A Four-Week Advent Bible Study for Small Groups (Free)

There is one session for each week of Advent, and each fits a 30- to 60-minute group. Read the passage aloud, start with the opening question, work through the discussion questions, and use the leader note for background.

The quotations in the leader notes come from public-domain commentaries in the OpenLumin corpus and are quoted as written, so the older spelling and style are theirs.

Passage: Isaiah 9:2–7. “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.” (9:2)

Opening question: When have you waited for something you could not yet see?

Discussion: 1. Which words in verses 2 to 5 describe the people's situation before the light comes? 2. Verse 6 gives the child four names. Which one speaks most to your group this season, and why? 3. Verse 7 says there will be no end to the increase of His government and peace. What would that mean to people living under threat? 4. How might these verses shape the way we wait during Advent?

Leader note: Matthew Henry opens his comment on the chapter by saying its first words “plainly refer to the close of the foregoing chapter, where every thing looked black and melancholy.” On verse 6, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown call the son “God's gratuitous gift, on which man had no claim,” and explain that “the ensign of office used to be worn on the shoulder, in token of sustaining the government.”

Passage: Isaiah 7:10–14. “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel.” (7:14)

Opening question: Have you ever been offered help you did not want to accept?

Discussion: 1. Read Isaiah 7:1. What was happening to Jerusalem when this conversation took place? 2. Why might Ahaz refuse to ask for a sign (7:11–12)? 3. What does the name Immanuel promise? 4. Read Matthew 1:22–23. How does Matthew use Isaiah's words? 5. Where does your group need to hear “God with us” this week?

Leader note: Matthew Henry says that here God, “by the prophet, makes a gracious offer to Ahaz, to confirm the foregoing predictions, and his faith in them, by such sign or miracle as he should choose.” Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that the Lord gives the sign Himself “since thou wilt not ask a sign, nay, rejectest the offer of one.” Commenting on Matthew 1:23, John Gill writes that the words are “rightly applied to the virgin Mary and her son Jesus.” If your group asks how the sign spoke to Ahaz's own day, Isaiah 7:16 is the verse to read next.

Passage: Micah 5:2–5. “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come forth for Me One to be ruler over Israel — One whose origins are of old, from the days of eternity.” (5:2)

Opening question: What small place has mattered a great deal in your life?

Discussion: 1. Why does Micah point out that Bethlehem is small? 2. What does verse 2 say about the ruler's origins? 3. Read Matthew 2:4–6. Who quotes Micah, and why? 4. Verses 4 and 5 describe how this ruler will lead. What picture do they use, and what does it say about the kind of king He is?

Leader note: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown explain the names: “Beth-lehem means "the house of bread"; Ephratah means "fruitful".” John Gill reads the verse as saying that “the Messiah should be born in Bethlehem, of which this is a prophecy, as is evident from Matthew 2:4.”

Passage: Luke 2:8–20. “Do not be afraid! For behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: Today in the city of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord!” (2:10–11)

Opening question: What is the best news you have ever received, and who did you tell first?

Discussion: 1. Why might shepherds be the first to hear this news? 2. What is the sign in verse 12, and why might God choose that sign? 3. What do the angels praise in verse 14? 4. What did the shepherds do after they saw the child (2:17–20), and what might that look like for us?

Leader note: Matthew Henry observes that “the meanest circumstances of Christ's humiliation were all along attended with some discoveries of his glory, to balance them.” Jamieson, Fausset and Brown call the angels' song a “brief but transporting hymn,” and John Gill reads it “not to be considered as a wish, that so it might be, but as an affirmation, that so it was.”