Telos

I'll be preaching this Sunday night from Titus 3:3-8. The basic idea of the message is that believing in God and maintaining good works are good things and that a life of purpose comes from a vital relationship with God. Some Christian thinkers refer to this stuff as telos.

Meredith gave me a book for my birthday by Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk. They made a stament about telos that I think is pretty good. It may give you something to think about. Here it is -

"In the Christian story, the telos of human life is neither to fulfill oneself in the modern sense of the individual nor the drive to self-actualization or even self-differentiation. Our telos is to know God. Both Augustine and Aquinas state that it is God who is our end, and therefore our source. To know God is to know the Good. Knowing God is also participating in a life infused with proper calling, and to do the work we have been given to do in this life. Only by participating in the life of God can we live out our telos and live into our work and purpose. By doing our proper work in life, we know happiness in the sense of knowing God. As human beings our quest for the Good is a quest for the telos of our life, which can only be known in God."

from The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World