not standing at its entrance with a rod. He is asking, “What doest thou here?” And He has people waiting for you.
When a congregation has become harmful
I want to speak carefully here, because some readers have been deeply hurt in churches, and what I have said so far may feel like pressure to return to a place that was genuinely unsafe.
Scripture does not pretend that every congregation is healthy. John wrote to his friend Gaius about a leader in another church:
I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church. Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.
Diotrephes loved “to have the preeminence.” He spread malicious words about the apostles. He refused to welcome visiting believers, and he threw out of the church those who did welcome them. John does not tell Gaius to submit quietly to this. He names it plainly as evil, and he says, “follow not that which is evil, but that which is good.” There are leaders and congregations that behave like Diotrephes, and the Bible calls their conduct what it is.
So let me be clear. The call to fellowship is never a call to stay in a place where you are being abused, manipulated, financially exploited or spiritually controlled. If a leader is using threats of curses to keep you obedient, if you are being shamed for asking questions, if your children are unsafe, if you are being pressured to hand over money you need for your family, or if any form of abuse is being covered up, you are not dishonouring God by leaving. You may need to report what has happened to the appropriate authorities. You may need the help of a counsellor, a lawyer or a wise pastor from outside that community. Seeking that help is an act of faithfulness, and no one has the right to call it rebellion.
But I also want to say something gently to those who have left such a place. One wounding community does not make all fellowship unsafe. The fact that Diotrephes existed did not mean that Gaius had to stop gathering with believers. It meant that he had to gather with the right ones. John commends Demetrius in the very next verse, a man who “hath good report of all men, and of the truth itself” (3 John 1:12). There were Diotrephes-type leaders in the first century, and there were faithful men and women too. That is still true.
Healing from church hurt takes time, and it should not be rushed. You may need to begin very small, with one or two trustworthy believers over a meal, before you can sit in a large gathering again. You may need to visit several churches before you find one where the leaders are accountable, the teaching centres on Christ and questions are welcome. That is wise. What would be a loss is to let the wound persuade you that the whole body is diseased, and so to live permanently in the cave.
Practical steps back into the body
If you recognise yourself in Oluwole’s story, here are some ways to begin.
Start with honesty before God. Tell Him why you withdrew, whether it was hurt, convenience or pride. He is not shocked by any of these, and the way into His presence is already open through the blood of Jesus.
Look for a congregation where Christ is central, the Scriptures are taught faithfully and leaders are accountable to others. No church will be perfect. You will meet people who annoy you, and you will annoy some of them. Ordinary human imperfection is part of how God shapes us; a culture of control is something else.
Find a smaller circle within the larger gathering. In many Nigerian churches this is a house fellowship, a cell group, a department or a Bible study class. Sunday services are valuable, but you can attend for years without anyone knowing what is happening in your home. The “house to house” dimension of Acts 2 is where people come to know your name, your story and your needs.
PunchlineAllow yourself to receive as well as give. If someone asks how you are really doing, consider answering honestly.
Online teaching and worship can still bless you. For believers who are housebound, ill, caring for a sick relative, or living where there is no faithful church nearby, it may be the main form of fellowship available for a season, and they should never be made to feel guilty for it. But for most of us, the screen should supplement the body, not replace it.
Oluwole recovered from the malaria. A few weeks later, on a Sunday morning, he did something he had not done in two years. He closed the laptop and walked to a small church two streets away that he had passed many times on his way to the junction. He sat at the back, intending to leave before the closing prayer.
An elderly usher caught him on the way out. She did not pressure him. She just asked his name and wrote it in a notebook. The following Sunday, when he came again, she remembered it. “Oluwole, you came back,” she said, and she looked so pleased that he found himself laughing.
A few months later, he joined a house fellowship that met on Wednesday evenings in the home of a retired couple. It was not a dramatic transformation. There were disagreements, and once he was gently corrected by an older member for something careless he had said about his former pastor. It stung, and it was true. He went home and repented.
The following year, his father died in Ibadan. The house fellowship found out on a Thursday. By Saturday, six of them had made the journey for the burial, and two had stood with him beside the grave.
“I had forgotten,” he told me, “what it feels like to be held.”
You were not made to follow Christ alone in a flat in Lekki or anywhere else. The way into the holiest is open, and the same Lord who opened it has placed you in a body. Draw near to Him. Hold fast. And consider one another.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- What has drawn you toward isolation in the past: hurt, convenience, busyness, shame, or a sense that you have nothing to offer?
- In the body described in 1 Corinthians 12, are you more often the foot that says “I do not belong” or the eye that says “I have no need of thee”?
- Who in your life knows you well enough to notice when you are struggling and to speak honestly to you? If no one comes to mind, what might that tell you?
- If you have been hurt in a church, what would a safe first step back toward fellowship look like for you?
- How could you “consider” one other believer this week in a way that stirs them toward love and good works?
This Week
This week, take one concrete step toward the body of Christ. If you are already in a church but known only on Sunday, ask to join a house fellowship or small group, and attend at least once. If you have been away, visit one congregation and introduce yourself to one person. If you are well connected, think of someone whose seat has been empty and send a message, make a call or pay a visit, with no agenda except to let them know they were missed.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank You for opening a new and living way into the presence of the Father. Thank You that You have also placed me in Your body, among brothers and sisters I need and who need me. Forgive me for the times I have withdrawn, whether through hurt, pride or convenience. Heal the wounds that have made fellowship feel unsafe, and give me wisdom to recognise both the places that harm and the people who will truly care. Lead me into a community where Christ is honoured and love is real. Teach me to give care and to receive it, to be known and to be corrected without fear. Let me never say to any member of Your body, “I have no need of thee.” In Your name I pray, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.