Blondes with wings

As a kid I used to have a picture hanging over my bed, of an angel protecting some children who were walking over a rather unsafe-looking bridge. It might actually have been this very picture:

How do I know it was an angel, you ask? Well it was a blonde woman with wings. That's how you tell. Kind of like Jesus is a long haired white man with a beard, a halo and a lamb hanging around his neck. (Don't tell the PETA, they get uptight about stuff like that)

Most of us are so influenced by silly pictures like this that we wouldn't recognize an angel if they saw one. Here's some facts on angels from the Bible:

• They are always described as men. Never women. (f.ex. Luk 24:4)
• Never ever is an angel described as having wings (Other celestial beings, such as cherubims however do have wings) (f.ex. Gen 3:24)
• They look so similar to humans that they aren't even recognized as angels at first.
• Angel means messenger. Their role is to bring messages to mankind (Gen 19:1, Num 22:35), and perform God's work (Acts 5:17-20) often including killing people. That's right. We often see God sending angels to kill people (2.Sam 24:15-17, 2.King 19:35, Acts 12:23). Bet you've never seen that cross-stitched on anyones wall.

Yeah, so I'm sorry for completely ruining your childhood illusions of winged blondes hovering over little children (although Mat 18:10 does lend some credibility to the idea of guardian angels). Let me finish with this cartoon I made ages ago, pondering what would happen if mice had similar ideas.

Awkward Angels

Don't you just hate it when you're sitting there minding your own business, reading your Bible, and everything is making sense. And then, just out of the blue, an angel comes and messes you up?

Hasn't happened to you you say? Allow me to refresh your memory. You remember when Peter was miraculously delivered from prison, and knocked at the door of Mary, the mother of John, where the disciples were gathered for prayer? What was their reaction when Rhoda, the servant girl came and said thew one they were praying for were outside at the door? "It is his Angel", they insisted. (Acts 12:15) It's his his what? It could be just the neighborhood I live in, but I never have people's angels knocking at my door in the middle of the night. It seems a little strange, doesn't it, that  this should be the first explanation they could think of?

Or How about the much discussed passage in 1. Cor 11, where Paul instructs the women to wear a head covering? I think both sides of the head covering debate are, if nothing else, united in their common bewilderedness as to the reason Paul states for this practice: "Because of the angels"

Maybe it will all make a little more sense if we learn what "aggelos", the Greek word for angel means. Let me just first make the disclaimer that I have no formal education in the Greek language, and that this should not substitute your doctor's advice, and so on and so forth. I just looked stuff up with e-Sword, like any regular bonehead can do.

That being said, aggelos means messenger. That's why you often see it modified with "of the Lord" or "from Heaven" in the Bible, making it clear that this particular messenger was a supernatural being sent from God. Other times the very same word, aggelos, is used for a human messenger. It was used for John the Baptist ("Behold, I send my messenger [aggelos] before your face, who will prepare your way before you", Mat 11:10). It was used for the messengers that Jesus sent before him to a Samaritan village ("And he sent messengers [aggelos] ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. ", Luk 9:52). Even Joshua and Caleb were angels ("And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers [aggelos] and sent them out by another way?", Jas 2:25).

So I submit the following for your consideration: What about translating aggelos with messenger in those challenging Bible verses I mentioned? Does it not fit a lot better? Could the disciples have thought that Rhoda had misunderstood and that the man knocking at the door must be a messenger Peter had sent? Could Paul's instruction to the Corinthian church have been to act appropriately for the sake of the messengers he had sent with the letter? Or could it be about the message they were sending to the culture around them when the rumor of their feminist revolt were carried on the wings of gossips to the rest of the city?

I'm not about to start a new religion over this, but take it into consideration as you go about studying your Bible. Maybe a piece or two will fall into place.