How the Women in the Bible Point to Jesus | Nana Dolce

Episode Transcript

FamilyLife Today® with Dave and Ann Wilson; Podcast Transcript

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The Seed of the Woman (Part 1)

Guest:Nana Dolce

Release Date:September 25, 2025

Nana (00:00):

One of my daughters asked this question, “How come the Bible seems to be so much about men?” The story that God is telling includes women. It includes Shiphrah and Puah and Leah and Rahab. What do we miss about God when we miss the story of Rahab?

Dave (00:16):

Is that what you told your daughter?

Nana (00:17):

Yes. Well, I wrote this book too.

Dave (00:18):

It isn’t just a story.

Nana (00:19):

I wrote this book for her to see.

Ann (00:25):

When I was a new follower of Jesus and I started reading the Bible, I was surprised by the lineage of Jesus.

Dave (00:34):

In what way?

Ann (00:35):

I just felt so disqualified in terms of I felt like Christians were the good people. They had it all together. They didn’t have the past that I had. So then I start reading the Bible, I’m like, “Wait, some of these people are messed up.” And then when I started reading the lineage of the women where Jesus came from, well first of all, we have Eve who, she’s the one that sinned. And then I have you read about Rahab? Rahab was a prostitute. She wasn’t even a—

Dave (01:08):

There’s no way she’s in the lineage of Jesus.

Ann (01:10):

No, she’s a foreigner. She’s not a Jewish woman. And so when you start to read, you’re like, “Wait, God can use them?! These are the mothers and grandmothers of Jesus. And it made me question like, “God, can you use me with all of my junk?”

Dave (01:31):

And He is this very second.

Ann (01:32):

I’ve never thought that like right now.

Dave (01:36):

Pretty incredible. And we’ve got Nana Dolce with us today. Welcome, Nana.

Nana (01:41):

Thank you.

Dave (01:42):

Yeah, and obviously, you’re smiling because you wrote a whole book on several, I mean 30 different women that God has used. It’s called The Seed of the Woman: Thirty Narratives that Point to Jesus. I just love—Thirty Narratives—that wasn’t the end. Thirty Narratives that Point to Jesus.

Ann (02:02):

What’s your story of knowing Jesus?

Nana (02:03):

Oh, absolutely. So I was born in Ghana, which is in West Africa. And I came to the US when I was nine. And as a young immigrant, growing up, I think I went to church really to be with people who looked and sounded like me. And so there was, not some, I was practicing a lot of cultural Christianity.

(02:28):

And said I was a Christian, but really didn’t love God’s Word, didn’t have any Christian friends, was trying to be a good girl, would do my homework and get good grades. But as a rising sophomore in college, it became really clear to me that the righteousness that God required and demanded was more than good grades and being nice. That actually, the standard He was calling me to, I couldn’t achieve on my own. And if God didn’t reach down and help me and pull me up, it wouldn’t get done. And it was just very clear to me; this is more than good grace and being nice. God is calling me to his own righteousness, and He has to do this thing. So I prayed. I prayed and cried out to Him, and I really was a different person after that. I went back to college and was like, “Where are the Christians?” So I started doing Bible studies, joined a church eventually, and just enjoyed the Bible in a way I had never before.

Ann (03:27):

Did it come alive?

Nana (03:28):

It came alive. I understood it. I was asking questions. I was really reborn in a lot of ways. I was a new creature. I was a new person.

Dave (03:35):

And you even started listening to FamilyLife Today. That’s what we heard.

Nana (03:37):

I really did. I really did.

Dave (03:38):

There you go. We got to get a plug in.

Nana (03:40):

Yes. Yeah, I knew that. I hadn’t seen the example of what it was to live as I wanted to be married. I wanted to have children, and I wanted to know how to be a godly wife and mom. And so I did turn to FamilyLife to help disciple me in that way.

Dave (03:56):

You don’t have to say that I’m just—

Ann (03:58):

But we like it.

Dave (04:00):

Whenever I would preach that the promise of God started in chapter three of Genesis, people would come up to me every time and go, “I’ve never heard that.” Even that he covered them by shedding of blood was a foreshadowing of how this is going to come to be thousands of years later. And you just illuminated Eve’s role in that.

Nana (04:23):

One of the things I wanted to do in this book was to talk about 30 individual women, but at the end of it I wanted you to look back and see the big story of the Old Testament. And so we walk through Genesis to Exodus, and we go to the time of the Judges, the time of the Kings to the exile, and talk about women within the different time periods of Israel’s history. Some of them you’ll be familiar with; some of them you won’t be as familiar with, but I want you to see this grand story unfold, and to see the faithful God Who keeps His promise, and Who uses unexpected saviors.

So when Exodus begins—Exodus is this story that Moses is telling—he tells Genesis as well. He tells the first five books of the Bible. But I love how Moses can’t even get to himself until he talks about these six women first. All of them are actually women that are used to save him. The one who will be used to be the mediator of the exodus is himself saved by six women.

Ann (05:30):

You’re right. I had never thought of that, because it’s Moses telling the story, but he highlights them.

Nana (05:34):

He does in a beautiful way. So he starts with these two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, who are just these, they look like small fish in this big sea of this story. There’s this story of this big nation that’s multiplying and the Pharaoh who sees them as a threat and is trying to subdue them. And then comes these two little women.

Ann (05:56):

They’re nobodies.

Nana (05:57):

They’re nobodies. And yet the Pharaoh wants to use these nobodies as really his hands at the birth stool to smother the children and to kill them. And this pharaoh actually reminds me of the serpent in many ways. So actually, culturally, he wore a crown that had a cobra on it. So he’s this simple.

Ann:

I only know that through watching Moses, the movie.

Dave (06:23):

Even the cartoon.

Ann (06:25):

Yeah, but it must be true. You’re saying it is true.

Nana:

Yep, it is true. And so he very much represents—if there’s the seed of the woman, there’s also this seed of the serpent, because that’s part of the promise in Genesis 3:15, that the seed of the woman would crush the offspring of the serpent. And so this Pharaoh represents that in many ways.

And he comes to these two women and really gives them, these women that are nobodies, it’s almost like a chance to be somebody, right? You are Pharaoh’s—what’s the word I’m looking for—you’re Pharaoh’s—

Dave:

—instrument.

Ann:

H—henchmen.

Nana:

—instrument. You’re literally his hands of the birthstool. What a chance for them to have been the most feared women in that community. And yet it’s said that they didn’t fear Pharaoh, but they feared God. They feared God and they let the children live.

Ann:

And probably thinking that they would be murdered as a result, possibly.

Nana:

Sure. I mean, how do you say no to Pharaoh? And yet these women did because they feared God. And so the end of their story doesn’t end with less children, but actually with more, because God gives them families, and they add to the number because they fear God. So that’s Shiphrah and Puah. And then—

Dave (07:40):

Let me ask you this. As a woman, how do you copy that? How do you carry that spirit forward as a woman?

Nana (07:47):

Yeah.

Dave (07:48):

—knowing what they did? I mean, as you said, critical.

Nana (07:50):

Yeah.

Dave (07:52):

They don’t do that; all of history is different.

Nana (07:54):

Their stories actually remind me of, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Corrie ten Boom.

(07:59):

And how they, because of their fear of a greater authority, they actually don’t listen to the authorities of their day, and they hide, they hide the Jews. We can even look at people who hid slaves on the Underground Railroad, who subverted the authorities that were calling them to do something evil because of their fear of a greater authority.

How many, in smaller ways—those are dramatic stories—but it makes me wonder how many ways does God call me to fear Him over the things that call my attention to fear, just within the regular, everyday life of being a woman? Where am I tempted to fear and give my allegiance to something other than God, as opposed to fearing Him and trusting Him? It can be in small ways, or it can be in big ways, but I think we always have a chance to obey God and fear Him over other forces that call for our fear and that call for our obedience

Dave (09:00):

And even to see the value of a human. Those women are like, “This is a baby boy. He’s valuable. I’m not going to do something that would be wrong. I’m going to do the right thing.” I mean, I thought of Rosa Parks when you said that. I thought she’s like, “This is wrong. I could just obey, or I could say, “I need to be a voice.” Again, I’m not saying they’re the same, but you think of schoolteachers, you think of policemen and women. You think of all these sort of unseen moments where a woman can step forward and say, “I’m going to obey God, even though I’m told not to,” and suffer the consequences.

Ann (09:39):

And the ministry that we can have in those places of being in the medical field. There are so many—teachers—there’s just so many places where we can bring Jesus and the gospel into those, especially in our culture. I love that. “But they feared God more than man.” I think we can do it even in sharing the gospel where we’re embarrassed to talk about Jesus. I was thinking that the other day when we were at a restaurant. I was thinking, “Oh, I should have talked to her about Jesus.” And remember—

Dave (10:09):

I think you say that about every single person we meet.

Ann (10:11):

But I remember getting in the car thinking, “Lord, I don’t want to miss those moments of being afraid of what they’ll think of me. What are they going to think of me if I do? And who cares? I have the answers of eternal life.”

Dave (10:23):

I ended up one time in college—I came to Christ my junior year, and I was pretty much a wild kid until that moment. Not that I became perfect really, but copying my dad, drinking, womanizing. I come to Christ. I start sharing Christ on the football team at my university. But there was a guy on the team that was just a wild man, and he scared me. And I’m not kidding. One night I’m at a dorm across campus and there’s a party going on, and somehow there’s a bunch of people pushing down the hallway and I get pushed into this room by myself. I sit down. I’m like, I’m in somebody’s dorm room. And that guy, my teammate walks in. It was his dorm. And as soon as he came in, I’m like, “Man, this guy’s the biggest party on the team. He’s just a bad dude.” And I felt like God was saying, “Share me with him.” Again, long story short, I did; he came to Christ. I’ll never forget I was scared of him, and I felt like God said, “Do you fear Me, or do you fear some man?” And I share, he came to Christ, and his whole life was different. Again, these women are just unseen and yet they make a decision to overcome fear.

Ann (11:34):

Dave, sometimes they’re the people under our roof. It’s our husband or wife that they don’t know Jesus, or our step kids or our wayward kids. It’s a way of loving them, in a winsome way, not a condemnation, judgmental kind of way.

Dave (11:52):

Alright, we got to go back to Exodus.

Ann:

Okay.

Nana (11:53):

Yeah. So we don’t have time to go through all these women, but there’s Shiphrah, there’s Puah, there’s Jochebed, who is Moses’ mother who hides him for three months and then makes this basket, which the word for basket is the same as ark. So she makes a little ark and puts him in. And if you remember Noah’s story, it was the ark that became the safety in the judgment of the waters, the waters of death. So Moses, who writes Noah’s story, is saying, “My mama made me this little ark.”

Ann (HYPERLINK “https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/Tt39FdkCbDCWdz3QXjgksndwR8Wkzob7Mu0oixFBPHQRDEivmqCcYdkQlYqdLSqkIceV3jbZp9nlPgQqp5OmQYMj_v4?loadFrom=DocumentDeeplink&ts=743.17″12:23):

I never knew it was the same word.

Nana:

It’s the same word. It is the same Hebrew word, and it keeps him from those waters of death. His sister, Miriam is watching and intercedes, so that Moses goes back to his Hebrew home, and then this Egyptian woman—she was Pharaoh’s daughter. She should have been the first to obey her father, but she doesn’t act the part, and she adopts him. And then eventually his wife, Zipporah, who will intercede when the Angel of Death is coming to kill Moses because he doesn’t circumcise his son. She acts quickly and circumcises her son and applies blood, and the angel passes over. And so he doesn’t, Moses doesn’t get to him himself until he has mentioned these six women.

Dave (13:08):

Wow.

Nana (13:09):

All of them will save him and preserve him to become the mediator of the exodus, delivering God’s people from enslavement into that Promised Land. And so women are everywhere in the Bible, and God uses unexpected saviors to do his work.

Ann:

That’s really good.

Dave (13:28):

It’s neat to think that. I know God inspired Moses to write what he wrote, but a man chose, Moses chose to highlight women in front of himself. I think a lot of the history of Christianity in the church has been men pushing women down and not seeing their value. And yet we have an example all the way back to the second book of the Bible. It’s like, no, that’s never been God’s plan. Uplift those around you, especially women who don’t often have a voice. That hit you as well. And it just hit me when I was hearing you talk about it. It’s like, wow!

Nana (14:04):

Yeah. I mean, what it reminds me of again is that often in the story of scripture, God uses the unexpected person. We know that with David and Goliath for instance. We talk about that all the time, right? I’m trying to think of other stories where there’s an unexpected savior or someone that you don’t expect. Again, David and Goliath is what’s coming to my mind. But we see—

Dave (14:29):

David’s out in the sheep, taking care of the sheep.

Nana (14:31):

Yeah, kind of the outcast, the little boy. You don’t expect him to be the savior. But we see it so many times throughout Scripture with other characters including women. And then ultimately, even the Lord Jesus Himself comes in this unexpected way, right? He’s born in a manger. He’s poor. He doesn’t look the part in many ways, and He’s rejected, and then He dies on a cross. And that’s not what we were expecting.

We wanted this conquering, military—a cross? A sign of weakness? But it’s through that that God redeems sinners, through the cross and the resurrection. So God does things to point ultimately to His power, His glory, and uses unexpected saviors. It makes me think of the people that maybe we look down upon, that we disregard because they don’t look like what we would think. And yet God often honors the people that we may not choose in our human wisdom to honor.

Ann (15:29):

I remember thinking that when there were times that Dave and I would be speaking, and when you’re on the stage and the spotlights on you, people can think, “Oh, that’s so amazing. God loves them so much.” And so often, I remember I’m thinking of even our church of, we have these prayer teams of warriors that are just in the back room, praying and praying and praying for every person that came. Women that come so early, praying over every single seat as the people come into the auditorium and the sanctuary.

I’m thinking of the people that are parking. I’m thinking of the women that are coming really early to bring food. Nobody knows who brought the food. It just ends up being there every time. But they’re so faithful, and I think it’s such a good reminder that God doesn’t see the people that are on their social media accounts that are just killing it. He sees the person that has nothing but they’re faithful and they love Him, and every prayer is heard by God.

Nana (16:33):

I think what it encourages me is, be faithful with whatever God has given you to do. Sometimes it is the platform, and it is. And sometimes it’s just the quiet older mama who’s in her closet praying faithfully on her knees. Just be faithful with what God has given you. And He’s pleased to use whatever He’s given our hands to do to fulfill His purposes.

Ann (16:56):

And it all matters to God.

Nana (16:57):

Yes.

Ann (16:58):

And it’s important to God.

Dave (16:59):

And I would just say as a man—again, Nana, when you were talking it just hit me that the greatest people that have impacted my life the most are women. My mom, single mom, amazing woman. Who shaped my life, my dad or my mom? My mom. Dad wasn’t there. Not that he didn’t shape my life, but my mom.

And this woman right here, Ann. Man, oh man, I am not even sitting here without her in my life, and all these amazing truths and hard truths that she’s spoken in my life. And I thought, as men, we often can overlook that, and only celebrate men, which they’re important as well, but—

Ann (17:44):

Sure

Dave (17:45):

—even as you’re walking through these sort of unseen women that we’ve barely even recognized in the story, I would just say to the men, to the husbands, to the dads, “Turn to your wife, turn to your mom, turn to your sister, turn to your daughter and say, “Thank you.” I guarantee you, if you’re like me, they have shaped you probably as much as anybody else in your life. Don’t miss that moment.

Okay, that’s my little sermonette. Do you want to go to the women of the conquest? We got a few more minutes.

Ann (18:11):

Oh, I want to hit Rahab. Let’s talk about her just a little bit. Give our listeners just her background.

Nana (18:18):

Absolutely. Oh, I do love the story of Rahab. So when we get to Rahab, Moses, and they’ve come through the wilderness, but that first generation with Moses, all of them have died. Now there’s Joshua and a younger group of Israel going into the land, and the first thing Joshua says is, “Let’s go spy this land and see what we’re about to get into.”

So he sends these two men, and they go to the house of Rahab. The Scriptures say that she was a prostitute. She had this home, so they go there. And unfortunately for these spies, they must have not been very good because the king knows exactly where they are by verse two of the first passage of the first chapter. And so you’re like, “Oh, no. Rahab is going to turn them in.” She is a Canaanite, and she does the surprising thing, unexpected.

(19:08):

She hides them on her roof and tells her own government, her own king, “Oh, they’re not here,” sends them on a wild goose chase while she hides these men. And so you’re asking yourself, if you’ve never read the Bible before and you open it and you’re reading it, you’re like, “Why is she doing this?” So she goes to them, and she explains. She said, “I have heard about your God.” She literally retells God’s works in the Exodus and says, “I heard about these things, and our hearts are melting with fear because your God is the God of heaven and earth.”

(19:42):

And I love the story of Rahab because all the way in Exodus, when God is talking to Pharaoh, God says, “I am doing these acts of judgment really to reveal Myself to all the nations of the earth.” Now just imagine this prostitute woman all the way in Jericho. God was thinking of Rahab, even in His acts.

Ann:

As he parted the sea, as he brought the plagues.

Nana:

Yes. He said, “I did this to make myself known to all the nations.” And somewhere all the way in Jericho, Rahab hears the story, and she believes and renounces her own idols and says, “This is the God of heaven and earth,” and literally seals herself with Israel, and they save her. She puts this red cord; they know exactly where she is. They save her and her family when they come into the land. And it doesn’t end there. She marries a man named Salmon or salmon and will give birth eventually to someone named Boaz. And from Boaz will come Jesse, from Jesse will come King David and from King David—

Ann:

Boaz was married to Ruth.

Nana:

To Ruth, exactly, another non-Israelite, a Moabite, all the way to the Lord Jesus. And so Rahab is actually in the ancestral line of Jesus, of Jesus himself. I love her story because it doesn’t seem like she has much to offer.

(21:08):

In the sense that she’s a prostitute. She lies, right? It’s like, what does she have to offer? But in Rahab we see that God saves us, not because of our works. He saves us really because of saving faith. So she has saving faith, and that’s how everyone comes to Jesus.

Ann (21:27):

It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’ve been, what you’ve done.

Nana (21:29):

Doesn’t matter. Yep. I came with my good grades and all of that. And God said, “None of those is”— The saving grace that He by His Spirit enables you to have is what brings to you to Himself. No one can boast before Him, and Rahab shows us that.

Dave (21:46):

Yes, and also shows us out of your coming to faith, an entire legacy is changed—

Nana (21:53):

Absolutely.

Dave (21:53):

—all the way, obviously, to Jesus. But you sort of think, “I’ve messed up my life. I gave my life to Jesus. It ends there.” No, it begins there, because you’re going to impact generations to come.

Nana (22:02):

Absolutely.

Dave (22:03):

I mean, what a name in the lineage of Jesus. What a story.

Ann (22:05):

Yes. It’s so hopeful. It’s so hopeful. Let’s go to another woman that you liked and you liked studying Elizabeth.

Nana:

Yes.

Dave (22:14):

Oh, we’re going to skip Sarah and Hagar and Rebecca.

Ann (22:18):

And did you say Sarah or Elizabeth?

Nana:

I said Elizabeth, but there is Rebecca and Rachel.

Ann (22:25):

Yeah, let’s talk about—

Dave (22:25):

Let’s do that.

Nana (22:26):

Yeah, yeah,

Dave (22:27):

Yeah. So yeah, enlighten us on Rebecca and Rachel.

Nana (22:31):

Yes. I really love the story of those two sisters. I think, in many ways, when we think of sibling rivalry, we think of Cain and Abel. We may even think of Jacob and Esau, the twins that Isaac and Rebekah had. One of them stole his brother’s birthright with a stew, and his mom made him look like his brother, and so he had to run away. But there’s another set of sibling rivalry that we don’t always consider: the sisters, Rebecca and Rachel, rather Rachel and Leah.

Ann (23:05):

I think we said Rebecca and Rachel at first but Leah.

Nana (23:07):

Rachel and Leah. Yeah, Rachel and Leah.

(23:10):

So Jacob runs away because Esau wants to kill him, and he goes to Laban his uncle to kind of hide out, and also to find a wife. And he meets Rachel at this well, and it says that he loved her so much that he agreed to work for seven years, which passed like days because he loves her so much. But when the time comes to receive his wife, Laban tricks him, and gives Leah. And within the course of a week, he really becomes a husband of two wives. One of them, the Scripture says he loves, and the other it says he hated. It literally says he hated. And I cannot—I sympathize with Leah in so many ways!

Ann:

Oh, me too.

Nana:

I can’t imagine being hated by a man who still sleeps with her because she will give him many children, and yet, he doesn’t honor her with love. So Rachel is the favored wife, and yet she is barren. She is desperate for children! I have known secondary infertility. Secondary infertility is when you have children, but then, for some reason (whatever reason) you can’t conceive again.

And so for 10 years, I’ve been praying for a child, and the Lord has sent that child through adoption. But I can appreciate Rachel’s frustration with infertility.

(24:35):

And you see her doing everything she can. And so she goes to Jacob, and she says, “Give me children, or I shall die!” And then she gives her maidservant to him, and then she turns to these mandrakes. It’s like women who are trying to conceive and just doing whatever they can. But the scripture says finally she prays, and God remembered her, and she got her first son, and she named him Joseph. And Joseph is a name and a prayer. It means “May he add another.” There’s a desire for more. Where Rachel’s story gets interesting to me is when Jacob decides to leave Laban, it says that Rachel went and took her father’s household gods.

Ann (25:14):

Yeah. I just read that the other day. And I was thinking, “Here she is longing to have a child. Is that her good luck charm? Is she desperate for anything, any god?”

Nana (25:26):

Oh, absolutely. So one commentary that I read in writing this book said that these were nude figurines that guaranteed protection or fertility.

Ann:

So they were fertility gods.

Nana:

Yes. And so it makes me wonder the same thing, was this—God had listened to her and given her the son, but just in case he doesn’t come through again, maybe this is an added security, some extra little thing for me to get this other child that I want. And what’s interesting is when Laban comes looking for his gods, Jacob says, “Whoever has them will die!” And Rachel isn’t found with them. She actually sits on them, and yes, she does die. She dies giving birth to the very son, Benjamin that she wanted so much. And she’s buried along the road to Bethlehem.

And it is such a good warning for my heart because oh, I look to the Lord and I pray to Him for things, but sometimes there’s a temptation to hold on to something else just in case God doesn’t come through. My prayer is that He would help my heart, and the hearts of those who will read this book, really to know that Jesus is enough; that we can put our full weight on Him; that the story He’s writing for us is good and that we can trust Him.

Ann (26:44):

Well, it’s so interesting too, because she was longing for what she couldn’t have.

(26:49):

So it could almost become our idol as women. And then for Leah, her sister, she could have all these babies, but she didn’t have the love of her husband. And so that became what it really was like an idol for her. And I think in our marriage, when we were struggling in our marriage, my marriage became the idol. And I just thought, “If Dave would just get his act together, I would be so happy,” thinking that he was the source of my joy and contentment. I think it’s easy to do that as women even to wonder and think through as a listener. Are there other things that you’re thinking, “If I just had this, I could be content or be happy?” Because both those women were longing for that, and it didn’t come through a child, and it didn’t come through love necessarily.

Nana (27:41):

Yeah, yeah. The thing with Leah also that encourages me is that it reminds me—so Leah, oh, Leah suffered in so many ways. So she’s the object of her father’s deceit. She has this husband that doesn’t love her.

Ann (27:55):

When it says she has weak eyes, what does that mean?

Nana (27:55):

And then she has weak eyes.

Ann:

What is that?

Nana:

In general, there’s this sense it says, Rachel was lovely and beautiful in form, but Leah had weak eyes.

Ann:

Right, what is that?

Nana:

Can you imagine being compared to your sister? I have two daughters. I don’t want one to feel like she’s the second-thought one.

Ann (28:13):

Right.

Nana (28:14):

But then, even as you read Genesis, Leah suffers in other ways. So it’s her daughter, Dinah that’s raped by the prince of Shechem. And then, one of her sons will have an illicit affair with Jacob’s concubine, and then she watches her sister die. And so she suffers in so many ways, but I love the ways that God remembers Leah.

Ann (28:37):

Me too.

Nana (28:37):

So it literally says that when God knew she was hated, He opened her womb. And then, of all the children, it’s her son Judah that will lead the line to Jesus.

Dave (28:47):

There’s the remnant.

Nana (28:49):

Yes. And then, when she dies, actually, Leah is buried with Jacob in the burial plot that has Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Rebekah. She’s laid to rest next to the husband that had actually preferred someone else. And so Leah reminds me that God remembers us and sympathizes with us. She reminds me of the passage in Isaiah that calls Jesus the “man of sorrows,” who was rejected, and who was despised, and who was not esteemed. That is Leah’s greater Son.

And I love that In Christianity, we have a God who knows what we go through and can sympathize with us. In Jesus, He literally comes, and He suffers the same kind of rejection, the same being despised. God knows when I go through that. And Hebrews 2:17 says that He was “made like us in every way.” So He’s a high priest who can sympathize with us. I can go to Jesus in those moments when I feel like Leah, and He is a God who can sympathize with me, and I can go boldly to Him in prayer.

Ann (29:59):

I thought it was interesting, too, how she named her first three sons. Do you remember? Do you?

Nana (30:07):

Yes, so Ruben—absolutely, I have it here. It’s actually really sad when you read the names that she gives to these boys. So Ruben—the Hebrew word for Reuben is “look,” saying, “Because the Lord has looked upon my affliction, my husband will love me.”

Ann:

That’s her hope; that her husband’s will love her now.

Yes. Yes. And then Simeon means “to hear,” saying, “Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, He has given me this son also.” And then, third, she named her son Levi, meaning “to join.” She says, “Now, this time, my husband will be attached to me, because I have born him three sons.”

Ann (30:48):

And yet, then she has Judah, and she says what?

Nana (30:50):

“This time I will just praise. I’ll just praise Him.” Like, “It’s not working. Let me just praise the Lord with this fourth one.”

Dave (30:58):

I mean, do you gals feel a little bit of that Leah sense, that I’m not seen, I’m discarded. Men are more important. I don’t know, I’m just putting words out there. But have you felt that as a woman? Because she felt that, and yet, she was the one carrying the promise. So the truth was different than her reality. But I think women can often feel that even—I don’t know any other book that’s walked through 30 women in the Bible. You know what I mean? Seriously, it’s like nobody’s writing those.

Nana (31:30):

Sure.

Dave (31:31):

And yet extremely important. Do you feel that sometimes as a woman?

Ann (31:35):

I mean, I do. I would guess almost every woman has felt at a point like, “No one sees me. I’m not good enough. I’m not loved enough. I’m not beautiful enough. I feel rejected.” I don’t know if there are any women that feel like “I’m amazing!” They could, but most of us have some wounds in the past that create that gap of need for like, “Does anyone—?” And the whole time, God is saying, “I do. I see you. I know you. I love you. I knew you in your mother’s womb. I have knit you together, and I see you and I have a plan for you.”

Nana (32:16):

Yeah, beautiful. I think we all have moments, whether it’s because of your age, or your ethnicity, or your gender, or your family, or your bank account—just there are times when you’re going to feel passed over. I mean, we can all tell stories here about that. What I love is I was listening to a story about there’s been different. There was a podcast I was listening to about a school shooting and how people in the town were sympathizing with these parents who had lost children, but other parents in the country who have lost children literally flew to be with those mothers and fathers. Sitting across from someone who has been through what you’re going through—there’s an encouragement you get from that. What I love about Jesus is that, in Him, we have a God who has been through whatever you can go through. That’s Who we literally sit across from when we go to Him in prayer. And so He gets it, and Scripture says that He’s a faithful High Priest. I can come boldly to Him in those moments. That’s our God!

Ann (33:24):

That’s our God. Yeah. So Nana, as we finish up this day, and even as we hit these important women, what do you want women to walk away with? You’re a mom. You have two daughters and a son. I’m listening to you and I’m thinking, “Oh, as a woman, and especially with daughters, I would want my daughters to know God can use you.” What do you feel like as we end, what do you hope women will feel?

Nana (33:52):

Yeah. I’ve heard from some women who have said—actually one of my daughters asked this question. I have two very different daughters. One is an introverted; the one is very extroverted, and she ask good questions. And so she has asked, “How come the Bible seems to be so much about men?” This is my 9-year-old. She’s asking me that question.

Dave:

Nine-year-old. Wow.

Nana:

And that’s unfortunate, because I think there are people who think that; that the Bible is mostly just about men. And we do a disservice when we only, especially in the Old Testament, teach the narratives just on the men. We can learn a lot from those. They are in the Bible. They’re important for us to learn.

But I think we need to dig and see all of—this is the Word, and the story God has given us. And if it includes women, what are we missing from that story when we don’t teach the narratives of women? And what are we telling the church and even our children when we don’t teach the narratives of women? And so the story that God is telling includes women. It includes Shiphrah and Puah and Leah and Rahab, and what do we see? How do we see this God? Or what do we miss about God when we miss the story of Rahab?

Dave (35:13):

Is that what you told your daughter?

Nana (35:15):

Yes. Well, I wrote this book, too.

Dave (35:16):

It isn’t just a story.

Nana (35:17):

I wrote this book for her.

Ann:

I was going to say, you can tell that Nana is a professor. You’re a great teacher. And if you were to summarize your life, if years from now someone took a look at your life, what would you hope they would find and say about you?

Nana (35:33):

Oh, I hope that I’m a woman whose story is pointing to Jesus.

Dave (35:38):

Subtitles.

Nana:

So we have 30 women here, but the story doesn’t end with Mary, right? It continues into the New Testament and all those women Jesus interacted with. It goes into the first century Church. And all those amazing women, even when you read church history, there are all of these amazing women, right? All the way down to church history. We mentioned Rosa Parks. We mentioned Harriet Tubman. All of these are women of faith. When it comes down to Nana Dolce, I hope that I’m living my life in a way that is pointing others to Jesus. That I am a woman who believes that God is faithful, keeps His word, so I can live today trusting that His promises come true, and that it reflects, my everyday life reflects that truth.

Ann (36:24):

That’s good. Really good. Hey, thanks for watching. And if you’d like this episode,

Dave (36:30):

You better it.

Ann (36:30):

Just hit that like button

Dave (36:31):

And we’d like you to subscribe. So all you got to do is go down and hit the subscribe—I can’t say the word subscribe. Hit the subscribe button. I don’t think I can say this word.

Ann:

Like and subscribe.

Dave:

Look at that. You say it so easy. Subscribe. There it goes.

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