Learning about Angels and Christadelphians

Today I read Acts 12. It's the story of "Peter’s Miraculous Escape From Prison". What struck me the most was the mentioning of Angels in three different context in this one chapter. First, the angel's involvement in helping Peter's escape. Second, when Peter returned to a home church who was praying for him, they thought that it was Peter's angel rather than Peter himself who appeared at the door. Third, it was an angel who struck King Harod to his death. King Harod was responsible for killing the apostle James, brother of John, and was trying to put Peter to death also.

If I have to explain to others who are the angels, and whether I believe in angels, I would say something like "angels are heavenly beings; they are creatures themselves, whose main job was to serve God. They are sometimes sent to interact with human in various ways. They are part of the worshiping congregation in eternity." I believe in angels but I am not sure if I have a personal angel. If I narrowly escape a serious injury I thank God rather than my angel for saving me. I almost never talk about angels to help others through difficult situations. I definitely don't pray to angels.

So it's time to do a little research. I came across an excellent summary of biblical teaching concerning angels by the Christadelphians. It's called Angels - God's Servants. I didn't know much about the Christadelphians so I did a little research on them also. As usual Wikipedia has excellent articles on the Christadelphians and Dr. John Thomas, the founder. For me I appreciate their devotion to scripture and to some extent their pacifist view of our involvement with this war torn world. I don't agree with their anti-trinitarian stand.

Here is a Christadelphian church in m town

From more main stream Christian sources, this article from christiananswers.net is quite helpful. Here are some useful titbits of information and their biblical references to add to my understanding of angels:

• They are stronger than man, but not omnipotent (Psalm 103:20; 2 Peter 2:11).
• They are greater than man in knowledge, but not omniscient (2 Samuel 14:20; Matthew 24:36).
• They are more noble than man, but not omnipresent (Daniel 9:21-23, 10:10-14).
• Angels can take on the appearance of men when the occasion demands. How else could some “entertain angels unaware” (Hebrews 13:2)? On the other hand, their appearance is sometimes in dazzling white and blazing glory (Matthew 28:2-4).
• Angels do not marry or reproduce like humans (Matthew 22:30). Angels are a company or association, not a race descended from a common ancestor (Luke 20:34-36). We are called “sons of men,” but angels are never called “sons of angels.
• Angels are spirits (Hebrews 1:14), like the soul of man, but without a physical body.
• Such expressions as “like the angels” (Luke 20:36), and the fact that whenever angels appeared to man it was always in a human form (Gen. 18:2; 19:1, 10; Luke 24:4; Acts 1:10), and the titles that are applied to them (“sons of God,” Job 1:6; 38:7; Dan. 3:25; compare 28) and to men (Luke 3:38), all seem to indicate some resemblance between them and the human race.
• The Bible classifies some angels as “elect” (1 Timothy 5:21) or “holy” (Matthew 25:31; Mark 8:38). All angels were originally holy, enjoying the presence of God (Matthew 18:10) and the environment of heaven (Mark 13:32). Other angels oppose God under the leadership of Satan (Matthew 25:41; 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6; Ephesians 6:12). We often call these “demons.” There is actually a great unseen conflict raging that goes beyond anything we can imagine. It is not, however, a fight between two equal and eternal forces. God who created all beings is still in charge, and once He has used wicked angels to accomplish His purposes, He will bring them to a final defeat.
• We don’t know whether every angel carries out the same tasks, or whether some of them specialize in certain areas. The Bible does speak about classes of angelic beings like cherubim (Ezekiel 1) and seraphim (Isaiah 6). We also know the names of two notable angels: Michael (Daniel 10:13; Jude 9) and Gabriel (Daniel 9:21; Luke 1:19,26). The unnamed angels who appear most often in Scripture carry out a variety of tasks—all designed to serve God.

So I am not sure if there are "personal" angels, like having my own angel. I don't think so. The people in Acts 12 may think so but there isn't a consistent theme in scripture about that. I trust that God is omnipresent so it is not wrong to thank Him when I experience a narrow escape from an accident. And we can always pray to Him directly with our friends in difficulties.