angels? walter wink asks a question

Hey I-Life/Champaign friends - see below.

My first real breakthrough in understanding these invisible powers came when I stumbled over the angels of the churches in the New Testament Book of Revelation. Why, I wondered, are each of the seven letters in chapters two and three addressed, not to the congregation, as in apostles Paul's letters, but to the congregation's angel?

~ Biblical scholar Walter Wink in his 1999 book The Powers That Be.

I frowned when I read this. Really?? I mean, it only took me a second to look it up and confirm. But it was something I'd always ignored - just sort of took each message to be to the people in the church. Okay, but does this mean there is an angelic middle-manangel of sorts? It is footnoted in some translations as possibly messenger. ...

Wink doesn't think so.

I first heard of Wink several years ago via my friend J.R. Woodward -- and he's challenging me (although I don't know if I'll agree with everything he writes - he's fairly progressive theologically). Anyway, I recently picked him back up in part to prepare a talk on 5 April, when I'm speaking at Saturday Night Grace at the invitation of Ty Grigg and company. Hey I-Life/Champaign friends: be sure to come out and say hi. I'd love to see you. (can you believe it: it's been almost a year since I've spoken at SNG...geesh.)

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