Does God Reveal Things Through Dreams?

In 1 Kings 3 God tells Solomon, in a dream, that He will bless him with incredible powers of wisdom and discernment. He will also give him riches and honor during his lifetime. All of these promises did come to pass, so are we to conclude that dreams are a normative means for God to communicate to Christians today?

First, it is indisputable that God communicated to people through dreams in the Bible. Examples are Joseph, son of Jacob (Genesis 37:5–10); Joseph, the husband of Mary (Matthew 2:12–22); and Daniel (Daniel 2:1; 7:1).

Second, there are numerous testimonies of converts to Christianity having dreams which seem to come from God. I personally have two friends who were powerfully impacted by dreams that pushed them toward faith in God. If you listen to missionaries speak about their experiences, they can recount story after story of God using dreams to bring people to faith.

However, many of us can think of those who claim the Christian God spoke to them through dreams, but we have serious doubts. Why? Because what they claim God told them clearly contradicts what is written in the Word of God.

This is the key to discerning whether God has spoken to you through a dream. Does what the dream told you line up with Scripture? If it does not, then you did not receive a message from God. God does not contradict Himself, so a dream, allegedly from God, cannot contradict the revealed Word of God.

So what if your dream does not contradict Scripture? What do you do? Gotquestions.org gives good advice:

If you have a dream and feel that perhaps God gave it to you, prayerfully examine the Word of God and make sure your dream is in agreement with Scripture. If it is, prayerfully consider what God would have you do in response to your dream (James 1:5). In Scripture, whenever anyone experienced a dream from God, God always made the meaning of the dream clear, whether directly to the person, through an angel, or through another messenger (Genesis 40:5–11; Daniel 2:45; 4:19). When God speaks to us, He makes sure His message is clearly understood.