Coasting in Neutral

(Proverbs 1:8 KJV)  My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:

The current step in the church conforming to culture is in “gender neutral” translations.  The goal is to remove all of the pronouns “he” and replace them with the gender neutral “they.”  Sunday when I was listening to someone read from the New Living Translation I was following in my NASB.  I was struck by the many times that the masculine pronouns were replaced by the neuter pronouns.  Not only did they change the gender but they changed the number from singular to plural.  I guess the idea is that God was confused and we need to straighten Him out.  They would have rewritten that last part as “needs to be straightened out.”

This verse is an example of Biblical “gender neutrality.”  Notice that both parents are mentioned in this verse.  I think this is an indication of the value that the Bible teaches on the place of women.  This puts the mother on a level with the father.  We see this approach expressed in different forms through the book of Proverbs. 

While God is referred to as father and the husband is given the responsibility of head of the family the Bible is clear in both Old and New Testaments that there is an equality in believers that goes beyond our social roles. 

(Genesis 1:27 KJV)  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

(Galatians 3:28 KJV)  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

So?  Resist the contemporary trend to remove real distinctions.  Although we are of equal standing before God, we are not the same.  God knew what He was doing.