"Be an angel, dear, and put the kettle on." What has going to the kitchen got in common with the two men in white robes who sat, one at the head and one at the feet, where Jesus had lain? Or with the being who announced to Mary that by God's grace she would bear a son?
One aspect of being an angel is doing jobs for someone else. And the basic meaning of the Greek word angelos is a messenger, someone sent as your representative to speak or act on your behalf. The Greek version of the Jewish Bible, the Septuagint, uses angelos as a translation of the Hebrew word malak, which again has the idea of someone who has been sent (the name Malachi means "my messenger").
A messenger could be acting for an individual. So, for example, in Genesis 32:3, Jacob sends messengers to his brother Esau to prepare the way for a meeting between them. But in the previous verse, Jacob is met by another kind of messenger - a messenger from God. In the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, the same word is used for both, but in most English translations, God's messenger is referred to as an angel, and Jacob's messenger is just a messenger.
God's angels do indeed bring messages - for example to Hagar, in Genesis 16, when she is running away, or to John the Baptist's father Zechariah in Luke 1. And as God's messengers, they deserve to be honoured as ambassadors. So, keeping with Genesis, Lot "bows with his face to the ground" before the two angels who have come to Sodom to warn him about its fate.
And "the angel of the Lord" is God's agent in leading the Jewish people to the promised land, going before them and preparing the way.
But we tend to think of angels not so much as people but as spiritual beings. Again in Genesis, Jacob dreams of a ladder between earth and heaven with "the angels of God ascending and descending on it." (28:11). In the later books of the Old Testament, there are beings who are in God's presence: in Job they are called "the sons of God", in Daniel they are human-like beings with names, Gabriel and Michael, in Zechariah they go out to the four corners of the earth. Later Jewish writing, shortly before the time of Jesus, describes a whole hierarchy of supernatural beings, nine orders of them, with cherubim, seraphim, archangels, angels, thrones, powers, each having a place.
The Sadducees, who were the fundamentalists of Jesus' time, thought this was all unscriptural. We have direct access to God, and God does not need heavenly beings to help communicate with us. Jesus did not agree. Just as angels ministered to him in the wilderness, just as angels strengthened him the night he was betrayed, so he declared that God could send "more than twelve legions of angels" to defend him (Mt 26:53), that little children had angels who "continually see my Father in heaven" (Mt 18:12), and that angels would accompany him at his second coming.
These themes were taken to a climax in the Revelation to John, where angels surround God with praise and worship, and are the chief actors in the events at the end of time.
One could go on, with tales of fallen angels, of the belief that angels "delivered the Law to Moses". It is possible to make too much of angels - to study them for their own sake, rather than what they are, God's agents. Paul warns the Colossians against "worshiping angels and dwelling on visions". But we should be conscious that the angels are there, mediating God's care for us. We do not need to know exactly what the rôle of our guardian angels is, but we do need to accept the promise of Psalm 91: "God will command the angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways."
And we should remember that we are God's angels too - for at the heart of evangelism (just take off the first and the last few letters!) is a message: God's message. We too are God's agents, living out his message in the world and telling it afresh. Let us bear this in mind next time we put the kettle on!
HD