Hey! My name is Ndanu, a Kenyan by birth, a daughter, wife, and mom to two beautiful children.
Daughters, Not Sons: Wrestling with Identity in Christ
Hey! My name is Ndanu, a Kenyan by birth, a daughter, wife, and mom to two beautiful children. These titles are most important and honorable to me as a child of God, with my identity hidden in Christ. I believe this is so, so that I can keep on pursuing Him to be first revealed to who He is and as a reward, be given a name that no one knows! And I look forward to it all. Praise God! Recently, I had a little misunderstanding with someone on Instagram after I mentioned that she’s a daughter of God, not a son of God. She didn’t take it too well and ended up blocking me. It made me smile a bit and think, “Maybe it’s better to share my thoughts openly rather than in private messages.” Soinstead of DMs, I decided to write about it, and here we are!
But honestly, I think it’s correct to recognize ourselves as daughters. In fact, Genesis 6 paints an interesting contrast: “That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair” (Genesis 6:2 KJV). The Bible clearly distinguishes sons from daughters, showing that God’s Word did not flatten the genders into one.
So how did we end up with women calling themselves “sons of God”?
Questioning Pauline Sonship
Much of this idea comes from Paul’s writings. Take Galatians 4:26 in the NKJV, often quoted to support
spiritual sonship: “But the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.”
Paul, in most of his letters, usually addresses “the brothers.” Yes, in Galatians 3:28 he says, “There is
neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” But notice, he tells us what is not there, which
is the male and female structures. He goes ahead to say we are ONE, and by one, He did not say we are
sons! At a later stage he addresses the sons and speaks to the brethren as he did in other scriptures and
he was simply talking to the men.
So at what point did we read Paul’s letters and assume he mistook women to be sons? I do not think Paul, who was so deliberate and precise in doctrine, would make such a grave mistake. So then, what is the true identity we as women carry in Christ? I think there is a hidden dispensation somewhere in God’s Word that speaks about the daughter ship in Christ, a mystery yet to be revealed in its fullness. And I believe this revelation would help women pursue God in the rightful place of being daughters, affirmed in who we are, without feeling the need to borrow an identity never meant for us. The reality is that the Bible is deeply patriarchal in its cultural setting. In the Temple, the women’s court was on the outer part, while the men could go further in. Yet even this structure might carry meaning for us. Perhaps it was not simply about exclusion, but about function, showing us that women have a role in helping the sons of God step into the holy of holies. For when they do, the glory of God is revealed upon the earth.
In that light, Paul’s frequent addressing of “the brothers” may not mean women are left out, but that his
focus was primarily on guiding the men into their place of sonship, kingship, and priesthood. Our role as
daughters may then be to strengthen, nurture, and support that journey so that the fullness of God’s order can be revealed. This tension is also seen in Acts 21:27–29, where Paul was accused of polluting the temple by bringing Greeks into it:
“And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him, crying out, Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place. (For they had seen before with him in the city Trophimus an Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the temple.)” —Acts 21:27– 29 (KJV)
learly, temple identity and gendered spaces mattered deeply in that time.
The Bible’s Use of the Feminine
Another point we cannot ignore: the Bible frequently uses the female image for structure and meaning.
- The Bride of Christ is a central metaphor for the Church (Ephesians 5:25–27; Revelation 21:2).
- Cities are often portrayed as women—Jerusalem is called a woman in Isaiah 66:10–13,and the New Jerusalem is described “as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2).
- Wisdom is personified as a woman: “Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars” (Proverbs 9:1 KJV).
This shows that femininity in Scripture is not erased—it is exalted for symbolic and structural purposes. Sons may inherit, AND daughters give identity and life. The bride gives covenant meaning. The city gives belonging. The mother gives comfort and birth. So perhaps the tension is not that women are excluded from spiritual inheritance, but that God deliberately reserved certain metaphors, sonship for legal inheritance, daughterhood for nurture, bridehood for covenant, and womanhood for birthing and building. Both male and female imagery together give us the fullness of God’s household.
Wrestling with Identity
Perhaps our role is not to wrestle the title of “sons” from Scripture but to embrace the fullness of being daughters of God, which is no less powerful. Perhaps our part is to guide men to live in obedience as kings and priests, as Jesus commanded, while we stand in our God-given place of birthing, nurturing, and multiplying life, both physically and spiritually. Even Eve’s act of eating from the tree can be read as a disruption of order, reaching for something before it was given. Could this mirror the danger of women trying to claim a form of sonship that was never theirs to begin with?
Maybe the point is not whether we are called “sons” or “daughters” but whether we live faithfully in the
family of God. Still, it stirs my heart to think: perhaps heaven does not erase daughterhood after all. If God has a family in heaven and on earth (Ephesians 3:14–15), then daughters must be as much a part of that household as sons. And yet, I cannot ignore one thing: this whole sonship/daughterhood issue is deeply tied to submission.
It speaks to how we as women struggle to be submissive because we want equality so badly, we want to be at the front with the men. And therefore, calling ourselves “sons of God” may be part of our struggle with submission. But that’s another conversation for another day… and it’s an article I’ll be writing very soon.
The Promise of Revelation
At the heart of this, I desire for the revelation of Christ. When Jesus met Saul on the Damascus road, He
transformed him into Paul, and Paul spent three years in the wilderness of Arabia learning the depths of
sonship. His writings give us much of what we now wrestle with.
But where are the stories of the women? The women Jesus interacted with? The women who saw Him
first at the resurrection? The women who could help us as daughters of God find our affirmation, not only
as children of God, but as heirs of His kingdom in a way that honors our womanhood?
I think there is a hidden dispensation somewhere that talks about the daughtership in Christ, and it would
help women to pursue God at the rightful place of being a daughter.
I desire to see the revelation of Christ through women too. All the New Testament writings were authored
by men, and I wonder: why did the Holy Spirit allow it to be so? Was it so that we, as women, would
remain hidden in Christ, just as Eve was hidden in Adam at creation, waiting to be revealed at the
appointed time, carrying a word the world has not yet fully heard?
Let us remember that when Christ rose, the first witness was not Peter, James, or John—but Mary
Magdalene:
“Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.
Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and
say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. Mary Magdalene
came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.” —
John 20:16–18 (KJV)
So perhaps the revelation of Christ through women is not absent it is waiting for us to honor it.
I have much to discuss with my daughter as she grows, but today I am simply grateful. Grateful to have
asked these questions out loud. Grateful to have written this article.
