DREAMERS IN THE BIBLE

 

 God chooses to reveal his will in the Bible in many ways, as the start of Hebrews proclaims. One of the ways He utilized was through dreams. In the Old Testament we see this in most prominently in dreams and night visions given to and/or interpreted by God's chosen people. Joseph and Daniel are prime examples.

In the case of Joseph's life, the narrative is punctuated at key points by the occurrence of prophetic dreams. First it is when Joseph is granted a vision of his family bowing down to himself. When he reveals this to his father and brothers, they are not exactly pleased and feel that he is beginning to consider himself too highly. That action leads directly to his brothers' betrayal of him and the start of his long career in Egypt as a prisoner of one sort or another.

The second time dreams pop up in the story is when Joseph is languishing in prison along with a disgraced baker and the king's cup-bearer and they both have cryptic dreams regarding their respective fates. This is the scene pictured in the collage below which is now part of the collection of the Museum of Biblical Art in Dallas, Texas.

As the familiar story goes, Joseph successfully interprets both dreams and this eventually comes to the attention of Pharaoh, who has had his own disturbing dream. Joseph, with God's guidance, interprets it as a prophecy of a coming famine in the land. This feat propels Joseph in one step from prison to the leader of Egypt directly under Pharaoh and eventually results in the salvation of his family from famine themselves, ending with the eventual fulfillment of his initial dream.

But the Old Testament does not have the monopoly on dream revelations. We see, especially in Matthew's Gospel and Acts, that God continues to guide His people using this means. Budd says, “Clearly this means of communication and guidance is a very distinctive feature of Matthew's special source in these chapters. It serves to convey God's particular provision for the infant Jesus in the face of various uncertainties and threats, particularly those posed by hostile rulers. The dream is thus highly valued as an illustration of the divine guidance and intervention operative in the life of Jesus from the outset. This serves to enforce a basic Matthaean theme that this Jesus is God's chosen and anointed one.” See Matthew 1:20; 2:12-13,19,22; and 27:19. This last passage concerns a divine warning to Pilate given to his wife in a dream; he chooses to ignore it.

There are an equal number of references to divine dreams found in the Book of Acts, even though the same Greek word is not utilized. So they might be better described as night visions. The pertinent passages begin with the founding of the church on Pentecost as Peter quotes from the prophecy of Joel in Acts 2:17 stating that God's people will dream dreams. From that point on, the specific dream visions are those given to Paul for both direction and encouragement. They appear at Acts 16:9; 18:9; 23:11; and 27:23-24.

As to whether God still grants believers divine messages through dreams, I will leave that up to you to decide since the Bible does not really give any guidance on the subject other than the prophecy of Joel 2:28-32. With the exception of that passage, Paul appears to be the only person God reached by that means of communication. Thus, I would be especially leery of anyone claiming to receive a special divine word unless there is clear confirmation of that revelation already in Scripture. I still remember the occasion years ago when a visitor to our home Bible study told us that God had told him in a dream that he was to take all the parables of Jesus as the literal, historical truth.