Candace Nassar (00:00)
Well, Melissa, I’m so thrilled to have you on the podcast today. I love that you’re bringing us godly wisdom on the truth about angels, wisdom that points us back to the God who’s at work in our everyday lives, which is exactly what we strive to offer moms here at MomQ. So it’s going to be a great conversation and I welcome you.
Melissa Spoelstra (00:21)
Thanks so much for having me. I’m so excited to talk about this subject for sure.
Candace Nassar (00:27)
Yeah. absolutely. Me too. So I’ve already shared a little bit about your background with our listeners, but I’d love for them to hear it in your own words. If you could just start by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you’re most passionate about in this season of your ministry.
Melissa Spoelstra (00:42)
Hmm. So yeah, I have four, I call them adultish kids. They range in age from 28 down to 23. I’ve done a lot of foster parenting. I’ve just had a foster son of 19 months move on. He’s 18 years old, but have done that on and off throughout the years. But kind of our most exciting thing of recent is we just became grandparents. So we have a little almost six weeks old, little Lauren Eden that I’ll get to go watch tonight. So that’s definitely the most exciting thing for our family in this season of ministry.
Candace Nassar (01:19)
Okay, I have to talk about that for just a second because I just became a grandmother three and a half months ago and I’m babysitting tonight. How crazy is that?
Melissa Spoelstra (01:21)
I’m not.
wow.
That’s amazing. It’s just the greatest. I’ve always heard people talk about it and it’s like the best club I’ve ever joined.
Candace Nassar (01:35)
Agreed completely. My husband and I are mesmerized. So I get it. So you’ve got that season going on and then, you’ve written a lot of books. you speak, you do some amazing things. What is it that just drives you? What’s your heart for all that you do?
Melissa Spoelstra (01:39)
Yeah, my heart is just for women to be in God’s Word. I just feel like God’s Word is the place that realigns me back to the truth. There’s so many distractions and so many difficult things, whether it’s in parenting or grandparenting or just job, work, life, health, especially at this age right now.
Candace Nassar (01:56)
Mm.
Candace Nassar (02:12)
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Spoelstra (02:13)
But all of that can just get me so off course and it’s God’s word that continually just brings me back to those things of first importance and really just point me to the things that really matter in life. Yeah.
Candace Nassar (02:25)
I could not agree more. So that’s great. Okay, well, your new study that we’re going to be talking a little bit about today has such a compelling title. But before we unpack what scripture says about angels, I’d like to hear what prompted you to write this study.
Melissa Spoelstra (02:41)
Sure, was several different things. It started actually at my dad’s funeral, his memorial service. We moved back to Texas after being gone for many years and within six months he got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and we only had about 29 days with him. But at his service, I heard several people make well-intentioned comments. But in my heart of hearts, I was like, wait, we don’t think people become angels, right?
Candace Nassar (02:57)
Mmm.
Melissa Spoelstra (03:06)
Like we don’t really think that. And so it started then for me there. And then you know how it’s like when you get a blue car and you see everyone else has a blue car after those comments about angels kind of got stuck in my thinking. I found just every store I went to had angel stuff. And I was listening to some of my favorite podcasts that were talking about angels and kind of a resurgence of talking about things like the Nephilim and where that
Candace Nassar (03:07)
Mm-hmm.
Candace Nassar (03:32)
Mmm.
Melissa Spoelstra (03:33)
And I realized I really didn’t have a very strong angel ology. I didn’t really know that much about angels. I love God’s word. I love to study it. And as I began to research, there’s over 300 mentions of angels in the Bible. And I just thought, wow, if God revealed something to us about angels, he has a purpose in it. And what does he want us to know about it? So really, was where that was my starting point to say, if he revealed it,
Candace Nassar (03:55)
Mmm.
Melissa Spoelstra (03:59)
Then he wants us to know it and what is it that he wants us to know and how does that impact our daily lives?
Candace Nassar (04:06)
Wow, that is so interesting. Yeah, we hear that all the time, I mean, angels are misunderstood in our culture. We see those cute cherububs, cherubs, whatever you call them, cherubs, or TV portrayals, the pictures. Like you said, you hear that we become angels. know, there are angels looking down, your father is an angel looking down over us. So let’s clear up some of those myths. So what does the Bible say?
Melissa Spoelstra (04:17)
Right.
Candace Nassar (04:29)
You said it mentions how many times? Angels?
Melissa Spoelstra (04:32)
over 300 times and yeah.
Candace Nassar (04:36)
And I’m sure many of us don’t have an awareness of where those even are. So yeah, what does the Bible say about angels? Let’s just start with that.
Melissa Spoelstra (04:45)
I mean, I think we just start in Genesis and go all the way to Revelation and looking at angel mentions, which is what I did in the study. And it starts actually with the first angel mentioned in the Bible is our enemy, you know, the serpent. And so I think one of the reasons we want to study angels is because we want to have an awareness of evil.
Candace Nassar (04:59)
Mm.
Melissa Spoelstra (05:06)
And what is it that the scriptures say? says that we want to be familiar with his schemes so that he won’t outsmart us. Now, we don’t have anything to fear in that because greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. But I think to just go, this is how they’re doing. This is how they tempted people and looked to distract and hurt people in scripture. So how might that be in my life? But I also think in terms of the angels that are not fallen, the good angels, we see them.
Worshipping God and we will worship with them for all eternity. So one person I heard say this and I’d never heard this statement. I’d love to hear what you think about this. He said, God is the King of a two household family. Angels in the supernatural and humans in the natural. I have to tell you, I never think of myself as like, angels as kind of my other people that, will worship with for all eternity. I don’t know. Have you ever heard anything like that? How does that land with you, Candace?
Candace Nassar (06:00)
Well, I do hear, I mean, I do understand that a long while ago when I first realized that we are eternal beings as humans that, I just didn’t think of that. Seem immortality just seemed like a science fiction thing or something, but we are immortal. We’re going to either live forever with God or separated from God. And, you know, I think of like you’re talking about the fallen angels. mean, they’re separated from God and they, and they have a ruler.
Melissa Spoelstra (06:07)
Right.
Melissa Spoelstra (06:14)
Right.
Melissa Spoelstra (06:23)
Right.
Candace Nassar (06:26)
but God is greater and he is the sovereign creator. we as believers get to spend eternity with him, praise Jesus, hallelujah, right? That we will see angels and worship with them, that’s beyond our human comprehension.
Melissa Spoelstra (06:44)
Right, I think that I’ve often lived as though, yes, there’s God and yes, there’s people. But one scholar referred to this category as the excluded middle of this category of angels and demons that if we could kind of cut back the knife, even in our daily routines as moms, when we’re unloading the dishwasher or we’re thinking about different things or we’re discerning the media that’s coming into our house, all of that to realize there are, there’s more at play than just the natural what we see, taste, touch and feel that there are these spiritual beings that God has sent to help us, to aid us, to protect us. And although we can’t always see and know it, I do think it’s very comforting and hopeful to recognize that God is at work in the supernatural realm on our behalf. And I think that should bring us as moms just great hope.
Candace Nassar (07:34)
Absolutely. One of my favorite, favorite Psalms is Psalm 91. And as I was preparing to talk with you this morning, I was just thinking about Psalm 91 11, for he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all of your ways. And I have taken so much comfort in that for so many years. So that’s what you’re saying.
Melissa Spoelstra (07:38)
Yes.
Melissa Spoelstra (07:58)
Yeah, I think that’s absolutely true. I think it’s so fascinating that that’s the very verse that Satan used to try to trip Jesus up, right, in the temptation of Christ where he’s like, hey, go ahead jump off here because, you know, God will, he twisted that scripture on Satan. And I think that’s one of the reasons I think we should know our Bible so well is because that’s Satan’s biggest game. Let’s take a little bit of truth and twist it a little bit.
And Jesus always came back to the heart and the spirit of God’s Word. And I love it that after all of that happened, guess who came and ministered to Jesus? It was angels. so they were just, I feel like for me, there’s just so much that I’ve seen in God’s Word that I’ve skipped over before, just not really dwelt on. And all it does is bring glory back to the Lord because angels are certainly not primary. They’re always peripheral. And so we want to be careful.
Candace Nassar (08:36)
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Spoelstra (08:52)
never to over focus on angels to realize that they’re always pointing back to the power and purposes of God.
Candace Nassar (08:58)
Yeah, absolutely. what do biblical angels look like?
Melissa Spoelstra (09:04)
Well, like physically, I think that’s one of the biggest misconceptions we have is that in scripture, angels always appeared in human form for the most part. Like we never the whole wings. The only angels that scripture says have wings are these two different classifications, the cherubim and the seraphim, which some scholars would not even technically call angels because they’re not messengers. And angel, the word angel is the Hebrew word malik and the
Greek word angelos, which is where we get angels from, and the word means messenger. So angels’ primary responsibility is to come bring God’s messages to humans on earth as God directed them. Now the cherubim in the Seraphim are guarding, you know, we see the cherubim in the garden, guarding the Garden of Eden, and they’re worshiping God, but the cherubim have tons of wings, like six different wings, and they’re covered in eyes. I’ve never seen that in the Nativity play, you know.
Candace Nassar (10:00)
Mm-hmm. Mm-mm.
Melissa Spoelstra (10:02)
So I do think that was one thing I didn’t realize that this whole idea of halos and wings is actually not associated with the angel messengers of God. They always appeared as though they were a human. mean, we could go to Genesis 19 where we see three men appeared to Abraham. One stayed with Abraham. says the Lord stayed with Abraham. So one of them seemed to be the Lord himself and the two angels went down to Sodom.
You never even knew they were angels until the next chapter because they appeared as humans in human form.
Candace Nassar (10:34)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, it makes me want to do the study, right? Because there’s so much we don’t understand about the power and how God uses angels. What about guardian angels? What do you think about that?
Melissa Spoelstra (10:46)
Ooh, great question. Well, I mean, there’s really two passages that people will go to. Bar none, angels guard. I made an acronym that I hope women, when they leave the study, will be able to have kind of some handlebars on what it is that angels do in the Bible. And so I’ll just say that real quick, that one of them is guarding. Angels adore God, they notify God’s servants, that’s the messenger. They guard God’s boundaries, they enact God’s judgment. We see them doing that. They lead God’s people and they serve as God’s agents, meaning they can do anything God wants them to do. So one of those is guarding God’s boundaries, and we see angels doing that. Cherubim certainly guarding. But the two passages that people really go to when it comes to guardian angels is where Jesus is talking, and it’s the little children are coming to him, and he says, and he’s like, you know, don’t send the children away. He said, their angels are always before me in heaven.
So I look at the context of that passage. I don’t think Jesus was trying to teach us that we all have a specific guardian angel, but he did. But it does. think what he’s talking there is that he wants us to be more childlike in our faith. And I don’t think he means childlike for you moms by like leaving your towels on the floor or, you know, being immature. He’s talking about this thing we love about children, their curiosity, their openness, their readiness to learn. And he’s saying that’s what will be greatest in heaven. And he’s saying,
Candace Nassar (12:02)
Mmm.
Melissa Spoelstra (13:10.017)
these children, their angels are always before me in heaven. I think a better question to ask than do I have a guardian angel is if angels are going on my behalf to the Lord in heaven, what are they saying? What are they going to the Lord on behalf of me for? What is it that I need that they know that they’re asking the Lord for? There’s one other passage in scripture and it’s in where in the book of Acts where Peter has been in prison.
And he’s been released, actually an angel released him from prison and he’s knocking at the door of the prayer meeting where they’re praying for his release, which I think that’s another key thing in a conversation about angels is it does something to our prayer life. When we realize God not only hears our prayers, but he has the ability to send angels to supernaturally intervene on our behalf. And that should cause us to want to pray more. But so he’s knocking at the door at the prayer meeting and a woman named Rhoda comes and she answers the door.
Candace Nassar (12:30)
yeah.
Candace Nassar (12:50)
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Spoelstra (12:58)
and she sees Peter and she shuts the door and she goes back in and she tells everybody, it’s Peter, it’s Peter, and they’re like, no, no, he’s in jail. Maybe it’s his angel. And there is some rabbinic tradition, if we go back and look at that time in biblical history, that in Jewish tradition, there was a thought that we had a guardian angel and maybe our guardian angel even resembled us, kind of looked like us. But really, those are the only two passages. And I would just say this, I feel like much is built on little. If we’re gonna take those two,
Candace Nassar (13:25)
Okay.
Melissa Spoelstra (13:26)
So do angels guard? 100%. We see him doing it over and over. Do I have a personal specific guardian angel? I don’t know, but I don’t think we could make a strong biblical case for that.
Candace Nassar (13:40)
Okay. That’s a great, thank you for that because I’ve heard that for many years and just wanted to clarify that. okay. So could you share one of your favorite biblical accounts where angels played a key role and how that story encourages you personally?
Melissa Spoelstra (13:46)
Yeah.
Melissa Spoelstra (13:55)
that’s such a great question, Candace. Thank you for asking that. I have to go to Gabriel. You know, only a few angels have names, but they are the only level of personhood, right? They have names. They’ll be judged. They’re going to be part of our extended family. And the two that we know, their names are Gabriel and Michael. And Gabriel appears to just one of God’s servants, Daniel, in the Old Testament book of Daniel. Daniel prays. And Daniel doesn’t pray, God, please send me an angel.
In fact, you never find in Scripture any great men or women of God praying specifically for angels. And as I really thought about that, because I’m inclined to say God put angels around my kids’ car when they’re driving or, you know, and I’m not saying we can’t pray that, Candice. I’m not saying we can’t ask God to send angels. What I’m saying is that people in the Bible seemed less inclined to tell God how to do it. They would just pray and they would just trust that God would answer.
Candace Nassar (14:48)
Mmm.
Melissa Spoelstra (14:51)
in the best way that he would. So in this case, Daniel’s praying. He’s confessing his sin. He’s confessing the sin of his people. And this angel comes. And I want to read just this one part from Daniel chapter nine. says, as I was praying, Gabriel, whom I had seen in the earlier vision, came swiftly to me at the time of the evening sacrifice. He explained to me, Daniel, I have come here to give you insight and understanding. The moment you began praying, a command was given.
And now I’m here to tell you what it was, for you are very precious to God. Listen carefully so that you can understand the meaning of your vision. And he’s going to go on to explain it. But I think those two things really stick out to me that, that Gabriel came to say, God hears our prayers. And I think that that was specific for Daniel, but I think we can, we can say, God hears our prayers and he may or may not send an angel on our behalf. And he wants to remind us that we’re precious to him. And I think every mom.
Candace Nassar (15:45)
Hmm.
Melissa Spoelstra (15:46)
no matter how old your kids are, needs to just be reminded that you are precious to God. And so that’s one of my favorite angel encounters that happens. Yeah.
Candace Nassar (15:55)
That’s a great one. Yeah. Gabriel gets to do a lot of encouraging and great announcements, right? And, and there’s, and there’s, there’s misconceptions about the angel archangel, Michael, and, different sex of, faiths out there. so, but we, we do see that there is, there are things going on. And again, we started talking about this in the beginning, the spiritual realm that we can’t see, and we need to be aware of.
Melissa Spoelstra (16:02)
He does.
Melissa Spoelstra (16:09)
for sure.
Candace Nassar (16:22)
And I think angels, I mean, does God speak to us today through angels?
Melissa Spoelstra (16:28)
think he can. I think he can do whatever he wants. love, you know, obviously there’s lots of angel encounters in the Old Testament, but there’s a heightened amount of certainly demonic encounters that Jesus has during his ministry. But even in the book of Acts, which is, you know, the church age, the age we’re living in, you know, you see angel encounters. You see angels rescuing people. And one of my favorites is where Philip is.
Yeah, so he’s going, he’s been doing all this ministry in Samaria and an angel actually directs him to go out into the desert where there’s nothing there. And what we see there is God using four different ways to communicate with Philip. He uses an angel, then he tells, since the Holy Spirit tells him to go run alongside the chariot, then he gets up in the chariot with the Ethiopian eunuch from the book of Isaiah and so using the word of God. And then Philip himself is the human messenger explaining the word of God.
to him. So we see angels, Holy Spirit, the Word of God, and a human messenger. So I think God is still in the business of doing, whatever means necessary to communicate with us and to help us understand who he is and what he wants us to do.
Candace Nassar (17:36)
Yeah, yeah. And then we just have to be aware. I mean, I’ve heard people talk, tell stories about someone appearing that saved them from something or whatever, and then they disappeared. And, and I believe all that. I believe that God can do, yeah, he does all of those things. I mean, if he’s guarding us according to all of his ways, he’s going to be sending angels into our lives and, for different purposes. I love that story about Peter. mean, Philip and the eunuch particularly, I have to tell you.
Melissa Spoelstra (17:38)
Yeah.
Melissa Spoelstra (17:47)
Yeah, I did too.
Candace Nassar (18:04)
That is he was the Ethiopian Queens eunuch and you know what her name was
Melissa Spoelstra (18:10)
Candace, you’re right. That’s so fun. I love that. You’re right. Yes. I love that so much. And I think, I think it goes back to acknowledging something that a lot of the reading that I did is that we really, by no fault of our own, are in a culture that’s been impacted with an anti-supernatural bias.
Candace Nassar (18:12)
Her name was Candace spelled the same way with an A. So yeah, I particularly love that. No, it’s yeah, it’s.
Candace Nassar (18:32)
Ooh, yes.
Melissa Spoelstra (18:33)
And just what I mean by that is if we go back to the Reformation and the Enlightenment in these times in history where God did incredible things and a lot of good things happened through those things in history, a not so good byproduct of that is that we elevated logic and reason to a level that we kind of lost sight of this fact that we serve a mysterious God who has mysterious messengers like angels that are involved in our day-to-day lives.
And so one of the biggest takeaways for me in studying angels throughout the Bible for about two years and doing a lot of reading was just recognizing where I have that anti-supernatural bias and just asking the Lord to help me see with his eyes and to give me his supernatural eyes to believe that he’s at work in all these different ways.
Candace Nassar (19:21)
You know, that’s so good. It reminds me, one of my favorite stories of angels in the Bible is when Elisha was out and they went to, I forget who they were about to fight, but they go out on this mountain and they see this army in front of them and the servant is so afraid. he thinks, you know, because all he can see is the physical, right? And so,
Melissa Spoelstra (19:29)
Yes.
Melissa Spoelstra (19:41)
So afraid.
Melissa Spoelstra (19:46)
Yes.
Candace Nassar (19:48)
He sees, we’re going to get killed because this is a huge army and we don’t have near this amount of people and he can’t trust God. Right. And so then Elisha, he prays to God, open his eyes and let him see. And then all of a sudden that servant sees an entire army of angels surrounding that camp with all the enemy. And it just gives me chills every time.
I think of that story. It’s so powerful.
Melissa Spoelstra (20:18)
It is so powerful. And I think for us, as we’re fighting daily battles, if we could even, maybe God won’t let us see them the way he did Elisha see them, but if we could just trust and believe that they’re there and that, you know, there’s so many hopeful verses, certainly in Colossians where it says, on the cross, Christ disarmed the rulers and authorities. And those words for rulers and authorities are the same words we find in Ephesians 6 that says, our battle is not against flesh and blood.
Candace Nassar (20:29)
Yes.
Melissa Spoelstra (20:45)
but against rulers and authorities and principalities, just to know that Christ did disarm those authorities on the cross. So we have nothing to fear. We do have the greater army and we will win the war.
Candace Nassar (20:57)
Amen. Amen. Absolutely. So how can this study help moms then? I mean, we’ve been talking about it, but let’s talk about, in their daily lives, how can we practice? Cause I’m sure that your study goes into some of that. So maybe there.
Melissa Spoelstra (21:06)
Right.
Melissa Spoelstra (21:13)
Yeah, I think just being in God’s Word and just being reminded continually again and again of the truth of who God is. I mean, one of the names of God we find in Scripture is Yahweh Sabaoth, which is the Lord of hosts or the Lord of angel armies. It’s one of the most used names throughout the prophets and all throughout Scripture. And so just, I think the more that we’re in the Word, reading the stories like we’ve already mentioned today, Elisha, that’s certainly in the study.
Elijah was led by an angel in a very discouraged and weary time in his ministry, and God said, you need to take a nap and you need to rest, but he said it through an angel. And so I think just reading the messages of angels are really the messages of God because they are his messengers. And so the more that we get in there and read what God’s saying to us through his angel messengers,
Candace Nassar (21:51)
Mmm. Mmm.
Melissa Spoelstra (22:06)
and just believing and realizing, you know, Revelation says that when Jesus returns, He will return with all of His angels. And it says that there are millions upon millions. It’s not like, there’s Michael and Gabriel and they have a few guys, millions and millions of angel armies on our side. And so I just believe that that would help us all to find hope that God not only reigns over this earth, but He reigns over all of heaven. And one day He is going to return with
Candace Nassar (21:51)
Mmm. Mmm.
Candace Nassar (22:13)
Mhm.
Melissa Spoelstra (22:14)
all of his angels and set all things right. And until then, we just keep believing and hoping and in faith. And I think doing a study of angels, my prayer is that it would bolster the faith of that mom. So that on the day that she’s got a sick baby or a cranky toddler or a teenager that’s not listening to her, it would drive her to prayer knowing that she’s praying to the God of angel armies who hears her prayers and believes that she’s precious to him.
Candace Nassar (23:04)
That is so beautiful. know, I just, again, I just continually picture the sovereignty of God and how magnificent, mighty He is and that if He can rule the angels, He can certainly answer our prayers and, and hear from us. And maybe it’s not, this is, I know a lot of moms struggle with praying and, and God not answering immediately or in the way they thought. but
Melissa Spoelstra (23:08)
Yes.
Candace Nassar (23:28)
You know, can see how studying angels and studying how God maneuvers, you know, if you will, providentially everything behind the scenes, we can trust that whatever God is doing in our lives, even if it’s not answering the way we want him to, that it is for our best, that he is always, always good and working for our best.
Melissa Spoelstra (23:45)
Yes.
Melissa Spoelstra (23:49)
I love that. And I do think if God revealed something in His Word, He wants us to know as much as it is that He’s revealed. So I’ll just say, after studying angels for two years, I have more questions. You know, there are a lot of things that I don’t know and understand about angels. You know, will the fallen angels ever have a chance? They don’t seem to have a salvation plan. You know, Jesus didn’t become an angel and die for angels. He became a human and came to earth for us. And what does that look like? Or can…
Candace Nassar (24:10)
Mm.
Melissa Spoelstra (24:17)
Good angels still fall today. I don’t know. There’s also hints in scripture about things like cosmic geography, meaning that like, you know, when Gabriel is appearing to Daniel, he says, I would have been here sooner, but I was fighting the Prince of Persia for 21 days until Michael came and helped me. We also see Deuteronomy 32 where it says they divided up the lands according to the sons of God, which makes us go, are angels regional? Like,
Candace Nassar (24:34)
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Spoelstra (24:44)
If they divided up the lands according to the angels and if there’s a prince of Persia, are they? And again, think little, much has been built on little. So, but I think it’s interesting just to think about those things and just to consider, you know, that there could be angels specific over your town who are protecting you and protecting God’s people there.
So I think studying angels builds our hope, points us back to the sovereignty of God but also leaves us with some interesting questions and thoughts that we may not get all definitive answers to, but cause us to go, wow, could be this, I don’t know.
Candace Nassar (25:20)
Yeah, I mean, honestly, there are so many mysteries in scripture that we are just not meant to know. And that’s okay. mean, would we, can we trust a God that we can totally predict and know? You know? Absolutely not. So, yeah, that’s a really good point. well, this has been, let me just ask you, this has been such a great conversation for the mom who’s feeling spiritually or physically drained.
Melissa Spoelstra (25:25)
Yeah.
Melissa Spoelstra (25:32)
Yes, that’s so good. Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa Spoelstra (25:46)
Hmm.
Candace Nassar (25:49)
What is, why is this a good study to start right now?
Melissa Spoelstra (27:49.168)
Yeah, I just think it will so encourage her as she just remembers who God is and what God says about her. And so as she gets in, and she’s going to just see how God takes, notices the weak and weary. I I love the story of Hagar. That’s where we find the angel of the Lord, you know, and there’s a lot of interesting thoughts about could the angel of the Lord be the pre-incarnate Christ? Could that be Jesus?
Candace Nassar (26:05)
Hmm.
Melissa Spoelstra (26:14)
because what sets the angel of the Lord apart from other angels in scripture is that he forgives sin. No other angel forgives sin and he accepted worship. And we know from Revelation that those angels don’t accept worship, only God is to be worshiped. So wherever you land on that, whether you think it’s just an angel representing God or Jesus himself, to know that he looked at a woman like Hagar and said, I see you and I have a plan for you.
Candace Nassar (26:38)
Hmm. yes.
Melissa Spoelstra (26:41)
I just think that as women dig in and look through scripture, over 300 mentions of angels from Genesis to Revelation. Another thing I think that will be so encouraging for moms is we’re going to learn something about scripture, about genre of literature that’s unique. Normally I stay in a book, like let’s do the Gospel of John, let’s do the life of Elijah and like to stay and learn the context.
But by doing something like this, where we go from Genesis to Revelation, looking at a topic, we’re going to realize that we don’t interpret a parable the same way we interpret poetry. And so I, as a super nerd Bible girl, and I think there’s other moms that love to learn that kind of stuff too, that just as we approach scripture, they’re going to learn to dig deeper into God’s word. And so hopefully some of the things they learn in studying angels will transfer into other things they want to study in the future as they look at it, tracing a theme through the Bible.
Candace Nassar (27:31)
So good. I love it. Well, we are definitely going to put all of your information in our show notes and, and link all of that. But we just, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your heart today. It’s been a fascinating conversation and I’m inspired. know our moms are inspired too. So thank you, Melissa, for what you’ve done. know doing those topical, we, do some topical teaching and, and sometimes that can be really challenging. So.
Melissa Spoelstra (27:45)
Love it.
Candace Nassar (27:58)
I’m sure you really had to dig in and spend a lot of time. So thank you for doing that, so that we could take advantage and follow along with you. So, yeah. Thank you so much, Melissa. God bless.
Melissa Spoelstra (28:06)
My pleasure. Loved it. Thanks for the conversation, Candace. It was great.