Slideshow image

I have not blogged in quite a while, but this year I wanted to do something to share the hope of Christmas. I have had more people ask me about aspects of Christmas and wanted to share some things that always encourage me. I pray that these will help you rediscover the wonder and hope of Christ’s coming.



  1. In the Line of Hope. 12/1/25

It’s hard to know where to start in talking about Christmas, but as good a place as any is Matthew 1:1. This is the genealogy of Jesus, and for Bible novices it contains the infamous repetition “so and so begat so and so.” It may seem tedious and as uninteresting as 9th grade history class, but it is really quite profound. Here are the first two verses:

"The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers." Matthew 1:1–2.

These are just a few of the people mentioned in the chapter, and most of them appear in Scripture so you can read more about them. Some were noble. Others were not. There are kings, but also prostitutes, adulterers, foreigners (those outside the family line), and some people who showed great promise but fell into anonymity. I’ll talk more on this tomorrow.

Arguably the most important aspect of this line is that Jesus comes because of promises that God made and kept. Verse 1 highlights two important people: Abraham and David. God made a promise to Abraham in roughly 2000 BC. God called Abraham to leave everything he had and go to the land God would show him and God promised to bless him and said that through him and his offspring all the nations and peoples of the entire earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:1-3).

Later, God built on this through a descendant of Abraham’s named David in roughly 940 BC. David was a might warrior king and God told him he would have a son who would reign forever in righteousness. These two promises are why family lineages were so important to Israelites. They were tracing the promises of God. It is into this family line, a line of promise, that Jesus Christ is born into.  

Jesus taught some of the greatest morals ever recorded by any teacher, he did miracles that no one else could do, and he just so happens to be in the family line of people who received incredible promises of a future king who would reign in righteousness and bless all people. His family line communicates that God makes promises and fulfills them, and his birth communicates the realization of long awaited hope.

If you don’t know the promises of God there is no better time to learn them than now.