Christian Christmas books for adults: what to read this season

The best Christian Christmas books for adults begin with Luke 1 and 2 and Matthew 1 and 2, then add one book to walk you through December. For that second book, Paul David Tripp's Come, Let Us Adore Him gives a short reading for each day, and Timothy Keller's Hidden Christmas explains what the birth of Jesus means in an evening or two.

This list is for grown readers who want the season to mean something: devotionals, theology, poetry and the old stories, with one book of art to keep out on the table. One of them is ours, and we say so when we reach it.

What are the best Christian Christmas books for adults?

The best Christian Christmas books for adults are Paul David Tripp's Come, Let Us Adore Him for a daily reading, Timothy Keller's Hidden Christmas for the meaning of the season, and Malcolm Guite's Waiting on the Word for poetry, read beside the Gospel accounts. Each keeps the birth of Jesus at the center and fits the few minutes December leaves you. The table matches each to its reader.

Book	What it is	Best for	How to read it
Luke 1-2, Matthew 1-2, John 1	The Christmas story in Scripture	Everyone, first	Aloud, on Christmas Eve
Come, Let Us Adore Him, Paul David Tripp	A daily devotional for December	A reading a day	Five minutes each morning
Hidden Christmas, Timothy Keller	A short book on the meaning of Christmas	A thinker, or a doubting friend	An evening or two
Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus, ed. Nancy Guthrie	Advent readings from many writers	Variety, old voices and new	One chapter a day
God Is in the Manger, Dietrich Bonhoeffer	Advent and Christmas readings from his sermons and letters	A hard December	One a day
Waiting on the Word, Malcolm Guite	A poem a day, Advent to Epiphany	A lover of poetry	One poem before bed
The CHRIST book (ours)	An art book of the life of Jesus	The coffee table	A page at a time

How we chose

We chose books that keep Jesus at the center, that a layperson can finish in a busy month, and that are still worth opening after Christmas Day. Children's books deserve their own list, and nothing here is ranked or rated.

What should you read in the Bible at Christmas?

The Christmas story in the Bible is told by Luke and Matthew, and John adds what it means. Read Luke 1 and 2 for Mary, the manger and the shepherds, Matthew 1 and 2 for Joseph and the wise men, and John 1:1-14 for the Word made flesh. Together they take well under an hour.

Luke gives the night most people picture. "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night" (Luke 2:8, KJV). Then the angel's words, which many families read aloud before bed on Christmas Eve: "Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:10-11, KJV). The whole passage, Luke 2:1-20, takes a few minutes to read.

Matthew's wise men belong to a later scene. They find the child at home, and Matthew says so: "And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him" (Matthew 2:11, KJV). The crowded manger scene with kings beside the shepherds comes from centuries of painting, which we trace in the famous Nativity paintings and the story behind them.

John tells it without a stable at all. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14, KJV) is the Christmas verse in its shortest form, and our list of Christmas Bible verses in the King James Version gathers the others by theme.

Which Advent devotionals are worth reading?

An Advent devotional gives one short reading a day from the start of December or the first Sunday of Advent until Christmas. Paul David Tripp's Come, Let Us Adore Him and John Piper's The Dawning of Indestructible Joy follow the calendar day by day, and Nancy Guthrie's collection gathers older voices.

Come, Let Us Adore Him by Paul David Tripp: best for a reading a day

Crossway publishes this as a daily devotional for December. Each reading is short enough for a cup of coffee, and Crossway describes the book as a way to prepare for Christmas by turning back to worship. Tripp is a pastor, also known for the year-long devotional New Morning Mercies, and this is an easy book to give.

The Dawning of Indestructible Joy by John Piper: best for a free start

Piper wrote a meditation for each day from December 1 to Christmas Day, with a Christmas sermon added at the end. Crossway publishes it in print, and Desiring God, Piper's ministry, offers it as a free PDF, so it costs nothing to try this year.

Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus, edited by Nancy Guthrie: best for many voices

Guthrie gathered Advent readings from writers across the centuries, from Augustine, Martin Luther and Charles Spurgeon to J. I. Packer and Timothy Keller. Each chapter is a few pages long, and the voice changes every morning.

God Is in the Manger by Dietrich Bonhoeffer: best for a hard December

These readings come from Bonhoeffer's sermons and letters, many of them written in prison in the years before his execution. The book moves from waiting to the incarnation to joy, and it speaks plainly to anyone for whom this Christmas is heavy. If you are reading the season itself for the first time, our short guide to what Advent is and the Scripture it reads sets out the four weeks.

Which books explain the meaning of Christmas?

Timothy Keller's Hidden Christmas is the clearest short book on why the birth of Jesus matters, and it reads in an evening. For something older, Athanasius's On the Incarnation is the classic, from the fourth century. Martin Luther's Christmas sermons, gathered by Roland Bainton, sit between the two.

Hidden Christmas by Timothy Keller: best for a thinker

Keller, the late New York pastor, takes the familiar Christmas passages one at a time and draws out the background most of us skip. The book is short and plainly argued, a good one to give a friend who goes to church only at Christmas.

On the Incarnation by Athanasius: best for a serious reader

Athanasius, later bishop of Alexandria, wrote this short treatise to explain why God became man, and it reads more easily than its age suggests. The Christian Classics Ethereal Library keeps a free English text of On the Incarnation online.

Martin Luther's Christmas Book, edited by Roland Bainton: best for a family reader

Bainton, a Yale historian of the Reformation, drew passages from Luther's Christmas sermons and set them beside woodcuts and engravings by artists of Luther's time. The sermons are vivid and homely, preached to ordinary people. A few pages read well at the table after supper.

Which Christmas poems and stories are worth reading?

The old Christmas classics are short: John Milton's poem on the Nativity, Henry van Dyke's The Story of the Other Wise Man and Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, each readable in a sitting. Malcolm Guite's Waiting on the Word gathers poems old and new, one a day.

Waiting on the Word by Malcolm Guite: best for poetry

Guite, an English poet and priest, chose a poem for each day from Advent Sunday through Christmas to Epiphany and wrote a reflection on each. Herbert, Donne and Christina Rossetti sit beside living poets, along with his own sonnets on the old Advent antiphons. A poem before bed takes two minutes.

"On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" by John Milton: best read aloud

Milton wrote it as a young man at Christmas 1629. It is a long, ringing poem about the night of the birth and the peace that falls over the world, and it is best read aloud on a quiet evening. Wikisource keeps the full text of Milton's Nativity ode.

The Story of the Other Wise Man by Henry van Dyke: best for Christmas night

Van Dyke, an American pastor, imagined a fourth wise man, Artaban, who sets out with the others but is delayed by every person in need on the road. It is fiction, but it carries Matthew 25 inside it. It is short enough to read aloud in one evening, and the text of The Other Wise Man is free on Wikisource.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: best for a reader who last opened it at school

Dickens told it in five short staves, about two evenings of reading, and closed it on Tiny Tim's blessing, "God bless Us, Every One!" Reread it as an adult and the ghosts are harder on you than you remember. Wikisource keeps the text of A Christmas Carol too.

What is a good Christmas coffee table book?

A good Christmas coffee table book can be opened at any page by anyone who walks past, so the art matters as much as the words. Look for art made for each scene, the Scripture it shows named beside it, and a binding that lies open on the table without being held.

Our pick is CHRIST, Mercy & Light's art book of the life of Jesus. We made it, so weigh that. Its first chapter is the Nativity, told in the King James words of Luke and Matthew, and the rest of the book follows his life to the Resurrection in more than 200 illustrations.

• Art made for each scene, with the passage it comes from named on the page.
• The King James text checked word for word.
• A clothbound hardcover with a thread-sewn binding that opens flat, and a dedication page at the front for a name and a line.

The book is nearly 10 × 13 inches, printed on heavyweight matte art paper, a size made for the table, where it can lie open. Every detail of CHRIST, our art book of the life of Jesus is on its own page.

It sits with our other Christian Christmas gifts for the home. If you are choosing for someone else, our Christian Christmas gift ideas that carry the story go beyond books.

What to read from Advent to Epiphany

Read a daily devotional through Advent, the Gospel accounts on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and something slower in the twelve days after, ending with Matthew 2 at Epiphany on January 6, when the wise men's visit is remembered.

When	What to read	Why then
The four weeks of Advent	One devotional, a reading a day	It keeps the waiting in view
Christmas Eve	Luke 2:1-20, aloud	The shepherds come at night
Christmas Day	John 1:1-14	The meaning, in a few lines
The twelve days of Christmas	Keller, Athanasius or Guite	The house is quieter
Epiphany, January 6	Matthew 2:1-12	The wise men arrive later

If you would like the story itself in daily portions, our Advent Bible reading plan, week by week gives a King James passage for every day.

A shelf for the season

Keep this year's book where your hand will find it in December, on the arm of the chair or the coffee table, because a book you can see is a book you open. For the rest of the year, our guide to books about Jesus, and where to start picks up where Christmas leaves off.

Frequently asked

What is the best Christian Christmas book for adults?

For a reading a day, Paul David Tripp's Come, Let Us Adore Him; for one short book on the meaning of Christmas, Timothy Keller's Hidden Christmas. For the coffee table, our pick is CHRIST, Mercy & Light's art book of the life of Jesus, which opens with the Nativity. We made it, so weigh that.

What is the best book in the Bible to read at Christmas?

The Gospel of Luke, chapters 1 and 2, which tell of Mary, the birth in Bethlehem and the shepherds. Matthew 1 and 2 add Joseph and the wise men, and John 1:1-14 says what the birth means. Many families read Luke 2:1-20 aloud on Christmas Eve.

What is the holy book for Christmas?

For Christians, the holy book at Christmas is the Bible, and the Christmas story itself is in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew. Luke 2 tells of the birth in Bethlehem and the shepherds, and Matthew 2 of the wise men and the star.

Is there a free Advent devotional for adults?

Yes. John Piper's The Dawning of Indestructible Joy, a reading for each day from December 1 to Christmas, is offered as a free PDF by his ministry, Desiring God. Older classics such as Athanasius's On the Incarnation and Milton's Nativity ode are free to read online in public-domain editions.

Are there Christian Christmas novels for adults?

Yes. The classics are Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol and Henry van Dyke's The Story of the Other Wise Man, both short. Christian publishers bring out new Christmas novels every year, and Melody Carlson has written many of them.

Is the CHRIST book a Bible?

No. The CHRIST book is an art book of the life of Jesus: illustrations for each scene, with the passage of Scripture it comes from named on the page, in the order the story is told. It is made to be kept out at home and opened a page at a time, alongside a Bible.

Passages cited: Luke 1-2; Luke 2:1-20; Luke 2:8; Luke 2:10-11; Matthew 1-2; Matthew 2:1-12; Matthew 2:11; Matthew 25; John 1:1-14; John 1:14