I. If an angel told you that you were going to have a child this year, how would you react? 

I hope I do not sound (nor do I mean to be) flippant in my answer here because I truly am interested in gaining a clearer understanding of the Bible and in becoming more Christlike. So I am going to answer what I think I would answer if someone asked me that question today. First off, I cannot imagine that an angel would appear before me, and I would assume the person
speaking was being flippant, so I would probably give a flippant response, something along the lines of "Well, isn't that something?! I guess God is going to work a pretty big miracle in my life, because that's the only way it could happen."

But if an angel did appear before me, and I just KNEW that is WAS a angel, I would probably faint dead away before he could say a word! And then I'd faint dead away again on hearing the message.

The Scripture says that an angel appeared to Zachariah. I am assuming that Zachariah recognized the being as an angel. The text says the people knew he had seen a vision.
So I have a question; several, in fact. (1) what is understood by the term "a vision"? (2) what is meant by "angel" in this case? (3) Is there an explanation in human words that can describe what angels look like? (4)Did Zachariah "see" a human-looking figure in a white robe surrounded by a whitish light? (5) Do these kinds of angels appear before anyone in the everyday world of today? (6) Do angels, looking like ordinary men, appear to some people today?