Telos

Telos 1. The human form is relational. Human relationships lead to the creation of humans. Our parents had relations, and we were naturally created, whether we were intended or not. God's form is love, and love is relational. Things recreate their forms. We were naturally created by God's form. Adam and Eve sinned seeking to mature into God's form, as all children sin trying to mature into their parents' form. Adam and Eve's loving parent saved them from sin, he helps human beings mature into his form. His form is loving relationship with all beings. Human beings mature in the forge of time, events, and acts. History is God's creation maturing into its form, which is the form of heaven. God is to heaven what man is to earth. God created heaven; Christ is man, and he created earth. Creation's mature form is Christ's kingdom. Our mortal bodies are shadows of immortal bodies; imperfect secular governments are shadows of Christ's perfect government. These shadows become more real as they conform to their mature form. Investment in the shadow must be intended to bring about the mature form. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

Telos 2. Israel rejected God for secular government. Christians are Samuels, we are real while working within the shadows. We try to imitate God by remaining sinless as we use sin to bring about the mature form. We cannot obey Saul over Christ; we can only try to guide him. Every nation's Saul is now God's steward awaiting displacement at the return of the universal king. David did not displace Saul in a single day, and Christ has not displaced secular government in a single day. Saul's local law is no law if it violates Christ's universal law. The spread of the gospel and expansion of the church brings about the gradual displacement of secular governments as humans are shaped ever more by Christ's coming kingdom. Saul's jurisdiction shrinks while Christ's expands. We limit Saul by what we know of Christ. We fight for Christ's values over Saul's. Saul must decrease that Christ may increase. The church is displacing secular government.*

Telos 3. The church spirals upward towards the heavenly form, the world spirals entropically downward. The dialectical spiral of the church matures Christians towards the form, but the dialectical spiral of the world leads to death. Iron sharpens iron in the church. All Christians must recognize ourselves as members of the same family working towards the kingdom, we are part of the same dialectical spiral towards the mature form. Even our disagreements move us towards maturity. All things work together for good to them that love God. The disagreements of the world, however, lead only to death. Our sparring forges souls, but the world's wars burn them to ash. The church loves even as it spars, the world hates even as it hugs. We should absorb the lost into our upward spiral, save them from the death spiral. 

Telos 4. Humans were divided at Babel into linguistic races. We were divided by God to prevent unity in godlessness. Humans should be united under Christ, not under an anti-Christ. Unlike most races throughout history, the church seeks to humanize everyone as part of one family. The church's values are universal values and applicable to all. No one is above them; no one is below them. All are under the true king. But the world is not yet mature, which is why God divided humanity. Christians can lay the groundwork for unity, but we cannot force unity to come. Humanity's divisions are divisions made by God, and they cannot be displaced before the mature form is near, just as Christ's stewards in secular government cannot be displaced until the mature form is near. David did not displace Saul before God's time. The situation is different in the church, we should be ready for more maturity, we are the vanguard, we are the ecclesia. The church should absorb whatever it can without corrupting itself. 

Telos 5. I can imagine a world governed by elders. They train from youth to lead, minister, and teach. They have worked the lowliest jobs and fought on the fronts. Their virtue has been proven. They own almost nothing; they have all things in common. Their flock follows them towards the mature form, into closer friendship with God, into higher morality, into more perfect harmony with God's family, into greater absorption of the world into the upward spiral. This world begins with the spread of the gospel message.

 

*Perhaps this is why democracy is spreading. The world's Sauls are losing legitimacy as news of Christ's kingship spreads. The Israelites were not originally supposed to have a king, they had a kind of republic united by judges, and perhaps this is the ideal political end.