Foolishness

Ryan and I had a great discussion with a friend recently about religion/God.  I wanted to post a few of our "follow-up" thoughts on the topics we discussed.

About the Bible stories seeming so impossible:

• 1 Corinthians 2 is a great chapter about understanding the things of God.  We especially like verse 14, which says: "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

About faith:

• Alma gives a great discourse on faith for those unfamiliar with the subject.  Alma 32 is an amazing chapter, full of great truths!  Verse 27 teaches, "But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if you can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words."
• God doesn't expect us to believe or "know" all of His truths and teachings all at once.  He points out repeatedly in the scriptures that we must learn "line upon line" - a little at a time.  And it all starts with a simple desire to believe!

About Christ's race/ethnicity:

• I have only had a few minutes to look into this one, and I'm afraid that my internet connection will be dropped before I can post this, so I'll try to come back to it later.  As of right now, I have learned that scholars all over the world have never been able to agree on the race of Jesus Christ. There are no true descriptions of his physical appearance.  But I do seem to remember reading once (though I haven't been able to find it now) that paintings of Christ done for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are approved by the prophet as looking like Christ.  Now, I don't have any references for this right now, and I don't want to start rumors or anything!  Please don't take my words as being, in any way, the thoughts or feelings of the Church, because I don't and can't speak for the Church as a whole.  
• If anyone has any more information on this topic, I'd appreciate learning more! :)

I'm sure there were more questions, but that was all I could remember right now.  For those who are interested, more information (as well as digital copies of the scriptures) can be found at www.lds.org and www.mormon.org.

If anyone has more questions, I'd be happy to discuss them! :)