Advent
Observe the Season with Your Church, Small Group, or Family
Contents
The traditional Advent season invites participants into four weeks of deep reflection on the first advent, or arrival, of God in Jesus of Nazareth, as well as on his promised return. Explore resources on the four themes of hope, peace, joy, and love.
The Main Idea
The Advent season remembers Jesus’s past arrival at his birth and also anticipates his promised future arrival. It often encompasses the four Sundays before Christmas, and many traditions assign each Sunday a theme—hope, peace, joy, and love—to guide prayer and contemplation.
Preparing for the Season
Journey through Advent with daily resources, a written guide, and relevant sessions from a BibleProject Class.
Daily Resources
Observe Advent with two reading plans and a printable daily calendar containing Scripture readings and reflection questions. Our newest reading plan, The Road to Christmas, is available both on the Bible App by YouVersion and as a printable PDF.
Scholarship-Written Guide
Go deeper with a guide offering an overview of Advent as well as Scripture studies on the themes of hope, peace, joy, and love.
BibleProject Class
Study alongside Dr. Tim Mackie and fellow learners in these six sessions from our Rise of the Messiah class that explore the birth of Jesus as narrated in the Gospel of Matthew.
Hope
Advent invites us to imagine a kind of hope that’s rooted not in wishful thinking but in the unchanging nature of God and his promise to restore every part of his creation.
Peace
The kind of peace envisioned during Advent comes not through military victory but through the way of Jesus. He brings true peace by honestly addressing and working to heal the deeper sources of division, such as fear and pride, that compel people to violence.
Joy
Advent joy is not an experience of happiness based on favorable circumstances. It’s a deep sense of safety and freedom people feel because of God’s loving character, which remains constant through all circumstances, and because God can be trusted to ultimately bless and heal creation as he promised.
Video
Love
In the Bible, love is not something you fall in and out of or something you achieve on the path to self-fulfillment. Instead, it involves a steady commitment to care for the well-being of others—never self-seeking, always self-giving—even when it costs us.
Video
