Tactics Without Telos

The Church Is Recovering Her Mission.

For too long, a significant portion of the modern church has mastered the individual tactics of Christianity -- personal faith, personal breakthrough, personal growth, the gifts of the Spirit, inner healing -- while losing sight of the overarching telos: the ultimate end, the final purpose, the mission that every tactic exists to serve.

Telos is a word worth knowing. It is a Greek philosophical term appearing 41 times in Scripture, meaning the ultimate end or overarching goal. God applies it to Himself -- "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end" (Revelation 21:6) -- where that final word, end, is telos in the original Greek.

If God is the telos of all things, then the church He purchased with His blood has a telos too. And that telos is not a better worship service. It is a transformed world.

In every arena of life we can see what happens when tactics are mastered but the mission is forgotten -- and Scripture shows us this is not a new problem.

Israel did it.

The Pharisees perfected it.

Much of modern Christianity has repeated it.

The result is the same every time -- individuals who are personally victorious and communities that are getting darker every year.

History is full of believers who locked onto the telos with imperfect theology and imperfect tactics.

Men and women who did not have perfect doctrine but knew the overall mission, went all in on it, and brought entire nations to faith in Christ.

They are the proof that the telos -- not the tactics -- is what changes the world.

The early church did not have our resources, our worship production, or our Bible teaching tools. But they had the telos. And they turned the world upside down.

Jesus Himself made the telos of the church unmistakably clear:

"This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations -- and then the end shall come." -- Matthew 24:14

Notice that the word translated "end" in that verse is telos.

The telos of the church and the telos of history are bound together in that single sentence. The gospel of the Kingdom to all nations -- and then the end comes.

The mission is not a suggestion.

It is the condition.

It is the very thing that the power of God, the gifts of the Spirit, and every tactic of the Kingdom exist to accomplish.

The church is not waiting for the telos to arrive.

The telos is waiting on the church.

The church is not losing.

The gates of hell have never prevailed and they never will. But every believer in every generation must decide whether they will execute the telos in their time and their place.

That time is now.

That place is yours.

That generation is you.

The tactics build you up.

The telos sends you out.

Christ is King -- Live Like It.

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