Welcome to another week on Things Unseen.

I thought that since Christmas is almost on us, this would be a good time to reflect for a few days on the subject of angels.

Here's a couple of interesting pieces of trivia.

The word angel appears in the Bible three times as often as the word apostle.

And here's another.

By my reckoning, at least two-thirds of the traditional Christmas carols refer to angels.

And yet, apart from a side glance at Easter time, we give very little consideration to angels. And yet, apart from a side glance at Easter time, we give very little consideration

to angels. But they punctuate the story of our Lord's life and his ministry, don't they?

They appear at the beginning in connection with his birth. They appear again at the end in connection

with his passion and his resurrection.

And of course, they'll appear again when they accompany him when he returns in glory.

Their presence actually underlines his glory, but also it underlines the fact that he is

their king as well as our king.

It's a bit like England and Scotland, isn't it?

Two peoples with one in the same king.

But what are angels and what do they do?

And what is their significance for us?

These are some of the questions we'll explore in the next few days. So let's think,

first of all, about the basic question. What is an angel? Well, the words that are used in the

Bible, in the Old Testament, Malac and in the New Testament Anglos, both mean messenger. In the Old Testament, the word actually refers

usually to human messengers. And when it refers to a heavenly messenger, it's dominantly

to the angel of the Lord. And the angel of the Lord is obviously a theophony, a physical

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