Visions and Dreams

We had our annual missions conference at our church during the last few days and I had a chance to hear some reports on work in countries that have majority Muslim populations. The most dramatic of those accounts was in a large meeting where a number of missionaries were making short comments about recent events in their area, and one talked about the murder of a local Christian pastor by a large mob after which a large number of those in the mob all had the same dream in which God showed them the blood they had on their hands but told them someone would come to tell them how they could get the blood off their hands; in a few days, a new preacher came and this large group became Christians.

On Saturday evening, we had a pot-luck supper with another missionary from a different area in the Middle East. We asked him about his experience in Islamic countries regarding visions and dreams, and he replied that until recently every one of those he had met who converted from Islam had done so as a result of a dream or vision. However, recently the arrival of the Internet and satellite television has allowed people in Islamic countries to hear the gospel in other ways so now, especially in Egypt, many have become Christians as a result of hearing the gospel through those media.

It is striking to me that these accounts, and others I have heard in the past from Islamic countries, are so very similar to the Biblical accounts of dreams to Jacob, Joseph (in Genesis), Joseph (in the gospels, telling him to marry Mary), Peter in Acts, and others. Those accounts seem so foreign and melodramatic in our western culture, but are so very current in the East and in Africa. Certainly those biblical accounts must seem more real to them than they do to us. It makes me wonder what else in the Scriptures are we out of touch with?