Question: Why isn’t God more obvious?
Answer: The God of Reality apparently wants it that way.

The first verse of the Bible states: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Reality is everything that is: Creation and Creator. If Genesis 1:1 is true, and God is essentially consistent, there need not be any significant conflict between our understanding of God, the Creator, and our perception of the universe, Creation. Why then, are there so many conflicts and questions about the relationship between God and his universe, which make up our reality? The reason is that both our understanding of God and our perception of reality are limited and constantly changing. As Saint Paul said: Now we see through “a glass, darkly,” or “in a mirror dimly.” We must accept that our condition of limited perception is by divine design. God has commissioned us to seek and to find. We do this by studying his Word, and by studying his Works. Over the next five months we will do both under the theme: The God of Reality. As we better understand the God of Reality, it is hoped we will better know the reality of God.

- Leo Sandgren

Teaching Schedule:

1 January 2012: “The Sanctification of Time.” Time is our way of measuring the gift of existence, the gift of our Creator. How can we make the most of this “once in a lifetime gift”? We can do so through the sanctification of time.
- LISTEN HERE -

8 January 2012: “What is Truth?”
- LISTEN HERE -

15 January 2012: “What is Man?”
- LISTEN HERE -

22 January 2012: “What is Love?”
- LISTEN HERE -

29 January 2012: “To Read the Bible for the Glory of God”
- LISTEN HERE -

5 February 2012: “The Religion of Football”
- LISTEN HERE -

12 February 2012: “Theism, Atheism, and the God of Israel”
- LISTEN HERE -

19 February 2012: “Holy Spirit and Spirit of Holinessl”
- LISTEN HERE -

About Leo Sandgren:

Leo Sandgren is the son of Baptist missionaries to Africa. After graduating from the University of Washington with a BA in Anthropology, he taught for a year at a mission Bible school in Tchad, Africa. He went on to study theology three years in London, England. There he found his life-long interest in the Jewish background of Jesus and Christian origins. He lived in Israel for three years on a kibbutz near Nazareth pursuing that interest. Later, he served two years on the staff of a Presbyterian church. From there he studied for a Master of Theology at Duke Divinity School, and then a PhD in Ancient Mediterranean Religions from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He began lecturing on Judaism and Early Christianity at the University of Florida in 1998. He has published two books, The Shadow of God: Stories from Early Judaism (2003), and Vines Intertwined: A History of Jews and Christians from the Babylonian Exile to the Advent of Islam (2010). Leo enjoys the natural beauty of Florida by cycling and kayaking.