Transcript
Speaker: I'm very concerned about women choosing books based on solidarity reading. that If you're only ever reading from people who make you feel good about where you're at, you will not grow.
Speaker: Welcome back to Verity Podcast, friends. I'm Felicia Masonheimer, your host, the founder of Every Woman a Theologian in the ministry that hosts this podcast. Whether you're listening on iTunes or your favorite podcast app or watching on YouTube, I'm so glad you're here.
Speaker: Welcome, and I hope you'll stay to the end because these episodes I try to fill with so much good stuff. So many things to think about, and I love hearing from you in the comments. So comment on YouTube if you're watching there, and you can also contact me with any questions or Thinking Biblically series suggestions at felicia at felicia masonheimer.com.
Speaker: Today we're talking about devotionals and since my podcast is geared towards women and women are the main target market of Christian devotional writing, I think this will be a very interesting episode.
Speaker: Now I found that Christian women are kind of divided into two categories. Women who love devotionals and maybe read them more than they read the actual Bible, and women who don't like devotionals at all and perhaps demonize them a bit more than is necessary.
Speaker: I'm hoping we can find a little bit of a middle ground today and talk about the history of devotional writing, why devotional writing still has a place in Christianity today, but how to discern a devotional that's going to help you mature in your faith versus a devotional that's going to keep you in a place of immaturity and lack of spiritual growth.
Speaker: Now, in sharing this with you, I admit I am a published author. I self-publish a lot of resources through Every Woman a Theologian. can see some of my books and studies back here.
Speaker: And I also traditionally publish through traditional publishing houses like HarperCollins. So I have a dog in this fight, so to speak, you could say, in that I am a writer. And so I believe good writing, good Christian writing matters. However, because I am a writer and I'm in this world and I get sent a lot of Christian books, I can tell you that not all Christian books are created equal.
Speaker: And that isn't to say that, well, Felicia's books are the exception, and you should only read Felicia's books. I'm not saying that, because I will tell you that having written my first book, published book, at, I don't know, 26 years old, now, 10 years later, like, thinking about that and reading it, I go, there's a lot of things that I would change in that, things that I've learned. So,
Speaker: I'm not saying that my books are premier, but I am saying that in reading the many books that come across my desk, I do quickly see the difference between a book that is truly grounded in scripture, grounded in truth and in humility from the author's experience, and books that are not. And so at the end of this video, I am going to share with you a few of my favorite devotionals. If you are looking for something to get started, um I think you're really going to love these.
Speaker: You'll recognize a few, but I think a lot of them you won't. So I'm excited to share them with you. But let's first talk about what what does it mean? What does a devotional mean? What is a devotion?
Speaker: Well, devotion to someone, to something, it's love, it's affection, it's loyalty. And so when we say Christians are doing their devotions, it means they're going through a spiritual ritual of spending time with God, having spiritual intimacy with God in prayer, in scriptural study, and worship. And And this is not a new idea. In fact, Christians throughout history have had a form of devotion, prayer time, quiet time, if you will, um over the course of history. And if you have followed me on social media, you've heard me talk a little bit about this topic and how The idea of a quiet time is actually more recent adaptation. It came out of the 1950s. Billy Graham, The Navigators, InterVarsity, kind of them talking about that concept. And then the culture of the time was much more introspective and individualistic in spirituality in general. So
Speaker: When we look further back, we see a devotional time more focused on intercession, on prayer, but still very personal with God. And to illustrate this point, I want to share with you one of the older I say older, 400 years, um devotionals, and it is the Valley of Vision Puritan devotional. I got this beautiful leather copy at a garage sale for a dollar.
Speaker: I know, such a find. I don't think it's ever been read. It even has the pretty gold pages. And I want to read you a section from the introduction because I think it illustrates what the purpose of a devotional should be that we can then use to discern modern-day devotionals.
Speaker: So this is what he said. The strength of Puritan character in life lay in the practice of prayer and meditation. Many of those who held the doctrines of grace wrote down a record of God's intimate dealings with their souls, not with an eye to publication, but, as in David Brainerd's case, to test their spiritual growth and to encourage themselves by their re-perusal in times of low spiritual fervor.
Speaker: Others, like William Jay and Henry Law, turned their personal devotions into corporate forms for family worship and published them to the church at large. Yet others, such as Philip Doddridge and William Romaine, wrote prayers into their literary works in order to evoke the reader's spiritual response. Many ministers went further and advised their congregations to put their private prayer thoughts on paper and vocalize them. There thus emerged an important corpus of inspiring Puritan prayers that are still largely unused.
Speaker: So what this introduction is describing is that the Puritans, who were made up of a variety of different denominations—so in our last week's episode, we talked about the different denominations, some that you'll recognize from that episode—Presbyterians, Congregationalists, English dissenters, so Baptists, and Anglican Evangelicals—all worked together to cultivate these Puritan prayers and meditations. So they were coming from different theological viewpoints, but across an ocean, gathering these meditations and prayers and putting them together into something that the church could benefit from and that we still benefit from in the Valley of Vision.
Speaker: So in my particular version, it's divided up into prayers. Like we have one here that's the Trinity prayer, God the all, God the source of all good. um And later on, you'll see praying over sins, praying for purification, contrition, um all sorts of different different types of prayers that are in here.
Speaker: But I'll read you one example. I'm going to read you the true religion prayer. lord god almighty
Speaker: Fast forwarding a
Speaker: may i pay regard to my principles as well as my conduct my motives as well as my actions fast forwardwarding a little bit says give me large abundance of the supply of the spirit of jesus that i may be prepared for every duty Love thee in all my mercies. Submit to thee in every trial. Trust thee when walking in darkness. Have peace in thee amidst life's changes. Lord, I believe.
Speaker: Help my unbelief and uncertainties. So there the rest of this book is full of prayers like this. And the benefit of something like this for Christians in that time and today is that it gives words for your prayers, for your meditations, scripturally based words to help guide your spiritual engagement with the Lord.
Speaker: And that is what a devotional should do. A devotional should be scripture based. It should be pointing you toward the Lord and towards prayer, not towards yourself. And it should be connecting you with the communal church. So whether that's your current local church or the Christians who came before you, like connecting you to the body, not pulling you out into individualism.
Speaker: Those are my parameters. That's what I'm looking for. Scripture-based, pointing me towards God, not towards myself, and connecting me with the whole body of Christ.
Speaker: So any devotional I'm reading should be leading me that direction. And one of the reasons I wanted to read this to you is to show you that devotionals are not a new idea. They are something that has been integrated into worship.
Speaker: Really, you could say even further back if we take liturgies and we say, hey, a liturgy is a form, a way to worship that could be integrated into a private time.
Speaker: Another example would be the Book of Common Prayer, translated by Thomas Cranmer in the fifteen hundreds I want to say it's 1536. And that was a staple for English-speaking Protestant worshipers. So,
Speaker: these books still today are part of our, the English speaking world's corpus of um works. And we use these as a basis for worship in Anglicanism and in reformed traditions. So for those of us who are now and living in 2026,
Speaker: And I always say I'm speaking as an American. And so I understand that my listeners who are international, your access to some of these resources may be more limited. It may not be the same. um So, you know, sift through what I'm saying and apply it to your situation. I don't know exactly what books and resources are available in every country that my listeners are in.
Speaker: But in America, we have just this inundation of books. You can see behind me so many books. You can have any kind of book. And it always feels like there's another devotional coming out, another devotional on another topic. And it could be about your words. It could be about insecurity. It could be about friends. it could be ah It's almost always topical, oftentimes based around someone's life experience. And while I don't think that's always bad, and you'll see some of these books that I'm sharing with you talk a lot about personal life experience, I do think that when we look at a lot of the devotions from before, such as this one, a lot of them were not so much focused on life experience and the individual experience of God, though they were interacting with God. They were more focused on
Speaker: holiness and then the outward expression of that holiness in community. So it wasn't so much, what am I feeling about God? How do I feel and interact with my world? It was more about in my emotion, because you can see a lot of emotion in these documents.
Speaker: In my emotion, how can I lead my emotions towards holiness and how can my holiness pour out into my community? There is a book I highly recommend for understanding the shift in our culture and why we think the way we do about not just things like sexuality, but um also the way that we think about the self, um the postmodern view sexuality,
Speaker: individual rights and emotions and all of those things. And the book is The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Truman. I highly recommend this book. It is so helpful for understanding how we got here and the impact of this ideology on Christian publishing and the accesss the books that we have access to today.
Speaker: So we've looked Valley of Vision. Just one example of a devotional that was made years ago. I wanted to show it to you because I want you to remember that devotions inherently aren't bad. They're not inherently shallow.
Speaker: It's just that the trend in today's publishing culture is that things that are telling a personal story and are light on scripture and heavy on experience tend to sell better than things that are heavy on scripture and light on experience.
Speaker: And so in the women's market, you're going to see more of what's selling, more of what's being successful. Now, I want to be clear that I don't think that books that include experience, again, are bad.
Speaker: I have shared stories in my own books. But I do have concerns when we're taking one woman's life with Christ, her model, and the entire devotion or entire story is built around that life, expressed around that life.
Speaker: When our lives, no two lives are the same. So we can learn from that. But I fear that if our main spiritual time is spent in books like this that are primarily storytelling a person's experience, that we're being more formed in the image of man than we're being formed in the image of God.
Speaker: We're being more shaped into someone's story than we're being shaped into God's story. We're more interested in hearing the drama that unfolded for her than how to walk through the drama that's in our actual life. How to actually be formed in holiness.
Speaker: I've been watching this trend more closely for the last three years, four years um in Christian writing, and I've gotten more and more concerned about it. um I have noticed that there's more and more personal storytelling, often by pointing to Jesus and say, Jesus spoke in parables, to which I say, Jesus was God, is God, you are not.
Speaker: but Also, parables are short stories to illustrate a spiritual point. They're not an entire book that's only about your life. So these are not these are apples and oranges.
Speaker: And the reason I'm concerned about this this continued person-centered spiritual teaching is that when you put a human person at the center of the spiritual teaching, you can't also put Christ there.
Speaker: You can't have both Christ and a human-centered story. Now, you can tell a story where Christ is the redemption at the the center, and there are humans, because, right, that's our testimony.
Speaker: But I want to just, I just would caution publishers, authors to just be so careful in, in making it about, and in saying this is for Jesus, but it's actually about you.
Speaker: Because people like to look at each other's lives. And so it sells. It's interesting. It's cool. It's influential. And we have to be very careful with that.
Speaker: The point of a devotion is for us to become more devoted to Christ, not more devoted to a person who follows Christ. More devoted to becoming holy, not more devoted to reading about holiness.
Speaker: more devoted to the words of God, not more devoted to the words of man. So a good question to ask yourself is, what is being produced in me by this book?
Speaker: Do I find myself jealous? find myself envious. Do I find myself only seeking solidarity in what I read? Or am I seeking to be challenged, seeking to grow?
Speaker: Am I seeking only affirmation of my choices? Or am I reading things that actually contradict me sometimes? Those are things that we need to think about and do. Am i reading books that are just comfortable for me?
Speaker: Or am i reading books that push me to ask, am I actually aligned with the Word of God? Do I line up in this area? those are those ah Those are some things I ask myself when I am reading a devotional.
Speaker: Now, how would I know when I'm reading something that I have a red flag? So one of my red flags when I'm reading something is when an author tells story after story of things other people did to them.
Speaker: pointing out their flaws, pointing out how wrong they were, things they said that were mean, relationships that fell apart because that person did X, Y, and Z, when it is a repeated pattern of everyone else is the enemy,
Speaker: I close the book because what that tells me is number one, as a Christian who is a critical thinker, I should want both sides of a story. Now, I might not always get both sides of a story. And in some cases, you don't need both sides. If someone came out of domestic abuse and is sharing their story, I'm going to listen to that story and respect the side that I'm hearing. um But I should still want, in general, to know as much about both sides of something as I can. And what I'm finding is that there's a trend in Christian women's nonfiction lately of
Speaker: telling their story, but actually they're telling other people's stories without their permission. And we don't ever get to hear that side.
Speaker: And I've just gotten so uncomfortable with seeing this in devotionals. Because when I'm writing a story, and when I'm sharing my side, I want to be so respectful and careful that I'm not changing other people's opinion of someone, which is the definition of slander.
Speaker: Gossip is closely related. I might not mention someone's name, but if I'm describing them in a way that they could recognize themselves in that account, I am responsible to God for how I shared that situation. And this is something I'm continuing to see show up more and more in Christian nonfiction in the name of sharing testimonies. I think we just need a lot of wisdom in what we consume in this regard. And I'll tell you one way that I failed in this. In my very first book, Stop Calling Me Beautiful,
Speaker: I told a story about a friendship that fell apart. It was a best friendship that I had years and years ago. And at the time when I was writing it, I was uncomfortable with it, but everybody was doing this.
Speaker: This would be seven, eight years ago now. No, nine years ago now. um Nine years ago, writing the manuscript and everybody was sharing stories like this in their books. And so I was like, well, I'll share it ah because it happened. like And I was really hurt.
Speaker: But I didn't feel settled about it at the time. And I went ahead with it because everyone else was doing it. And I regret it. I regret it. Because I did not have permission to share that story from the other person involved.
Speaker: And you don't know her side of that story. You don't know what happened in that relationship where I was wrong, where they were wrong. And so I regret putting that story in that devotional because...
Speaker: It allowed me to control a conversation around someone else who's not there to speak. And so when I see that now in devotional books, um it's a red flag for me. And it's something that I usually will not continue reading the book if I see a pattern of consistently talking about other people who wronged the person without the ability for those people to have any chance to share the whole story.
Speaker: To me, that does not align with what scripture says. And having done it, I i regret it and I wish I had not. And so that's one of my criteria. Another one is, um if in the devotional, it consistently points to life experience as the example of how to handle something versus scripture as an example for how to handle something. Now, you can use life experience to illustrate a point, but if you are constantly pointing back to your own life,
Speaker: you're not pointing people towards Christ himself. And that's a really fundamental difference in a devotional book. Again, is it pointing to Christ or is it pointing to self? Is it pointing to him or is it pointing to you?
Speaker: As an author, we have a heavy responsibility to not point to ourselves, but to point to him. And you will see that certain authors, they consistently produce work that points to themselves. And when that happens, you're going to produce disciples who are actually just fans of you. They're not fans of Jesus.
Speaker: They're fans of you. And that's a problem. I never want to create people, not create, but disciple people on this channel, on my podcast, on my books, who are like Felicia fans, but not ultimately Jesus fans.
Speaker: Oh, Felicia just said that so well. Well, if it's not pointing you to say, and now I want to study scripture and I want to be closer to the Lord, then I would rather you just not follow me because then I'm discipling you into Felicia-isms instead of into scripture um and and might as well burn the whole thing down.
Speaker: Okay, so let's look at a couple devotionals I think are really awesome that I think you would enjoy. i am going to make an Amazon list of these.
Speaker: I'm not saying you need to buy them through Amazon. I know Amazon is not my favorite. A lot of you don't like it either. So I would recommend grabbing these books through a place like christianbook.com or 10 of those, but Amazon makes it really easy to make book lists. So that's why I do it there.
Speaker: So these are a few of my faves. And most of these authors I have either met in person or communicated with in person so I can validate their character. um But sometimes there are books I read where I can't do that. And I still love them and I still read them and I still think they're great. um So I'm going to show you what I have.
Speaker: The first one is this one. I have never met this author, but I loved this book. It's called A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. It's by W. Philip Keller, and it's a timeless faith classic by Zondervan, but it was published um originally, let me see,
Speaker: My version says 2015, so it's not that old. But I loved this book because this man was a shepherd, believe in the Middle East. And so he looks at Psalm 23 through the eyes of someone who actually shepherded sheep.
Speaker: My sister and brother-in-law own a sheep farm in New Zealand. They have 800 sheep. So they've told me some things too. And it's so enlightening to look at scripture through the eyes of someone who understands sheep. these creatures who are referenced so many times. So a shepherd looks at Psalm 23. What I love about this and the why it meets my criteria is number one, it stays close to the scripture. It's literally going through each passage, each verse of Psalm 23, and then he's sharing his experience as a shepherd as it relates back to the scripture.
Speaker: So you're not just hearing his experience. You're not just hearing scripture. You're seeing scripture and then the context in which he lives and works and how that can help you understand the passage.
Speaker: Love this one. All right, my next one here. This is called Raised to Stay Devotional by Natalie Runyon. I had the privilege of meeting Natalie at Tori Hope Peterson's conference back in April, 2026. And Natalie will be speaking at Every Woman a Theologian conference in 2027. So we're very excited about that. um But the the subtitle is 40-Day Journey from Hurt to Holy. And what I like about Natalie's book is that this is a great book for someone who has gone through wounding in the church. Someone who has a hard time trusting the church again on healing and learning to forgive in a church setting. And so this devotional is very pretty.
Speaker: So it has a really pretty layout on the inside. And yet it's still looking first at scripture and describing that scripture And then asking, having a prompt, a journaling prompt at the end. So really love this one for people who are walking through um painful church experiences.
Speaker: Okay, this one is called Letters to a Future Saint by Brad East, Foundations of Faith for the Spiritually Hungry. Brad East is a theological genius, and i would read everything that he writes. I read all of his articles that I can. What I like about this book is that the devotions are quite short, and they're written as letters, but they walk you through really deep theological concepts in one page,
Speaker: and in a letter form. So it's it's this approachable writing, teaching deep theological truths, talking about how to grow in Christ, but doing it in such an accessible way.
Speaker: So the back cover copy says, in these letters, a fellow pilgrim addresses future saints, the bored and distracted, the skeptical, the curious, the young and spiritually hungry, interweaving scripture, poetry, and theological writings invites readers into the life of the church. So this one is something I would say this one's a little bit deeper. So if someone's been a Christian for a while, they really want to read something that pushes them, but it's very short at the same time, this is a great one.
Speaker: Okay. Untamed Prayers by Chad Bird. Y'all know we love Chad Bird, every woman a theologian. This is 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of Psalms. So nobody teaches the Psalms like Chad Bird, in my opinion. And this book um is fantastic. He starts with a Psalm. So you start, you go and read it, Psalm 73 here. And then he talks through the Psalm and helps you understand how to see Christ in that particular Psalm.
Speaker: Love this one. It's a thick one because, I mean, there's 150 Psalms and some of the Psalms he splits up into shorter passages. Love this one. I would say this would be good for really any Christian, any maturity level. Even a teenager would really benefit from this. And it also helps you understand the imprecatory Psalms that are praying for the condemnation of enemies, the the lamentation Psalms, and the songs of praise. So a lot of good in this one.
Speaker: I loved this book. This is When Strivings Cease, Replacing the Gospel of Self-Improvement with the Gospel of Life-Transforming Grace by Ruth Chusamans. So this book is one of those that really does have a lot of life experience shared, but you can trust Ruth to bring you back to the truth of Scripture. So like, for example, in this section, this chapter, She shares a lot of her childhood at the beginning of the chapter, but then this whole section of bullets is all specific scriptures with the truths extrapolated and reworded by Ruth.
Speaker: So this is an example of something that, yes, it shared personal experience, but as she moves towards the the back of that chapter, she is sharing how to point you towards the truth of scripture, not towards her experience. Nor is she oversharing things she didn't have permission to share. And so I really enjoyed that book.
Speaker: This book is called Adore by Sarah Haggerty, a simple practice for experiencing God in the middle minutes of your day. I know Sarah personally. She is a wonderful person and she's a beautiful writer. What I loved about this book is it really transformed my own prayer life. She's the one who first introduced me to the concept of adoration prayer, where you're adoring God and thanking him for who he is. And so this book really walks you through that. And what's cool about it is that she has...
Speaker: in the first half, more of the devotional side where it's kind of written the way you typically read trade book. But on the second side, you find 30 characteristics of God with which to adore him. So in the back, you have a scripture, ah short devotion, and then you have a prayer based on that scripture based on who God is. He's a restorer. And then a whole list of scriptures to pray about him being a restorer, tiny prayers and dialogues with God. So it's structured, scripture-based, leading you towards worship.
Speaker: Love this. My last one is Loved to Life, a 40-day pilgrimage with love himself that will change your life by Anne Boskamp. Anne is one of my dear friends. She lives just across Lake Huron from me. I've had the privilege of meeting her several times And this book is just stunningly written. Anne is the most poetic of writers. And so if you enjoy beautiful writing, I think Sarah and Anne are great choices. um But it's also pointing you to the heart of Jesus.
Speaker: This 40-day version, I think, is really fantastic. If you're going through Advent um or you're doing Lent, that kind of a span of time, it will draw you into the heart of God. So, um also has beautiful woodcut illustrations.
Speaker: But this is walking you through Jesus' life. It's going through the the ministry of Jesus and sharing with you how to see God's love and God's heart through the whole story and ministry in the life of Jesus.
Speaker: So again, scripture-based, pointing you to God, not just to experience. So I have a lot more I could share with you. a lot of devotionals that I really love and value. But ultimately,
Speaker: the books that I could recommend to you are going to be the ones that are not going to point you to a person or a celebrity or someone who's a bestseller or someone who's had you know all of these experiences and that's what gives them authority. No, an author doesn't get Christian authority from their experiences, though their experiences are helpful. I've had two miscarriages in secondary infertility. Can I talk about secondary infertility better than the person who hasn't had it? Yes, I can.
Speaker: But is that where my authority comes from to talk about the truth of God? No, that authority comes from the word of God and it comes from walking with God and by the Holy Spirit. So when we only listen to people based on their life experiences and it's all about how they make us feel and if we connect with them and if we feel like they get us, we're not using the correct criteria for what we're consuming and what is shaping our minds.
Speaker: I'm very concerned about women choosing books and choosing materials based on solidarity reading versus accountability reading versus maturity reading.
Speaker: Solidarity reading is easy. And absolutely, once in a while, that's great to do. But if you're only ever reading from people who make you feel good about where you're at, you will not grow.
Speaker: So I need to read from people who encourage me to grow, encourage me to think differently about different areas of my life. Natalie's telling me to forgive, to heal in the church.
Speaker: Brad East is telling me to expand my mind and understand the church tradition that I've been welcomed into. Ruth is saying, stop striving and trust God.
Speaker: Anne and Sarah are say, lift your eyes to the goodness of God and his love and embrace it. And I learned that by reading devotionals that are shaping me spiritually into the image of Christ, not into the image of my favorite author, including Felicia Masonheimer, if she's your favorite.
Speaker: All right. So that's thinking biblically about devotionals. If you would like more book recommendations, you can always contact us. But also remember on my Amazon storefront, I have a whole bunch of different book lists by topic. I have church history lists. I have theology lists. I have kids book lists. I have marriage book lists. They're all on there. All of my favorites.
Speaker: I love books. So if you need a book list, I've got them for you. and they are over there. But feel free to support your local indie bookstore, supportchristianbook.com instead of Amazon. You can just use those lists to grab what interests you and order it somewhere else. And as always, thank you for listening to Verity Podcast or watching our YouTube. Please subscribe and share. This helps other people find the podcast. And I will see you next time on Verity.
