…i think you’ve found an immensely tiny nail and hit it very squarely on the head!
that fits incredibly well with my own UR sensibilities. i have to confess a strange fear of reading the Bible which i’ve struggled with for years (before UR), that everything good i’d come to believe would be disproven and i’d find God condemning me and everyone i cared about. usually this fear has proven irrational, but it still limits my reading.
you have demonstrated here why i should not fear the Word, as it contains such amazing hope.
so anyway, letting that be, i think this is truly fascinating, that the dichotomy is brought together in the end.
so what does a sleeping person have to fear in the day of the Lord? i am guessing it’s a big wakeup call, quite literally. i think those that turn off their ability to engage with life in a good way and thus are sleeping will suddenly be woken by the bright light of day and realise that it’s time to get to work. they will find, soon enough, that the work they feared is not at all hard, and that it’s so fulfilling that they’ll wonder why they ever chose to sleep to avoid it.
maybe we can find some help from Solomon to define what “sleeping” in this context means. he talks often about the sluggards. maybe the laziness he describes goes deeper than simple laziness.
could it really be so simple that the wicked get a wakeup call, including a bright, blinding light as the curtains are rudely pulled back and their Father shouts “UP UP UP!” and join the rest of us for breakfast and then we go off to live a glorious, productive day? seems to be what Paul is saying anyway.
thanks Richard, that is an amazing thing you’ve found!