Jamin Bradley

A friend of mine has spent over two decades creating and playtesting a game where you role-play as angels. He’s cut through a lot of the cheese that surrounds Christian gaming and media and worked hard to create something fun that truly honors the deep theology that exists around the spiritual realm in biblical scholarship.

These kinds of games can cause you to read the Bible differently. For example, this Christmas season I’m thinking about the multitude of angels that suddenly appeared to shepherds to celebrate the birth of Jesus. This is an incredibly rare sight in the Bible. While the Bible has stories of angels throughout it, they’re not exactly common sightings—especially groups of angels. Angels are also encountered in a number of ways throughout the Bible. Sometimes they’re seen in a dream or a vision, and not always visibly in the real world like this multitude is.

I wonder if the divine council room gasped when it was declared that a multitude of unnamed angels (who don’t often get a chance to appear in the Bible) were granted the right to reveal themselves in the Christmas story. I wonder how many raised an eyebrow when the decision was made that they would reveal themselves to shepherds, of all people. I wonder how many angels understood what God was up to when he placed their eternal friend Jesus into Mary’s womb. Since angels sometimes help God craft his plans, I wonder if anyone helped create this angelic scenario. I wonder why one angel was allowed to give a declaration before the multitude started praising. I wonder how excited that angel was about getting that job and if we might bump into him in Heaven to hear him brag about that moment. I wonder if he’s moved up in Heavenly ranking since then.

I wonder how many angels leaned over the edge of Heaven and looked down at Jesus in a feeding trough and thought, “This is it?” How many angels said, “It’s just like Yahweh to do something like this.” Were there any that said, “This is ridiculous, I’m out.” Were there angels who knew more about what God was up to but had to keep it secret?

There are so many questions we can ask. We may never know the answers until the resurrection comes, but such theological brainstorming helps us to get our head deeper into the Bible and experience it on a deeper level. I encourage us to especially enter the stories of the Bible we’re most familiar with in new ways like this so that they might become fresh to us once again.