In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and visions passed through his mind as he was lying in bed. He wrote down the substance of his dream. – Daniel 7:1

Today's Scripture Reading (September 20, 2023): Daniel 7

Roy Jenkins penned his acclaimed biography of Winston Churchill in 2001. Jenkins closes his biography by comparing him favorably with W. E. Gladstone, a British politician who served as Prime Minister for twelve years in four non-consecutive terms. And then Jenkins says this:

I now put Churchill, with all his idiosyncrasies, his indulgences, his occasional childishness, but also his genius, his tenacity and his persistent ability, right or wrong, successful or unsuccessful, to be larger than life, as the greatest human being ever to occupy 10 Downing Street.

There is no doubt that Winston Churchill was a complex person, and sometimes he was hard to understand. But he also seemed to be a person who was created to meet his time in history, and that time was the Second World War. Everything he had gone through in life seemed to prepare him for his moment: his war. During World War II, there is no doubt that the United Kingdom and the Western World needed his leadership. But it is also true that we struggled with what to do with him outside of the war years. And when we study Winston Churchill, we not only need to know the various events of his life that shaped him, but we also need to understand his philosophies and what he believed to be true.

That is true of all of us. The events of our lives are essential, but so are our beliefs. To understand the whole person, we need to know the events of their lives and the things they believed or learned while on their journey.

The biblical Book of Daniel could be divided into two books. The first six chapters tell of the events of Daniel's life. Here, we learn about what Daniel did, starting with the choices he made when he was first brought to Babylon as a teenager and continuing through his adventure in the lion's den when he was older. It is the story of what Daniel did. But the last six chapters tell us of four visions that Daniel received. The first one he received in the first year of Belshazzar. As previously discussed, Belshazzar is a bit of a problem because he never was king unless he co-reigned with his father, Nabonidus. But even with a lack of specificity about when the first year of Belshazzar might have been, we can date this vision to between chapters four and five of Daniel.

Daniel says that in this first vision, he wrote the substance of the vision. Daniel could have given us more detail, but the Holy Spirit had forbidden that report. So, in his first vision, he provides us with an overview of the vision's impact on Daniel. We may wish we had a more detailed report, but this is what God wanted us to have.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Daniel 8