A “white elephant gift” is described as “amusing” or “impractical”. The goal of a white elephant gift exchange is to entertain party-goers rather than to gain a genuinely valuable or highly sought-after item.

This Christmas season at First Century, we are going to look at the genealogy in Matthew’s gospel, which is usually overlooked and seen as “impractical”. And many of the names on this list of relatives don’t seem “valuable” or “highly sought-after”, especially the women on this list who will be the focus of this Christmas series. But, as we’ll see, there is value in the stories and lives of these women who are more like us than we might realize.