At this year’s graduation, Pastor General Gerald Flurry talked about a topic that is especially relevant to you as a teenager: the mystery of the human mind. He was referring to the crowning literary achievement of Herbert W. Armstrong’s life, Mystery of the Ages, specifically its third chapter: “Mystery of Man.” As Mr. Flurry said, this topic in particular was revealed by God Himself: “Can anybody understand the human mind without having it revealed from his Creator, the Creator of the human mind?”

Mr. Flurry said his first priority in that commencement address was to inspire our graduating students to think more seriously about Mystery of the Ages and to fall in love with that book—and we want the same for you as young people in God’s Church. He identified one particularly amazing paragraph:

“The real value of a human life, then, lies solely within the human spirit combined with the human brain. It should be stated at once that this human spirit is not perceived by the most highly educated psychologists, yet it is the very essence of the human mind.” That knowledge was derived from 1 Corinthians 2:11: “For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.” The Apostle Paul clearly delineates two spirits: the spirit of man and the Spirit of God.

That information should revolutionize mankind’s thinking. Yet the world around you knows nothing about spirit!

Mr. Armstrong made a profound observation: “Science and advanced education today almost universally assume nothing exists but matter. They deny the existence of spirit. … [S]cience and higher education insist the faculty of intellect in humans is solely physical,” (emphasis added).

Without that human spirit, the human brain is almost identical to the animal brain.

“Human and animal brain are alike,” Mr. Armstrong wrote. “Human mind superiority comes not from superior brain, but from the presence of human spirit within the human brain” (ibid).

What amazing things man is able to achieve through the development of his human spirit. In the Philadelphia Church of God, we regularly highlight the best that the human spirit has to offer. The finest artists in the world perform on our campus. Mr. Flurry wrote in the August 2018 Trumpet: “These concerts and performances are uplifting, inspiring and sublime. It is stunning what human beings can achieve when they develop their God-given capacity!”

Those spectacular performances come from the same human mind that resides in you. You, more than any other teenagers on Earth, have the ability to understand that mind and its incredible potential. The December 2018 issue of True Education in particular will help you explore the mystery of the human mind.

To get maximum benefit from this information though, we need to be humble and teachable. Mr. Flurry wrote: “In Matthew 11:25, Jesus Christ prayed, ‘I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.’

“God has hidden His truths, including this about the human spirit, from the world! Only the humble and teachable can understand. You could sit down and reason for years, and you still wouldn’t understand the mysteries of the human mind unless God revealed it.

“Look at the context of Christ’s words: He was fiercely rebuking people for being too materialistic and intellectually vain to be taught! How true that is of the great majority of the highly educated in our world today. …

“We are talking about the mind of God being built in man—if only he would listen to God!”

So here is your opportunity to learn about the most fascinating of creations: your human mind. The greatest intellects of all time have been mystified by this topic, but you don’t have to be. As Mr. Flurry said at graduation, “If ever there’s a time to understand ‘Why man?’ and ‘What is the human mind?’ it is now!”

Watch Mr. Gerald Flurry’s 2018 commencement address here: https://www.pcog.org/articles/4859/mystery-of-the-human-mind.