Dreams in the New Testament

You know, Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew is to the New Testament what Genesis is to the Old Testament. At least in the way of dream interpretation. All right, everyone. Well, welcome back to this fifth installment of our philosophical discussion of dream interpretation. Uh you guys will recall that the first episode we talked about dreams generally in the context of modernity and contemporary thought and how they'd been lost because of the secularization and the separation of the sacred and the secular. And although we have dreams all the time and we think about them sometimes even talking about them, we don't really dwell on them like the ancients did.

And uh that's to our chagrin and that's our loss because there's a lot of stuff happening in our dreams. And in lecture two and three, we talked about it from a philosopher standpoint looking at the philosophers and the psychologists really of dream interpretation. And that was very enlightening. You know, we talked about Carl Jung and Sigman Freud, Kelvin Hall. Then we talked about uh Fritz Pearls and um and other and other thinkers, you know, uh Vilhelm Vunt and and really just getting a look at the turn toward dream interpretation that we saw really blossom in the 19th and 20th centuries in philosophy.

Now, one of the things that we also saw with that was that that was a kind of humanism based upon a kind of understanding of Kant's philosophy is opening up a new pathway of interpretation for us where the psyche the the the human consciousness and the subconscious can be analyzed and looked at and we can do experiments and we can do assessments of what's there and relate it to the waking life and make some headway in understanding the meaning of dreams. And that was all fine and good. I thought uh we made some really good headway there. We we got some tools. We toolled up somewhat for understanding our dreams. But we raised the question by the end of lecture three on whether or not dreams are merely human expressions, you know, uh the collective unconscious or something along those lines. And we raise the question whether or not they could be speaking to us from outside of us, a third party, God, the spiritual world.

and uh and so forth. And that's why we turned back to the Bible. So in the last lecture, we talked about the Old Testament. And hopefully one of the things you saw in the last lecture was that the Old Testament is just full of dreams. And those dreams guide God's people um through all sorts of um adventures as it were and the establishment of of God's uh temple and God's kingdom on earth and so forth. We saw it with Abram and how he received dreams that blended into his waking life.

And all the way through Genesis, we saw it develop through um through Jacob in particular and of course Joseph and his rather long discourse where dreams repeatedly come up and they drive the narrative really of God's speech acts to his people and the establishment of his you know the fulfillment of his promise to establish a people through whom we would all be blessed someday the entire world through Abraham.

And that was repeated and that was reiterated through dreams and there were sequences in there where we saw well is that a dream is that a vision is that some kind of daydream what's going on there but you have to remember for the Hebrew mind these things were not clearly demarcated that the the movement between dream and what we would call the appearance or reality uh for them was a lot more amorphous and and and and um seamless and and and porous if you will and uh but today living in the age we're living in we see the sacred and the secular with a strict boundary line and I guess Emanuel Khan has something to do with that that's at least how he has been received and how he developed into philosophical psychology and dream interpretation theory that we have already been talking about at length but the Bible and biblical characters from the Old Testament to the New Testament tell us a little bit different story that the world from dreams to sort of the waking life is is a lot more seamless and communicative and it involves us in spiritual realities and not just in physical ones.

Well, that brings us now to the New Testament. And the New Testament is fascinating in this regard because on one level it's parallels with the Old Testament. And then on another level or on the other side of the coin, you might say, something new is happening with dream interpretation. Uh, if I'm going to sort of boil that down just into some general statements, you know, Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew is to the New Testament what Genesis is to the Old Testament, at least in the way of dream interpretation. A lot of the sort of driving influence in the narrative of God establishing his people in Genesis is driven by dreams.

We find something very similar in the outset of the New Testament with Matthew. If you look at the four gospels, really, it's only Matthew that clearly has dreams associated with it. Now, there are disputed passages in in Mark and Luke and John, but Matthew makes a conscious decision to weave in to the narrative from the perspective in which he wants to tell it. dreams uh you know as as sort of defining the action particularly in the opening chapters and uh that's what I really want to focus on here um at the outset. So, we're going to look at Matthew some.

And we're going to look then to the book of Acts, which has a number of dreams in it that again are defining moments in the book of Acts. And then we'll look at some of the Pauline letters and really go all the way to Revelation, which itself is a massive vision, a dream, a um um you know, one by the time we get to Revelation, I it's so rich. I'm I'm probably going to end up just bracketing Revelation somewhat. We'll talk a little bit about it ending the New Testament. such a rich such an important passage or you know book of the Bible for uh um esquetology in particular.

But of course lots of disputes rest there and I'm going to probably have to do an entire podcast on esquetology down the road somewhere to show us our options in the show what those visions uh may or may not amount to in biblical interpretation at least from a philosopher standpoint. So that's something to look forward to later on. So that's the general plan here. So the first thing I want to do is zero in on Matthew. And one thing you can't help but notice right away is the similarities between Genesis and Matthew, particularly in the person of Joseph.

Now you guys will recall from the last lecture that Joseph had you know there's like 13 14 chapters of narrative surrounding Joseph and his life story is driven by these these um waves if you will of dream interpretation and uh the first one got him into trouble with his brothers as you recall he had a couple of different dreams there where they're bowing down and worshiping him as and and um they didn't like that they sold him into sla Avery, you guys remember that in the rest. But right away in Matthew, we see another Joseph. And this Joseph is very different than the other Joseph.

Um, but there are some similarities and Matthew takes note of those right away. So, everyone knows about the genealogies in the beginning of Matthew because Matthew is concerned with tying in the genealogy of David, the the line of David all the way to Jesus Christ. But he's also going to be employing um some of his, you know, you know, writing skills to tie in the two Josephs to one another. So, you'll notice right away that they share the same name. And uh they both actually have a father named Jacob. That doesn't appear to be an accident either providentially or in the narrative that uh that Matthew wants to write.

Uh Jacob is he's tells us that in Matthew 1:16. He's almost certainly uh an intentional sign from from Matthew that this is a continuation of the Old Testament uh covenant with this new covenant. in the Old Testament narrative with this final revelation in the person of Jesus Christ. Uh we see with with both Joseph's that they're driven by dreams that um the Old Testament Joseph has two dreams of his own that are pretty clear and then a whole set of dreams that he interprets on behalf of other people. Um, and that is not, you know, I mean, you you can't miss that in the Genesis account. The New Testament, Joseph has what appears to be about four dreams. We talk a little bit about those here at the outset. Um, and each time this is a divine address to both of them really.

It's it's sharing uh um things about the future and about actions in the present and and and and things that they want these Josephs to do. And so that I think is an important one. They're both of righteous or noble character. Um they both in a sense when pressed they abstain from say sexual relations. Remember, Joseph doesn't uh get with Mary until after Jesus is born. And uh Joseph in the Old Testament resists Piper's wife and is a person of noble character as well. So those are some obvious parallels. They're both uh threatened by a powerful ruler. We have the Pharaoh in the one in in the one case in the Joseph of the Old Testament.

Here we have Herod the Great in the New Testament threatening him. Egypt is a key location for both of these Josephs. Again, you can't miss these similarities. On one level, Joseph is sold off into slavery, ends up in Egypt, rises, you know, up in stature within Egypt and uh Joseph of the New Testament rushes off to Egypt because of a dream and uh spends some time there until Herod has kind of run his course and then he returns from Egypt in a kind of uh you know triumphal return although he's steered by a dream to Galilee.

which is fulfillment of prophecy as well. Um they um they both had to suffer. You know, Joseph not only suffered because his bride was found to be pregnant, he had to sort of live in a society under that shadow as it were, but he also had to to to migrate and to travel and to uh you know live in various locations before he finally was able to settle down. And even settling down, it was difficult as we know uh with the manger and uh no room at the end and all of that. uh the suffering and difficulties.

Um you'll recall that the uh the Joseph of the Old Testament um he had um he had to overcome say a physical death by famine with one of his dreams and working with Pharaoh. And the other one, the other Joseph of the New Testament, his life story is about overcoming a spiritual death. And um and so Joseph saves Israel and then the new Joseph as it were um is the father of the savior of Israel. Anyway, we have a lot of similarities. Now, in terms of differences, you can look at Joseph of the Old Testament as a dream interpreter.

He has a certain kind of acute sense for what the meaning of these dreams are and we saw that repeatedly on display in the book of Genesis. Joseph of the New Testament is an actor and we don't hear much from him. We uh we just find that he is uh he receives the dream and he acts upon the dream.

Joseph dwells in the dream world. He not only has them, but he listens to them and understands them, interprets them as a signs of the times and what God is going to be doing in the days to come. And so those are sort of two different roles that they have. Um, one Joseph, the Old Testament one, has one of the longest narratives in the entire Old Testament for a particular person. this Joseph of the New Testament comes in and we don't hear much from him after the first couple chapters of Matthew. And so they have very different roles in terms of their the length of the narratives that they're involved with and their voice.

Joseph in the Old Testament has a loud voice and his continuous voice and he, you know, he reiterates the promises of God for God's people and things like that. the the this Joseph is a lot more let's say humble, circumspect, quiet. One is famous, the other is kind of hidden in the narrative and you don't hear that much about I think yeah on Christmas you basically hear about Joseph and not too many times otherwise.

So, um that is a uh there are other similarities and differences, but I want I wanted to point that out cuz I found that to be fascinating when I first started encountering uh these dreams in the New Testament that one of the the big uh takeaways right away is that Matthew, the book of Matthew is a place of, you know, is is is is saturated as it were with dreams. has this character Joseph whose father is Jacob and yet um and and and uh and yet it is uh in in some ways very different than the Old Testament one. So now if we look at these particulars which I'd like to sort of move to uh now we look at these particulars I'm going to pull my Bible a little closer so I can take a look at the scriptures with you. If you've got your Bible, you want to get out Matthew, Matthew 1, um, verse 20.

We see right away here, Matthew 1 verse 20, that Joseph has his first dream. Let's see what it says here. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife. Because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet. The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel which means God with us.

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary uh home as his wife, but he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son and he gave him the name Jesus. So, here we are in a really crucial spot. We have Mary getting pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Joseph, who is engaged to be married to her, finds this out. and he's considering what is going on. And when it could all go sideways and that God's plan could be thwarted, Joseph has a dream. And in this dream, um, the Lord appeared to him and told him that this baby was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Hard to get a more crucial moment in the New Testament than that moment. Uh there are one or two more obviously uh the birth and the uh death and resurrection of Jesus. Those are highlights and right here we have a dream that uh is absolutely crucial to the narrative flow.

All right. Well, the next dream that we find in Matthew interestingly is the magi. And so in chapter 2 verse um in verse 12, see if I can read that one chapter 2 verse 12. Let's see if that's is that really the Yeah. So we have the magi coming to see the baby Jesus. They opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, of incense, and of myrr. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. So here we have people who are not Hebrews who are having dreams.

And I guess that's one of the first insights I want to I want to that God that God is in his providence is using um is using people who aren't even Hebrews as it were to you know to appear to as it were to warn in a dream. These are uh obviously important characters in the narrative flow. Right away, right after that, we have Joseph's second dream. In this dream, rather than sort of naming and confirming um for Joseph that he should marry marry and you know have the baby, take care of the baby so forth. We have his second dream and in this one we see a warning.

This is in verse 13. When they had gone, and this is the magi, when they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him." So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet.

Out of Egypt, I call my son. Well, once again, we have the unique characteristic of Joseph who gets some information that's absolutely crucial to his actions and he takes action. This is a humble guy. Not a lot of words from Joseph, but uh uh receiving these dreams and acting immediately upon them. And uh you know that's that's going to be a little bit different than Joseph of the Old Testament who has to tell his brothers, you know, who who's always in the limelight. He's called in from the Pharaoh to interpret dreams and and and is always kind of a public event. Um with Joseph, not so much.

And we see Joseph hearing the warning and heeding the warning and acting accordingly. Now if we go to Joseph's third dream, this is in Matthew 2 19. After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother and go back to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead." So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Arcilius was uh reigning in Judah in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there.

Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and he uh lived in the town of Nazareth. so was fulfilled what was said through the prophets. He will be called a Nazarene. So here we have his third and really his fourth dream. Um and once again, Joseph following God's commands in his dreams moves out and um and he acts accordingly.

And uh that I mean it's really in order I mean you can't help but miss uh to to miss the providence here um or to catch the providence of God here because in each case you know he's sent to Egypt and the son is coming out of Egypt and in this case he is diverted from Judea to go to Nazareth to fulfill what has been said and so God speaking through dreams fulfilling prophecy. in the obedient servant, Joseph, following along, doing due diligence according to God's commands in his dreams. So, that's a that's a big deal. And um that that course correction at the end is just a sidebar.

Do you notice that he said, "And having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee." just a sidebar, but really crucial to the fulfillment of prophecy, to the whole story of Jesus coming out of Galilee. What good could come out of Galilee except Jesus Christ our Lord? And so that's that's fascinating. I mean, here we have in the first two chapters of Genesis, dreams playing an absolutely pivotal role in God's communication to his people.

Now, one of the themes that you're going to hear from me in the the rest of this lecture about the New Testament is that with the coming of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, dreams don't disappear, but they are in a sense um deliluted. diluted in the sense that they are not just focused on the people of Israel and the Hebrews, but they start making their way out to all people and um they're not driving as it were God's final revelation in Jesus Christ.

They're they're uh aspects of God's kingdom work through his church. But that church is not just for Hebrews. It's for Gentiles and it's for the whole world. And of course, that's going to fulfill his original pro uh promise to Abram. And um and and that's really kind of cool. And so we find the dreams being pivotal connective tissue, if you will, with the Old Testament. But we also find that they begin to be dispersed um and and span out among all people and they become less significant to the narrative thread than they used to be. And so I guess what I'm you what I'm going to argue here is that dreams still happen.

God still speaks to us in dreams. At least that's what I understand the New Testament witness to be telling us. but is is not in the sort of way that is constitutive of theology per se. You're going to see later on in some of the Pauline letters and in books like Jude where they're warning heresies can emerge through people who overemphasize dreams. And so uh we we we get some warnings in later writings in the New Testament that uh you know the once and for all revelation of Christ and his life, death and resurrection can be itself circumvented or or distorted by people who claim to have direct access to God through James.

Um, so it's a little bit like we need to be sort of thoughtful or critical Christian uh uh uh adherence to properly get an understanding of how dreams uh function today. So we're going to talk a little bit more about that as we go along, but I wanted to mention that. Now, now we don't have a a slew of dreams throughout Matthew, but we do see them again. And one place that we see them kind of bookending the whole narrative, ironically, is in Matthew 27.

And in Matthew 27, Pilate's wife has a dream. And that dream by Pilate's wife is so disturbing that she says she's suffering because of this dream. So there's something in her. Maybe she's, you know, women generally tend to be a little bit more sensitive to to to this emotive kind of way of thinking and living, but that I think any it sounded like this dream was so significant that anybody who had it would have been disturbed by it. And certainly Pilate's wife was. So if we look at uh Matthew 27:19, it says, "When Pilate was sitting on the judge's seat, his wife sent him this message."

And this is a quote in her message. Don't have anything to do with that innocent man for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him. So right there we get Pilate's wife has this dream so disturbing to her and her household that she sends a message to Pilate. Says, "Back off. Get away. Don't do anything with this guy. you don't want to be involved in this. And of course, Pilate being the vocational sort of uh uh Roman, you know, um he he goes, "Well, that's all fine and good, but I still got to work my way through this issue."

And it says here, and and this is where we, by the way, um where we get the Barnabas story. We get we get immediately Pilot trying to find a way out. And he immediately says, "Ha, how about we get this murderous killer that we've got in jail, and we'll put it on the people, not on me. Who do you want to receive sanction, Jesus or Barnabas?" And for him, it's a pretty obvious choice. It's like, man, they're definitely going to take Barnabas. But no, no, the chief priests and uh whip up the crowd, as it were, and um and and um we know the story from there.

They end up um releasing Barnabas and crucifying Jesus. We have a this there's a little bit of a parallel. I couldn't help but notice the parallel with Daniel in Daniel chapter 4 and Nebuchadnezzar. We have a similar sort of power dynamic of a righteous man in a in a in a ruler and and uh Nebuchadnezzar doesn't like the dream and yet he still finds a way of kind of uh leading to the persecution of Daniel. And there's some there's some interesting overlaps there for sure.

But the bottom line is is that the spiritual realm as it were is so disturbed by the events surrounding the arrest and trial of Jesus that the very the the the the sensitive and and and and uh akin the wife of Pilate has this dream and she takes it upon herself to write to him and say get out of that as soon as possible. That's I think rather fascinating.

Um, the only other uh event in the uh in Matthew that I think could be talked about in the context of visions and dreams would be in Matthew 17 with the transfiguration of Christ. Um, if you go to Matthew 17, see if I can find that one real quick with you. Matthew 17, it's really all of Matthew uh 17. After 6 days, Jesus took with uh with him Peter, James, and John, the brother of James, and led them up to a high mountain. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light, just as that just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus.

Um Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. While he was speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them. And a voice from the clouds said, "This is my son with whom uh whom I love. With him I am well pleased. Listen to him." The disciples, they fell face down on the ground, terrified. But Jesus came and touched them. Get up. Don't be afraid. When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus. And so they, it was from that point that I was reading earlier that they came down the mountain. Don't tell anyone about this vision that you have seen.

Again, that one seems to be waking life. It seems to be uh a narrative meant to say they were actually on the mountain. They were actually transfigured before them and Jesus is is is instructing them accordingly. But there is a sense in which it has a similar vibe in terms of vision that that the bright light the the clarity surrounding who they were they disappear suddenly. Um all of those things um entail some kind of visionary experience and that's fascinating. I don't think you have dream indicators like you do in the other passages however. Okay. Well, that's in a nutshell the book of Matthew. Really kind of crucial.

Not quite as saturated as Genesis was. And I think that's another one of these themes in the New Testament. Dreams are downplayed because of the arrival of the Holy Spirit, the arrival of Jesus Christ, the final revelation. All of spiritual reality is percolating through the people of Israel as it were in the Old Testament. But now something new is occurring. And in Matthew, we see the continuity. But we also see the um the the sort of replacement if you will with the person of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Now if we jump over to the book of Acts, there's a couple of things that I want to mention there.

And that is right away in the book of Acts, there's this very well-known passage in Acts chapter 2. in Acts chapter 2 focuses in on this is right around verse 17 or so where Peter is addressing the crowd after Pentecost and he cites the prophet Joel in the last days God says I will pour out my spirit on all people that's one of the themes we've seen your sons and daughters will prophecy. Young uh your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams even on my servants, both men and women. I will pour out my spirit in those days, and they will prophecy.

I will show wonders in heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke, etc. And so we have this sort of I don't know you might call it a grounding statement here by Peter that dreams will be dreamed that they won't go away but he's pouring out his spirit. And so how you understand the prophecy of Joel being fulfilled in Pentecost in the in the in the death resurrection of Jesus and in Pentecost the sort of right and left hands of God at work in the world. um they're still prevalent and we see that in the book of Acts.

Now, there's one other thing I want to mention that's one of what I would call the grounding passages for dream interpretation in the New Testament. The other one I would point to is um in the book of Hebrews chapter 1 right at the beginning. I think it's important to mention this at the outset. It says, "In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways. But in these days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe." The son is the radiance of God of God's glory in the exact representation of his being sustaining all things by his powerful word.

So the author of Hebrews and I wanted to parallel that a little bit with Matthew here as a grounding passage says that in the old days there was this percolating spiritual communicative act in dreams and the Old Testament as we saw with Abraham and uh uh um a little bit with Isaac but mainly with with um Jacob and Joseph and you know with Solomon and with uh Daniel. um we saw it sort of thick in in terms of God's communicative activity. Um but here he the author of Hebrews right at the beginning says that era is gone. A new era has come in the person of Jesus Christ the son of God.

And here in Acts 2:1 17 we see an emphasis on um the Holy Spirit. And those are what I'm going to call two of the grounding passages. Now, that doesn't mean dreams aren't important. It just means that they are to be conceived of or tested by the word of God, Jesus Christ, the scriptures, and by the spirit. Um, now, now if we look at the dreams that we actually see in Acts, we have a fascinating um a fascinating sort of series of things that happen. So I'm thinking particularly of Acts chapter 9.

Here we see uh the famous passage where Paul is converted, you know, by a bright light and by the voice of Jesus in in Acts chapter nine. And we have two interlocking dreams. One is by Ananas and the Lord appears to Ananas. This is in uh in verse 10. And so in verse 10, let's see where we can. In Damascus, there was a disciple named Ananas. The Lord called to him in a vision. Ananas. Yes, Lord. He answered, "Go to the house of Judas um on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying."

In a vision, he has seen a man named Ananas come to him and place him uh place his hands on him and restore his sight. So right there we see Ananas having a dream and the Lord asks him to go to a particular street to a person's house to meet Paul. And by the way, Paul has also had a dream announcing your eventual arrival. And this is kind of a what I would call a couplet or an interlocking visions that become a little bit more common as we go forward.

And I I think that that will demonstrate the pervasiveness and the interlocking nature of these dreams because of the arrival of the Holy Spirit in a substantial way that we have in the book of Acts. And dreams are not just punctilar things anymore. They're interlocking. There's a third party involved. And the dreams have a kind of coherence to them that they otherwise uh don't have. Um, we see the same thing by the way with Peter. And so if we go over to um chapter 10 and verses 9 onward, we have Peter's vision.

About noon the following day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up to the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat. And while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven open and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of 4-footed animals as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. Then a voice told him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat. Surely not, Lord, Peter replied, I never have eaten anything impure or unclean. The voice spoke to him a second time.

Do not call anything impure that God has made clean. This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back up to heaven. So Paul's wondering, as it were, what's going on? Um now interestingly um interestingly we have a parallel vision here just before that with the centurion. So if you go a little bit back right before that vision in in in verse 3-6 we see um let's see here. One day at about 3:00 in the afternoon, he had a vision. This is Cornelius the centurion. So, we have a Roman here. Um, he distinctly saw an angel of God who came to him and said, "Cornelius."

Cornelius stared at him in fear. "What is it, Lord?" he asked. The angel answered, "Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as memorial offering before God. Now send men to Japa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. He is staying with Simon in the Tanner." Uh Simon the Tanner whose house is by the sea. When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called his two servants and a devout soldier who was with one of the attendants. He told them everything that had happened and sent them to Japa. So here we have Cornelius having a dream about going to send for Simon Peter.

Peter of course has his own dream and in this dream he basically argues that the the ritual sort of f food food um you know observances of the Israelites were no longer operative. And we have this parallel vision with the Roman centurion and um we have the gentile Jew thing going on and dreams being the way in which these things are brought into sharper leaf brought to the center of their theological thinking and uh that's no small matter. I mean that's a huge thing to have Peter come along and say hold on a second I don't have to be observant. Now notice in there, Peter is told three times or the dream happens three times.

This seems to be a story of Peter's life. If you if you recall, he denied Christ three times and Jesus comes back and says that he loves him three times. Um or at least he has Peter answer the question, do you love me three times? And here we have three different dreams finally getting through uh one after the other exact same dream uh getting through to him that the old observances are no longer in effect.

All right. Well, we could go on there, but dreams do come on. They they happen again. And uh in this case in Paul's missionary journeys and so if we look at it u he has a famous passage in Acts 16 9 and 10. During the night, Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, "Come to Macedonia and help us." After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. Here we have Paul kind of acting like Joseph u gets a dream. It's a pretty obvious one.

You have a person from Macedonia calling for the gospel and Paul and his people to come there and preach the word and Paul immediately gets up and goes there and he spends some time there as well. And so we get a vision of guidance right away. Now again this isn't theologically profound. It's not what you know God's promise to save his people or anything like that. In this sense it's more diluted. It's more of a you're living by the spirit. You're trusting in Jesus Christ. You're having dreams that will help you to navigate life and to do God's kingdom work. We see something similar in uh in Corinth in uh chapter 18.

Lord speaks to Paul in the night in verse 9 and 10 again in 18. One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision. Do not be afraid. Keep on speaking. Do not be silent. For I am with you and no one is going to attack and harm you because I have many people in the in the city. So Paul stayed for a year and a and a half teaching the word of God. So here Paul is a little bit discouraged wondering if he should move on. And God appears to him in a dream or at least speaks to him in a dream. I guess it's a vision.

It uses the word visions. No longer using the word dream like they did in the Old Testament. These are more I won't say premonitions, but they're kind of a clarity of thought and mind as if God's directly speaking to them. And something is happening here that Paul sees oh so clearly and it leads him to stay there for a year and a half. So this is no small matter to Paul. It is a encouragement that he's on the right track. Don't lose heart. Stay the course. Continue to do what you're doing, which is basically preaching in in the temple and arguing in in, you know, the uh in the marketplace.

And God's going to be with you. He will protect you. You're going to be just fine. Um all right. So, that is a I I would call that kind of a vision of encouragement to Paul that he's doing the right thing. Uh there's a third vision. This is in Acts chapter 22. Um and again, what I'm really just trying to show you here is that they do not disappear, but rather than dreams that are thick and profound about God's speech acts to his people. These are things where you know what you're supposed to do, preach the word of God, preach the gospel, know that the Holy Spirit is working with you, through you, through the church, and God's spirit will be there to guide you. and he will give you clarity of mind to the point of a vision.

And I think that that's what we see here in the book of Acts. So if we look at 22 u 17 and 18 it says when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple I fell into a trance and saw the Lord speaking quick he said to me leave Jerusalem immediately because they will not accept your testimony about me. Lord, I replied, "These men know that I went from one synagogue to another um to imprison and beat those who believed in you." And when uh and when the blood of your martyr Steven was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.

Then the Lord said to me, 'Go, I will send you far away to the Gentiles.' Well, Paul does go and you guys will recall that it's right around this time where he's not exactly arrest. I guess he's arrested and he he he points out his Roman citizenship and God really does send him far away to the Gentiles all the way uh um back to Rome. And so here we have Jesus warning him, commanding him to go and he of course does it. Uh the last one I want to point out is um an angel appearing to Paul on the ship. He's now headed headed back to Rome.

And um this is in Acts 27 verse 23. Acts 27 verse 23 it says last night an angel of of uh the God who knows uh let's see here. Sorry. Uh last night an angel of the God who I am uh whose of the God whose I am and whom I serve. Sorry, the the wording on that is really kind of weird. Stood beside me and said, "Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar, and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you." So, there's a big storm. Paul's in it. He has a vision from an angel.

You're not going to die here at sea. neither are the people who are with you, but you will stand trial before Caesar in Rome. And so, here we have another vision. This is kind of a an encouragement to Paul that that wasn't his day to die. And it's also kind of a prophecy of what's to come. And um again, sit fits the same motif. He has these visions not called out as dreams per se that are deep in the night and that are profoundly theologically rich, but instead that final revelation of Christ in the Holy Spirit has given way now to a guidance by the spirit through a clarity of mind that they're calling here in the book of Acts visions.

Okay. Well, that that kind of wraps up the book of Acts. I think it's really kind of interesting that these things are present throughout the book of Acts, throughout the early church, if you will, somewhat differently than they were with uh with Abraham and and uh with with Jacob and with with Joseph, but nevertheless, still very prevalent. The Pauline letters don't have a ton in this regard. Uh I would point you to second Corinians This is kind of an interesting passage because it's the passage where we get the thorn of the flesh showing up for Paul. And I don't think it's an accident that his illusions to dreams here.

This is 2 Corinthians 12 um vers 1 to4. He says, um, I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on in visions and revelations from the Lord. I know that a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up in the third heaven, whether it was in the body or out of the body, I do not know. God knows. And I know that this man, whether in the body or apart from the body, I do not know, but God knows, was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressable things, things that man is not permitted to tell. I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself except about my weaknesses.

Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain. So no one will think more of me than is warranted but of what I do or say. So here we have Paul really kind of an interesting passage talking about what was it was it 14 years ago and he's alluding I believe to himself here. But this was a person who had had a dream that was very profound opening up the heavens really to him in this dream. But he doesn't want to focus on that because that isn't kind of where the church is anymore.

Um he's more humble in this regard. He's it's an aside more than it is something that is you know he's just briefly remembering it in these writings and then he moves on and um really his journey if you study the book of acts his journey is more about the relationship between faith and reason being able to give a defense but also to talk about the faith and the power of God through the Holy Spirit less so about these mystical experiences and dreams and visions but they still happen they still are present there and Paul I think is alluding to it right here in 2 Corinthians.

So we do find these things still present. Now the non-Pauline letters in particular Jude and Peter they seem to take a little bit more distance from dreams. And so in Jude and Jude doesn't really have any chapters but Jude verse 8 we have this sort of striking passage where he condemns false teachers who he calls those dreamers. It might be worth looking at that. So in verse Jude verse 8, let's see if we can find that one. Oh yeah.

In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority, and slander celestial beings. Well, it goes on, but he's apparently Jude is pointing out the fact that these quote unquote dreamers are not being obedient in their walk in Christ, but they are having these dreams and polluting the truth as it were with them.

And so one of the themes I think we see in the full council of scripture is that dreams need to be you need to test the spirits as it were using the word of God using uh uh um you know the eyes of faith inspired by the Holy Spirit in order to understand your dreams and to not let them be constitutive if you will of your theology your worldview but informative. And I think that's what that maybe that's not constitutive but informative. I think we see that with Peter. We see it with Paul and we see it in the uh in in Paul's illusion. He mentions it.

It was a profound experience for him but it does not demarcate the essence of his message. And in some of the uh smaller writings here, the nonPauline letters, we see a kind of concern that if you do allow dreams to speak as if they were still in the old covenant, then you're going to have a problem with heterodoxy or with, you know, um heresy even.

That doesn't mean that dreams aren't going to be important to guide and to reflect upon and to accentuate and enhance the word of God as it were as it speaks to me. But it doesn't mean that they need to be in continuity, if you will, with the revelation that we find in Christ and in the Holy Spirit. All right. Well, the last book of the Bible that I want to mention here in the New Testament with regards to dreams is the book of Revelation. Now, the book of Revelation may well be one long dream.

It certainly is a vision and um you know the the Apostle John on an island advanced in years is seeing seeing things and just like the book of Acts in chapter 2 says your old men will will see visions and dream dreams.

uh we we find that in in in droves here really in the book of revelation and we could do an entire study of the book of revelation but I'm just going to highlight three of them and these are sort of three highlight moments if you will and they're not the only ones if you read through Revelation it is as if every every word almost is coming to um the pages of scripture here as a vision as something that is illustrative of what's going to happen or what's to come and depending upon you know who reads these and how you understand the full council of scripture you're going to get a slightly different take on what it means it doesn't mean it's not rich in meaning so if you look at chapter 1 uh I'm thinking particularly here uh chapter 1 verse 10 on In the Lord's day, I was in the spirit and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet which said, "Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches and uh to Ephesus, Smeirna, uh Pergamum and uh uh Theotira and Sardis and Philadelphia and Leodia. uh le Le Oysia, sorry, Leodysia. Wow. So, this whole passage that's following there is based on a vision he has of a voice that's coming to him.

And um that whole beginning section here is really really quite fascinating. We have the glorified um Christ, the son of the son of man appearing to him in this vision. I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. And among the lampstands was someone like a son of man dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were like were white like wool and white as snow. And his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace.

And his voice was like the sound of rushing water. And in his right hand he held seven stars. And out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun, shining in all of its brilliance. When I saw him, I fell at his feet, and though dead. As though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said, "Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am the living one. I am I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades." Write therefore what you have seen, what is now, and what will take place later.

The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and of the seven golden lampstands, is this. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. Well, here we are. We have uh John writing in Revelation about a dream and he's pretty good at harvesting his dreams because he takes the scroll. He's always he's commanded to take the scroll and he does and he starts writing out the details of what he sees and even the commands that he hears. He writes them down. And then of course we have a number of chapters after that with the letters to the seven churches. And we come up to Revelation 4 and five which we have the throne room vision of God and and and of heaven. And um I think we have another fascinating account here about the scroll and the lamb and everything that he sees in the throne of heaven.

And after I looked and therefore and and be and and there before me was a door standing open in heaven and a voice I had uh I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, "Come up here and I will show you what must take place after this." At once I was in the spirit and there before me was the throne of heaven and someone sitting on it. And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and chameleon. A rainbow resembling an emerald encircled the throne. surrounding uh surrounding the throne were 24 other thrones and seated on them were 24 elders.

It goes on and on and on to describe the throne on heaven and the the scroll and and the lamb and and and how that is going to transpire. Really fascinating stuff. So, it's hard to look at the scriptures and not say that dreams aren't really important. Here we have this vision, this final vision, if you will, that is an encouragement for the end of the age. That's it's trying to teach us something about how to be a church, how to do God's kingdom work in the world, and what's going to come in the future. And Christ's second coming, of course, is going to be utterly important.

um the last part of it, I mean in in Revelation 17 and again in Revelation 21, we see John um being carried by an angel in the spirit and he has you know a few other visions. So in 17 it says for example, one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, "Come and I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries." Then the angel carried me away in the spirit into the desert.

There I saw a woman sitting on scarlet. Here um sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous ruins. Uh blasphemous names and had seven heads and 10 horns. It just goes on and on. Like I said, we could probably do a 10-p part series trying to understand the nature of these dreams, but I guess the point I really want to make here as we begin to wrap up is that um the centrality and the importance of dreams um lessons in the New Testament, but they still have a kind of significance to them And probably the most theologically significant is going to be the book of Revelation.

But it's also the most contentious because the various ways in which it might be interpreted in light of events that came in the 100, 200, 300 years um you know after Christ as well as the 2,000 years that have now uh passed. We have lots of disputes in this area about precisely how that plays out. But there is no doubt that they still are central in a sense is the vocabulary shifts from dreams proper more to visions and those visions are more illustrative of God's guidance than they are constitutive of God's actions. And I think that that's an important thing that they the filter of Christ and of the revelation of the Bible is always going to take precedence over dreams. And yet dreams still matter to how we encounter the world and how we live our lives in the world.

There is a um I don't know what you would call it a a sense in which dreams are now for everybody just like the gospel is now not just a Hebrew thing but it's a gentile thing and the whole world will be blessed by it. Same way with dreams in the Old Testament you get the impression that it is the Hebrews who are having the dreams. Now, everybody's having them, but the Hebrews are the ones who understand them as God's speech acts and that they say something about the human condition. Um, in the New Testament, everybody's having them.

You see these dream couplets that are occurring, you know, with the centurion and with Peter and you in in and in and in people groups as it were outside of, you know, the the Hebrews. And so, you know, there's something there's something different happening with them, but they still maintain an important presence. And soon as you think with the book of Jude and with Peter that dreams are really to be shied away from, we get this massive book of Revelation, which is one long vision. And so, uh, they're not going to go away. They're still going to be important theologically. And um we'll still be looking at the book of Revelation for hints about Christ's second coming and the end of the age.

All right. Well, I think that pretty much wraps up what I wanted to say about the New Testament. Hopefully, you've noticed in this juxtaposition of the psychologists and of the prophets and the apostles, two very different understandings of of dreams. one you might call common grace, natural revelation. I think it still says something when we look at Freud and Jung and Hall and some of the other interpreters and it still and it says something even more when we look at the biblical prophets and and and and um and apostles. We see an openness to the fact that the spiritual world in general and God in particular speaks through his spirit by the finished work of his son to his people through visions through dreams.

All right. Well, that's it for now. Looking forward to wrapping this up in lecture six where we're going to be looking at a comprehensive methodology for interpreting dreams. Look forward to seeing you then. Bye for now. Thanks for stopping by to spend some time with me here on the Firestone Files. I hope today's reflections offered you some new insights and perspective on life.

If you enjoyed the episode or found it valuable, I'd appreciate it if you'd take a moment to like, subscribe, and share it with someone you care about. I'd also love to hear your thoughts. What resonated with you? What challenged you? Or what would you like to hear more about in future episodes? Drop a comment below or send in your suggestions to the email in the description. Your input helps shape where we go next. This has been Dr. Chris Firestone. Until next time, keep asking the big questions. And remember, the kingdom journey is always best with your friends. Further up and further in. Bye for now.

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