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ESV Women’s Devotional Bible

June 4, 2014 /

esv womens devotional bibleI recently had the joy of reading a pre-release copy of The ESV Women’s Devotional Bible for potential endorsement and I thought you might enjoy hearing what I shared with its publishers at Crossway …

Having spent the last few weeks steeped in hours of lectures and hundreds of pages of seminary material on the doctrines of grace, I was particularly honored to be asked to serve in this way. Oh, how grateful I am for Sola Scriptura! (And Sola Gratia, Sola fide, Solus Christus too of course. All for God’s glory alone.)

I will be doing another Barthel family WIN FREE (BIBLICAL & PRACTICAL) STUFF (No Risk of SPAM!) GIVEAWAY when this Bible is released in August. So be sure to stop by if you are interested in a free copy.

(My giveaways historically reflect the astounding numerical discrepancy between my blog readers and my blog commenters. For example, my recent “If only I had thin arms, then my marriage would be perfect!“ post continues to receive thousands of hits, but I have had only one commenter on it. I think I’m just the queen of lurkers and that is A-OK with me. But you should know that currently, only 15 people are entered in our $100 giveaway that ends this Sunday, June 8. Don’t you think the odds are with you? Wouldn’t you like $100 to help fund an adoption, a mercy ministry, or just do something relaxing and special this summer? Why not join in the fun?!)

Warmly,
Tara B.

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TARA BARTHEL’S REVIEW OF
THE ESV WOMEN’S DEVOTIONAL BIBLE

The contributors to The ESV Women’s Devotional Bible provide an intelligent, God-centered introduction to both the Old and New Testaments, winsomely appealing to us to draw near to the Triune God with confidence and joy because of our union with Christ. I strongly recommend The ESV Women’s Devotional Bible both for people seeking initial information about what the Bible says about God, and also for Christians who long to go deeper into doctrinal truth so that they can experience more intimately the reality of their salvation and their eternally-secure relationship with God in Christ.

The strengths of the essays and devotionals included in The ESV Women’s Devotional Bible are many. I particularly appreciate the succinct and clear overview essays for each and every book of the Bible—what a gift! Especially for those of us who are not familiar with how some of the more ‘obscure’ Old Testament books point to Christ, these introductory essays will prove invaluable.

I also greatly appreciate how the editors placed the 365 devotional readings in their related Scriptural contexts, rather than organizing them by an arbitrarily-dated calendar. In so doing, The ESV Women’s Devotional Bible never leaves the reader with that vague sense of guilt associated with “getting behind” in daily Bible reading (which often leads to giving up altogether because we just can’t “catch up”—especially for those of us working demanding, exhausting, time-consuming jobs inside or outside of the home). Instead, when we reach for our ESV Women’s Devotional Bible each day, we will have that fresh-start confidence that today truly is a new day to prayerfully and expectantly open God’s Word and learn more about His attributes, mercies, great plan of redemption, sovereignty over all of creation, and never-failing, never-ending grace towards His beloved children.

The tone of the devotions is personal, but not saccharine or centered on how people feel or what people think. Rather, consistent with solid biblical teachings throughout church history, the authors of these essays and devotions invite the reader to listen to, understand, and believe God’s inerrant revelation of himself in Holy Scripture.

So often in the Christian life—especially for we who are women—it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by and incompetent at our daily tasks, our lifetime goals, and yes, important things like Bible study, prayer, and theology. Many of us have a confessional faith—we know we are Christians, we love God, and we even try to read our Bibles and go to church. But in the day-to-day living of real life in this real world, it can sometimes be hard to “connect the dots” between our daily lives and what the Bible says about eternally-important truths about God, human beings, life in a fallen world, and our eternal life to come in Heaven. The ESV Women’s Devotional Bible helps us to see the big picture of who God is, who we are in Christ, and how God is working in this world, every moment of every day, for His glory and our good.

If you already study Scripture and read theology at an academic or scholarly-level, The ESV Women’s Devotional Bible will undoubtedly cause you to hyperlink in your mind to various lectures, commentaries, and systematic theologies that you will probably want to run to re-read, simply because you are drawn to Christ in that sweet way that rich, biblical teaching of truth never fails to inspire.

If you are new to the Christian faith or if you are a Believer who wants to be better equipped to understand and share with others the whole counsel of Scripture, these essays, character profiles, and devotions will provide a readable, accessible, and faithful introduction to key doctrinal truth. As you listen to the counsel contained in these devotions and essays and you prayerfully study Scripture more and more, your appetite for deep, theologically-rich, Christ-centered Bible studies will only increase.

Studying Truth draws us to studying Truth more and more. And that is why I can wholeheartedly encourage you to read The ESV Women’s Devotional Bible if any of the following statements apply to you:

  • Is your prayer life dry? Do you long to be refreshed and renewed as you are reminded of the glory of God revealed in Christ?
  • Would you benefit from clear reminders as to how the ordinary means of grace bring comfort, hope, and clarity to the oft’ confusing and despairing aspects of daily life in a fallen world?
  • Do the “feel-good” stories and personal “sharing” associated with so much of what is marketed to you as “Christian women’s literature” leave you hungering for the meat of theological truths and the Bread of Life (Christ!) as revealed in Scripture?
  • Are you ready to experience renewed confidence in the sufficiency and authority of Scripture, all in the context of a redeemed relationship with the One True God, and all because of your justification and adoption into God’s eternal family?

 
… if so, then The ESV Women’s Devotional Bible is for you.

Read this devotional Bible and experience with all your heart and mind the joy that comes from understanding more clearly and believing more completely the biblical truths associated with the bedrock assurance of your faith—the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and return again in glory of Jesus Christ. Read these essays and be challenged to go deeper into theological areas you may currently understand only at the introductory level. Open this Bible today and be comforted, calmed, and sheltered by the life-giving, shalom-producing, hope-anchoring, eternal truths revealed in God’s Word and taught by some of the best Bible teachers of our day.

And then share a copy with a friend—maybe a friend who has never heard the Good News that God delights in saving wayward sinners; maybe a friend who knows they “should” read the Bible more, but isn’t sure where to begin or how to keep going once their well-meaning efforts to “start at Genesis” get bogged down in the temple laws and genealogies of the (essential, but sometimes confusing!) books of the Old Testament. Maybe this devotional Bible is the perfect gift for your neighbor who just found out she is facing cancer. Or perhaps you will share it with your mother on her deathbed.

That was the thought that I simply could not keep out of my mind, day after day, as I soaked in these essays and study notes:

“I wish The ESV Women’s Devotional Bible had existed just eighteen months earlier because then I could have shared it with my own beloved mother before she passed away.”

For decades, ever since God saved me when I was a teenager, my mother and I had enjoyed many conversations and even debates about Christianity. She was an intelligent woman and she was willing to read and consider the many versions of the Bible that I shared with her over the years. But she always got bogged down at some point, and as far as I know, she never went the entire distance from Genesis to Revelation. And even if she did, she certainly did not have a comprehensive, readable, overview for how God’s story of redemption through Christ is revealed through all of history. I tried to share sermons, books, and essays with her. I tried to make the Gospel as understandable and accessible as I could for her. But over the years, she often said things to me like:

“I want to know what the Bible says, and I try to read it, but I don’t understand it. And I don’t understand how you see Jesus in it, Tara, every day you open the Bible and read it to yourself and to your family.”

I truly believe that if I could have shared The ESV Women’s Devotional Bible with her, she would have had the just-right teachings in the just-right lengths sufficient to meet her needs as a sincere seeker. I am deeply grateful to the entire Crossway team, and especially to the authors of the essays and study notes for giving us this great gift. Without question, it will help women around the world to grow in their knowledge of God, their understanding of Scripture, and their confidence in their union with Christ.

I heartily recommend The ESV Women’s Devotional Bible and I look forward to sharing it with many people in the coming years.

Tara Klena Barthel, Author of Living the Gospel in Relationships, and Co-Author of Peacemaking Women and Redeeming Church Conflicts