It is possible to sleep...
Illustration
It is possible to sleep through a revolution. Probably the most famous case in American literature is Rip Van Winkle. In Washington Irving's Sketch Book he tells the story of this fanciful character who went to sleep for 20 years in the late colonial period. When he awoke, a new nation had been born and George Washington was president. Rip had slept through a revolution indeed.
Thinking of our own time, imagine what it would have been like for someone to have slept through the past 20 years. How different the world would seem to that person. How stunned he would be when we would tell him that the Berlin Wall no longer divided East and West Germany, that democratic reforms, however ambiguous at that moment, have broken out in Russia to forever change the landscape of that Communist country and that America had won a brief but decisive war against Iraq forcing the invader to pull out of the tiny country of Kuwait. These are just a few of the most dramatic events that have changed the world between 1972 and 1992.
The Apostle Paul had been sleeping through a revolution too. The opportunity to preach the gospel to the Gentile world was at hand. But Peter was slow at realizing the possibilities. He was still living in another world. It took a dream to make him aware of the revolution.
--Hasler
Thinking of our own time, imagine what it would have been like for someone to have slept through the past 20 years. How different the world would seem to that person. How stunned he would be when we would tell him that the Berlin Wall no longer divided East and West Germany, that democratic reforms, however ambiguous at that moment, have broken out in Russia to forever change the landscape of that Communist country and that America had won a brief but decisive war against Iraq forcing the invader to pull out of the tiny country of Kuwait. These are just a few of the most dramatic events that have changed the world between 1972 and 1992.
The Apostle Paul had been sleeping through a revolution too. The opportunity to preach the gospel to the Gentile world was at hand. But Peter was slow at realizing the possibilities. He was still living in another world. It took a dream to make him aware of the revolution.
--Hasler
