Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8026 Paul’s question in 1 Corinthians 6:3 stops readers short: “Do you not know that we are to judge angels?” It is tucked into an argument about Christians resolving disputes in secular courts rather than within the church, but its implication reaches far beyond that immediate context. It is one of those verses that…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8027 The connection between prayer and angelic activity is one of the more striking and less-often-discussed features of biblical teaching on both subjects. People pray, and God responds. But Scripture indicates that part of how God responds involves the dispatch of angelic beings, which means the ministry of angels and the practice of prayer…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8029 Evangelism is the responsibility and privilege of God’s people, but Scripture makes clear that it is never a purely human enterprise. The Holy Spirit convicts, the gospel of Christ is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16), and the angels, as ministering spirits serving those who are to inherit salvation, are not…
Reading Time: 2 minutesQuestion 8025 The idea that people become angels when they die is deeply embedded in popular culture and in a great deal of casual Christian conversation. When a child dies, grieving parents are sometimes told that God needed another angel. When a believer passes away, someone will often say they have their wings now. However…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8028 The idea that angels might be present when God’s people gather for worship sounds either startling or sentimental depending on one’s assumptions. Scripture is less ambiguous than either reaction might suggest. Several biblical texts indicate that the gathered church exists in a context that is far more populated than what is visible to…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8009 The question of whether angels have access to our inner thought life is both practically urgent and theologically revealing. If angels, and by implication demons, can read our minds, the implications for prayer, spiritual warfare, and personal holiness would be considerable. Scripture addresses the matter more directly than many people realise. Mind-Reading as…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8011 Michael is one of only two angels named in the Protestant canon of Scripture, and of the two he is the one most consistently portrayed in an active, combative role. His name in Hebrew means “Who is like God?” — a rhetorical question that functions as an affirmation of divine uniqueness rather than…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8012 Gabriel is one of only two angels named in the canonical Scriptures, and his role is remarkably consistent across every appearance: he comes to bring understanding, to interpret visions, and to announce the purposes of God at moments of supreme significance in redemptive history. Where Michael is a warrior, Gabriel is a herald….
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8014 The phrase “host of heaven” appears throughout the Old Testament and is sometimes used to warn against the worship of stars and planets, while at other times it clearly refers to the angelic company surrounding God’s throne. Understanding how the phrase works in its different contexts prevents both confusion and a flattened reading…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 8013 The question of named angels has attracted enormous speculation across Christian history, producing elaborate catalogues of heavenly beings drawn from sources ranging from the Apocrypha to medieval mystical writing. The more important question for those who take Scripture as the final authority is simply what the biblical text itself actually names, and the…