This inspiring story is about angels coming and going when least expected. It is about triumph over a terrible tragedy and living a new life with purpose and passion as an amputee and dis-abled man. It is about being transformed and sharing that hope and encouragement. The message of this book is simple. Regardless of your past you can start today, right now, and create an incredible future.
"In this book of deathbed prayers and meditations, Dr. Simcha Paull Raphael provides us with powerful insights into Jewish tradition. His look at the role and power of prayer as life ebbs provides the reader with a foundation for comfort, compassion and caring that links us with a sense of the sacred. His desire to have us ritually engaged with life's last passage serves as a practical tool for the mysterious journey at the end of life. May The Angels Carry You guides one's soul with a sense of dignity and celebration of the gift that is our life." --Rabbi Richard F. Address, D.Min, Director, Jewish Sacred Aging "This book is a required resource for any family member, friend, clinician who wishes to offer a breadth of prayers and blessings, and stories for Jewish families and patients. May the Angels Carry You is a gift of compassion. May these teachings of love, tenderness and connection nourish you and flourish in the world." --Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison, Co-Editor of Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Teachings on Palliative and End of Life Care "Once again, Dr. Simcha Paull Raphael, has mapped the worlds of mystery providing a guide for attending to others and for our own preparation for what is inevitable. May the Angels Carry You is another contribution as we bring the essential conversation out of the shadows so that we end the denial of death that keeps us from living fully." --Rabbi Anne Brener, LCSW, author of Mourning and Mitzvah: A Guided Journal for Walking the Mourner's Path
What does the Bible really tell us about the heavenly host? Everyone knows that angels have wings, usually carry harps, and that each of us has our own personal guardian angel, right? We all have some preconceptions about angels from movies, television shows, and other media, but you might be surprised to know that a lot of those notions aren't based on anything from the Bible. If you read Luke 1:26-38 and imagine the angel Gabriel standing before Mary with neatly folded white wings, you're not getting that picture from anything the Bible itself says. What the Bible really says about angels is overlooked or filtered through popular myths. This book was written to help change that. It's a book about the loyal members of God's heavenly host, and while most people associate them with the word "angel," that's just one of many terms the Bible uses for supernatural beings. In The Unseen Realm, Michael Heiser opened the eyes of thousands to seeing the Bible through the supernatural worldview of the ancient world it was written in. In his latest book, Angels, Dr. Heiser reveals what the Bible really says about God's supernatural servants. Heiser focuses on loyal, holy heavenly beings because the Bible has a lot more to say about them than most people suspect. Most people presume all there is to know about angels is what has been passed on in Christian tradition, but in reality, that tradition is quite incomplete and often inaccurate. Angels is not guided by traditions, stories, speculations, or myths about angels. Heiser's study is grounded in the terms the Bible itself uses to describe members of God's heavenly host; he examines the terms in their biblical context while drawing on insights from the wider context of the ancient Near Eastern world. The Bible's view on heavenly beings begins with Old Testament terms but then moves into literature from the Second Temple period--Jewish writings from around the 5th century BC to the 1st century AD. This literature from the time between the Old Testament and the New Testament influenced the New Testament writers in significant ways. With that important background established, the book focuses on what the New Testament tells us about God's holy ones. Finally, the book reflects on common misconceptions about angels and addresses why the topic is still important and relevant for Christians today.
The remarkable truth about angels, the agents of Heaven, unveiled through Scripture—from the New York Times best-selling author of Everything You Need “Outstanding! As one would expect from David Jeremiah, this book reflects a theologian’s concern, a pastor’s heart, and a Biblicist’s accuracy.”—Dr. Bruce Wilkinson People have long been fascinated by stories of angel sightings, yet many contemporary beliefs about angels are based on misconception and myth rather than solid, biblical truth. As he’s done so brilliantly for decades, respected Bible teacher Dr. David Jeremiah of Turning Point Ministries uses Scripture to unveil the remarkable truth about these agents of heaven and their role in our world and our lives. What are angels? What is their role in God’s plan? Are they present? Do they appear? Do they give us personal insight about our work and our worship? In this broad and thorough survey of Scripture, Dr. Jeremiah clearly and simply separates fact from fiction as it relates to angels. His enlightening findings are supported with illustrations and insights from prominent teachers, such as Billy Graham, Corrie ten Boom, C. S. Lewis, and more. Dr. Jeremiah’s down-to-earth style guides readers around the hype about angels and directly into everything you need to know about the “substance of things unseen!”
Explores the relationship between people and angels, through the eyes of the early church. Heaven is closer than we realize. Its boundaries overlap our own, and angels move in and out of our porous present, this moment that seems to us so solid and concrete. If that reality seems dim to us now, it beamed for the early Christians. Through their writings, sermons, songs, and art, the ancient faithful confessed a powerful and vivid belief that angels help carry us on our journey to God. Rooted in the Scripture and following this ancient understanding, Lifted by Angels reveals: the role that angels play in the lives of people and in God's plan of salvation the different ranks and functions of angels how Satan and his demons fell from grace and plagued humans the functions of guardian angels and how God assigns them to fit our personal needs how guardian angels help us resist evil, temptation, and the devil the way angels join with us in our prayers, even adding their own to ours the service angels provide in worship Featuring examples of angels in ancient icons and frescoes and supported by extensive research on the early church and its pastors, poets, theologians, and artists, Lifted by Angels answers universal curiosity about angels and the unseen world, leaving readers inspired and hopeful about the nearness of God.
This monograph explores the relationship between angels and humans during the late Second Temple and early Christian period (200BCE-100CE). The issue of the similarity of appearance between humans and angels is considered in the first part of the book. In the second part three topics are covered: humans and angels living together in communities, angels as recipients of human hospitality, and the possibility of human-angel hybrid offspring. This study provides insight into how the ancient Jews and Christians defined "angel", and it argues that a clear distinction was maintained between angels and humans. These analyses have implications for our understanding of nascent Christology as well as soteriology, and also for our understanding of early Jewish Mysticism.
