Let me start with a confession: I am a full blown women’s devotional Bible cynic. Don’t get me wrong – I love being a woman, and I certainly love the Bible, but there are some fears that I have about reading the latter through the lens of the former. I fear that when Bible reading is approached after first and foremost identifying oneself with a gender specific audience, one might be tempted to look for gender specific meanings and draw gender specific applications from every passage – whether the text invites it or not! Will every application find its way back to issues pertaining to being wife, or being a mother, or homemaking? Will the pages be coloured pink, decorated by insipid images of cupcakes and flowers, with the text buried beneath a curly and distracting font?

I can happily report to my fellow cynics out there: fear not! Against the odds, this women’s devotional Bible has not only softened this cynic, it has even won me over! Is this because I have come to delight in flowers and cupcakes? Quite the contrary: instead of encouraging me to ground my identity in womanhood, this Devotional Bible has assisted me to ground my identity in my union with Christ, which, in turn, informs not only my womanhood, but every other aspect of who I am.

In her devotion on Matthew 21:12–17, Kristie Anyabwile reflects: ‘From beginning to end, the Bible is progressively revealing Christ as the Messiah; first in shadows and types, but here Christ is physically present. The culmination of the entire Bible is the glory of God in the person of Christ.’ It is this confidence in the centrality of Christ to the entirety of the Word of God that shapes each of the 365 devotions (enough for each day of the year). The gendered target audience does not distract the 50 different contributors, who are both men and women from around the globe, from letting the text speak for itself. Each contributor digs deep into the text, drawing on the particulars of each passage to more fully explain the whole message of the Bible, and then drawing on whole to more fully explain the particulars.

As I journeyed through the key events in the narrative of salvation history, unpacked over the 365 devotions, I found myself delighting in the fulfilment of prophecy, grieved by the sin that so arduously characterises the people of God, driven to thanksgiving for the extraordinary grace that characterises God’s relations with his beloved people, and celebrating that in Christ, there is freedom from sin, guilt, and the hope of eternal life. Woman–specific applications were mostly drawn only when the text itself invited it. Simplistic caricatures of the docile Christian woman and her activities are not found in the pages of this devotional Bible. Rather, a robust image of a faithful, God–seeking, transformed Christian individual (who is also a woman) is developed and encouraged. There were no flowers or cupcakes (okay, maybe some subtle leaves) and no pink (just soothing green). A unique feature of this devotional Bible was an appendix which contained a number of thoughtful essays, addressing issues such as the importance of doctrine; how to share the gospel with unbelievers; the Christian community’s responsibility to care for orphans; raising children with disabilities; how to be a wife that submits to and honours your husband.

So what is the benefit of calling this devotional Bible a Women’s Devotional Bible at all, if its greatest strength as a Woman’s Devotional Bible is that its devotional content it isn’t overly directed to women? Perhaps, for the reader of such a Devotional Bible, it is the encouragement of knowing that your own personal Bible reading, though personal, is not individual – it is done in community. Though you may be reading alone, you are also reading within a worldwide community of Christian women. And as you study the Word of God as a member of this community, without being distracted by flowers and cupcakes, you may just delight all the more in those occasional moments when a writer addresses an aspect of your particularities as a woman in a way that you hadn’t considered before. So whether you’re a cynic like me, or if pink is your favourite colour, if you are a Christian woman, then I commend this Devotional Bible to you – that as a child of God, you might delight ultimately in Christ!