Last Sunday, Pastor Bob started our spring preaching series on angels and for the next few weeks we will be looking at what the Bible says about these creatures. The general reactions to the first message was surprising to me, as they were so opposite from each other. Either people were all in and had strange mystic ideas of angels and their role in God’s created order, or people were upset with the topic and feeling that it was so mystical in nature that Christians should not even approach the subject.
Society as a whole is more than happy to believe in spirituality. They’re happy to believe that there is a creative being out there somewhere, helping the world along, sending in ‘angels’ to right the wrongs and to guard against evil, but at the same time society is not willing to believe in the book that defines that realm for us, the Bible. This does not make sense to me; how can we believe in one and not the other? And why are we afraid of that spiritual side of ourselves?
God created humans to be both physical and spiritual in nature, we live in both realms of God’s creation. The spiritual realm is nothing to be afraid of and it’s also not to be set aside as we live out our physical existence in this world. To set aside the spiritual, is to set aside God himself because He is spirit.
Yes, there are some aspects of the spiritual realm it’s best for us not to play around with, but learning what the Bible says about angels, God’s messengers, is a safe and important part of the spiritual realm which God by His word wants us to understand. I encourage everyone to be open to hearing and learning about another one of God’s creations. Come to worship ready to hear, ready to question, ready to experience the spiritual realm because that is how we worship our God, ‘in spirit and in truth.’ John 4:24
Kathy Bartels
Pastor of Discipleship
