Are you interested in fresh ways to explore the Christmas story? Would you like your church, mission, or community to have the story of the birth of Christ come alive—by engaging Luke’s Gospel through storytelling, drama, and group discovery?

“Honor and Shame in the Christmas Story” is a seven-lesson Bible study for all kinds of groups. It’s based directly on the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke. Each lesson is easy to follow—just one or two pages. Here are the seven lessons:

• Lesson 1: The story of Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1:5–25), parents of John the Baptist
• Lesson 2: God sends the angel Gabriel to talk with Mary (Luke 1:26–38)
• Lesson 3: Mary visits Elizabeth / Mary sings praise to God (Luke 1:39–56)
• Lesson 4: At last, Zechariah is a father (Luke 1:57–66)
• Lesson 5: Zechariah praises God and prophesies (Luke 1:67–80)
• Lesson 6: The birth of Jesus in the time of Caesar Augustus (Luke 2:1–7)
• Lesson 7: Lowly Shepherds and Highest Angels in Jesus’s Story (Luke 2:8–20)

These Bible studies highlight the honor-shame dynamics hidden in plain sight. The Bible study questions are designed to help a group make their own discoveries from the story. We also suggest ways to dramatize parts of the stories.

I used Claude AI to make the translations. I instructed Claude to draw from the Bible translations most commonly used by Protestant churches in the represented language groups.

The translations of these Bible studies are likely imperfect, so edit as you see fit. All translations are in Microsoft Word, except the English version, which is a PDF. You may also want to edit the study for other reasons. No problem. Edit as you like.

Download below—(Word files, so you can edit them; English is a PDF)

• Arabic
• Chinese/Mandarin (Simplified)
• Chinese/Mandarin (Traditional)
• English (PDF only)
• Filipino
• French
• German
• Hindi
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Persian
• Portuguese
• Spanish
• Swahili
• Telugu
• Turkish
• Urdu

Want it in another language?

“Honor and Shame in the Christmas Story”—would you like this resource available in another language? Send me an email at wernermischke@icloud.com. I will have the document translated and added to the list above.