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On jisho.org, 使い is translated with words such as "errand", and the same holds
true on translate.google.com. Neither site is offering "angel" as a
suggestion. Yet in Matthew 1:20, the phrase:

> ・・・主の使いが夢に現れて言った。

is found in English as:

> . . . an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said . . .

Does it mean "angel" or not? Is the Japanese saying something slightly
different than "God no angel"? Thanks!
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translation words meaning religion
How accurately can 使い be translated as "angel"?
使い doesn't mean angel in all contexts, but _does_ mean "messenger/bearer/...".
In particular, the usual word for "angel" is [天使]{てんし} or [天]{てん}の使い =
"messenger from heaven". Here you don't have 天, but 主 "Lord/God".

As snailplane points out in the comments, the phrase "Angel of the Lord"
should appear frequently. Wikipedia
[writes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_of_the_Lord):

> The **Angel of the Lord** (or the **Angel of God** ) is one of many terms in
> the Hebrew Bible (also: Old Testament) used for an angel. The Biblical name
> for angel, מלאך _malak_ , which translates simply as "messenger," obtained
> the further signification of "angel" only through the addition of God's
> name, as ("angel of the Lord," or "angel of God", Zech. 12:8).

The same in Japanese. 使い translates simply as "messenger" and only obtains the
further signification of "angel" only through the addition of God's name (or
through the honorific prefix [御]{み}, as in ssb's answer). In that sense, the
Japanese 主の使い seems to be faithful to the original Hebrew.
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使い refers to someone sent to a specific place to fulfill a certain objective
for someone else. In this purely semantic sense 主の使い would be an angel just
because that's the role it is describing.

[御{み}使い](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BE%A1%E4%BD%BF%E3%81%84) seems to be
the "right" (or at least most direct) translation for angels in a
Christian/biblical sense:

> 御使い（みつかい、 ヘブライ語: מלאך‎、ギリシア語: ἄγγελος）は、使者を意味する語であり、キリスト教で主の使いである

Notice that the definition above uses the term 主の使い itself. It appears that it
is also a standard way to phrase things in a Christian context.

[天使{てんし}](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A9%E4%BD%BF) applies more
broadly to the concept of an angel in a faith-agnostic sort of way. 使い on its
own also seems to have roots in Japanese traditional religions as a term for
beings/animals acting as representatives of gods.
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