Have you ever wondered why people do the unhealthy things that they do?  For example, why do people chain-smoke?  Why do people drink excessively?  Why do they abuse drugs?  Or compulsively gamble?  Or have affairs?  Or become addicted to pornography?  Or overeat compulsively?  Simply put, why do people do harmful things to themselves and others?

     We already know the answer.  We already know that national surveys reveal many people have a lack of Spirituality.  And we already know that this lack of Spirituality is the cause of loneliness, depression, fear, anger, and selfishness in people.  And we’ve already seen what this loneliness, depression, fear, anger, and selfishness causes in people.

     It causes them to try to deaden the pain.  It causes them to suppress their hurt by chain-smoking, drinking excessively, popping pills, gambling, reading pornography, and doing all manner of harmful things to themselves and others.

     But the important thing to recognize about this cause and effect linkage is that it’s root source is the lack of Spirituality in people.  If people were more Spiritual, they wouldn’t have loneliness, depression, and fear – and in turn – they wouldn’t have the harmful behaviors that loneliness, depression, and fear create in them.

     Thus, for people to live successfully, all they need to do is start growing Spiritually.  That solves their loneliness, depression, and fear – and in turn – that makes their harmful behavior disappear.  Said another way, the Kingdom of God that we’ve been talking about here in Session One offers people relief from their pain:  quickly, easily, and free of charge.  The “success” that people are searching for (whether they know it or not) is the lifestyle of peace, hope, and purpose that the early Christians lived and that caused Christianity to spread worldwide in less than 100 years.

     Said another way, the real “secret of success” is to remove our loneliness, depression, and fear with Spiritual growth – not to deaden it with harmful behavior.  Some years ago, a TV commercial for a stomach medicine used to ask its viewers, “How do you spell relief?”  Sadly, today many people “spell relief” with abusive and obsessive behavior, not with Spiritual growth.

     And that fact leaves us with a big question:  Why don’t people today realize that the real “secret of success” is Spiritual growth – not abusive and obsessive behavior – and not riches, status, and possessions?  The answer can be surprising.  People don’t realize the real secret of success today because they’ve forgotten it, the same way people forgot the household safety pin.

     People have short memories.  One proof of it is that some of our daily household conveniences have been invented, forgotten, and then re-invented several times over the centuries.  An example is the common safety pin.

     Safety pins were invented by the Ancient Greeks in about 1,200 BC and were used all over the ancient world for centuries.  We know that’s true because safety pins have been found in the archaeological excavations of ancient cities around the world.  For instance, they’ve been found in the ruins of the city of Pompeii in Italy, buried there by the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius in 79 AD.

     However, over the centuries, people gradually forgot about safety pins and eventually they were lost in history.  Then, in relatively recent years, safety pins were re-invented as “new” inventions.  As recently as 1849, a patent for the safety pin as we know it today was issued to an inventor in New York City.

     The point of this lesson from history is that the true secret of success (Spiritual growth) is like the safety pin.  It was “invented” by the early Christians and used worldwide during the first three centuries of Christian history.  And then, starting in the Fourth Century, it was gradually forgotten (for reasons we’ll discuss later) until it was lost in history for most people.  Because of that, the true secret of successful living (Spiritual growth) is still unknown to many people today.

     This means that for us to “re-invent” the secret of successful living, we need to go back to a time in history when people knew the secret and practiced it daily – and then we need to base our understanding of the secret on their teachings and practices.  In this case, we’re talking about Spiritual success as it was practiced by the early Christians in the first three centuries of Christian history.  And the early Christians were crystal clear about their Spirituality in their letters, so let’s talk about their letters next.

     The last time that people taught and practiced Spiritual growth on a large scale was in the early Christian group during the first three centuries of Christian history.  That’s why in this seminar we only quote from First and Second Century Christian writings.  We don’t quote from present-day books, articles, films, videos, and social media because we’re looking for the “lost safety pin” in Spiritual growth – and that “safety pin” started gradually being lost in the Fourth Century. Thus, to be absolutely certain we’re being accurate with Spirituality, we need the safety margin of limiting our understanding of it to the Christian writings of the first two centuries.

     Accordingly, this seminar is based on 35 early Christian letters that were written between 45 and 156 AD in Greece, Italy, Israel, Syria, and Turkey.  Twenty-seven of these letters are in what today we call the New Testament portion of the Bible.  The other eight letters are unknown to most Americans.  These “unknown” Christian letters have odd titles, such as Barnabas, Clement, Didache, Diognetus, Hermas, Ignatius, Papias, and Polycarp.  Today, most of us can’t pronounce those titles and, frankly, it’s not important to try to remember them or pronounce them after reading this paragraph.

     However, it is important to remember two things about these 35 ancient Christian letters.  First, all of the Spiritual principles in this seminar came from them – not from today’s writers.  Second, these letters were well known to the early Christians worldwide and were used by them to teach new Christian groups how to let God guide their daily behavior.

     And that’s exactly what we’re doing in this seminar.  All of the definitions and principles in this seminar came from these 35 ancient Christian letters.  To be even more specific, no definition or principle in this seminar came from an early Christian letter written later than 156 AD.  Think about that a moment.  With that time frame in mind, we’re now ready to talk about where Spiritual growth starts.

     How do we break the ice on a subject as deep and complex as Spiritual growth?  The only logical way is to stick to our plan and use the early Christian letters as our only guide.  So let’s turn to those letters now.  Here’s how the greatest success teacher who ever lived introduced the subject of Spiritual growth:

              “What good would it be for a person to be so successful that he or she gained
          the whole world socially and financially – but lost his or her own soul?  What
          social or financial success could be worth a man’s or woman’s soul?”