"Pronouns"!  This seems to be the talk of the day, and it truly is a sign of the times.  We are well into a gender identity crisis that has taken about a hundred years to bloom, starting with the early twentieth century woman's liberation movement, developing into radical feminism and the sexual revolution, and then the very question of what is a "man" or a "woman" anyway.

I'm being careful about how I word all this, because this video streaming platform is becoming more and more hostile to the Christian faith, and I know their algorithms will scan the audio to detect any non-compliance to the platform's guidelines and policies.  So, bear with me and read a little bit between the lines as I try my best to avoid triggering their algorithm's hot buttons.

I'm a baby boomer, obviously, and I was schooled in English language convention as it was in the 1960's and prior, before feminism made politically correct alterations to the English language.  It started with "Ms." to neutralize "Miss" vs. "Mrs.," then he-slash-she or s-slash-h-e, so as to be, quote, "inclusive," unquote, and evolved from there.  But in English, the pronouns "they," "them," "their" -- that's t-h-e-i-r --, "they're" -- that's t-h-e-y-apostrophe-r-e --, are plural.  They refer to a plural number of persons, not one.  If you are speaking of a singular person and you know the gender, then you use "he" or "him," or "she" or "her," as appropriate.  If you do not know the gender, or you are speaking about an unspecific person in general, then you use "he" or "him."  Then there is the word "themselves" but no such thing as "themself."  Hmm.  Spellcheck just underlined that one while I was typing out my video script.  How about that!

Like most, I was lulled into using "they," "them," and so on, as singular pronouns, as the twentieth century progressed, and this infiltrated my online articles and video speech.  YouTube won't let anyone edit already-uploaded videos, but I am going through all my articles, at least, to fix the problem and go back to proper English as we learned it before the depravity of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries not only altered the language, but began to establish standards of, quote, "hate speech," unquote, that would apply to offending language terms and usage.  But the message of this video is to admit that I was lulled into this gender-neutral language usage to a point, and that now I am back-tracking and fixing it in my writings and my daily speaking.  I don't know about you, but I am not letting feminists and gender ideologists dictate English language changes to me.

Okay, check this out.  Here's a sanity check for you.  For those who insist that "they" and "them" are not, or no longer, marked for number in English, meaning they can be used as singular or plural, then what about the English language usage of these words for inanimate objects?  Proper grammar would be, "I found some rocks [plural] and put them in their place."  But would you say, "I found a rock and put them in their place."?  Why then would it be proper grammar for me to say, "I found a gender-neutrality activist and put them in their place?  Hello??

While on this subject, I also have a warning about Bible translations.  More and more now, modern Bible translations are buying into this modern political/social correctness, which is political/social depravity, and substituting gender-neutral terms for "man," "brother," "son," and so on, where these terms occur in the original Hebrew and Greek text.  The most notable case was the NIV 2011.  That story is a fiasco in of itself, but in a nutshell the International Bible Society-renamed-Biblica used its legal copyright power to effectively ban further hardcopy and digital publication of the 1978/1984 NIV, which was not gender-neutral.  Besides that, the TNIV, NRSV, NLT, NCV, CEB, CSB, and, most recently the 2021 revision of the NASB, have gone gender-neutral.  Thankfully, the Lockman Foundation did not ban the 1995 NASB, which is not gender-neutral, and you can still acquire digital copies, although the hardcopies are naturally aging out of print, and Lockman is a small publishing house that does not have the financial means or sufficient customer demand to keep publishing them.  You can also find some gender-neutral language in the ESV, but the translators did not make it as a specific goal to neutralize gender, so the occurrences of gender-neutral language there are sparse.

In terms of biblical truth and biblical roles for men and women, I want to make this clear:  The man, Adam, was created in the image of God.  The woman, Eve, was created out of the man.  These are the facts.  Don't like that?  Deal with it.  We're talking biblical creation now, not evolutionary pseudoscience with its associated fairy tales and wishful, godless thinking, which makes us out to be evolved animals.  From Genesis 2:23-24 to Eph 5 we learn that the role of the man and the woman, particularly in marriage, is a type and foreshadow of Christ, the bridegroom, and the bride of Christ, the εκκλησια, his out-called, traditionally translated "church."  Christ is Lord over his bride and his bride correspondingly submits to Christ, and not the other way around.  At the same time, there is no room for "abuse," since Christ cherishes his bride and offered up his life for her with the ultimate sacrifice and redemption of her.  No, God is not a "man" or "male," complete with reproductive sex organs and whatever, nor does he have a corresponding or co-equal female goddess up in a throne on Mt. Olympus.  As Creator of everything, he created them "male and female."  The man he created from the dust of the earth in his image.  That's why we say that "man" and "mankind" is in the image of God, not "woman" or "womankind."  That's why the default terms are "man," "he," "him," "brother," and "son."  The woman he created from the man's body.  That means that the man, the husband, owns the woman, his wife, as she came out of his body and was given back to him by God, after which he named her "Eve" and made the declaration, "bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh."  Don't like what the Bible says?  Don't argue with me.  I didn't write it and I didn't make the rules.  Again, the man owns his woman as a type and foreshadow of how Christ owns us, we who have surrendered our lives to him, yet he cherishes us and offers up his life for us.  So, there is no "abuse" here in the ideal relationship between a man and a woman, Christ and his bride.  It is the ideal relationship of mutual love and acceptance.

Okay, is the woman also in the image of God?  Well, yes, indirectly, obviously, because she came out of the man.

Also, keep in mind that there are, quote, "daughters of men," unquote, but no such thing as, quote, "daughters of God," unquote.  In the new birth, the old man (or woman, as the case may be), dies, crucified with Christ, and the "daughters of men" in the new birth spiritually become "sons of God," not "daughters of God."  They are now "daughters of men" and "sons of God."  The woman now identifies as having "Christ in her," and Christ is a man, not a woman.  So, there is a distinction between earthly roles as women and spiritual roles in Christ.  That also provides for that the woman has the spiritual authority of Christ to evict any demonic behavior out of her man, who is supposed to cherish her and not abuse her.  In principle then, with that remedy in mind, there can be no "abuse" of a woman of faith.  But, alas, we live in a fallen world full of sin, faithlessness, and impropriety.

At the same time, although we, men and women, are "adopted sons of God," we are all the "bride" of Christ.  So, now we are all women in the eyes of Christ.  You get it?  I hope so.

So, hopefully this explains the roles of men and women according to scripture, and also why English language gender conventions were established the way they were, since they were heavily influenced by scripture and the Christian world view.  And, I don't know about you, but I am sticking with those conventions, and endeavoring to make corrections wherever I have slipped up.  I am not going the way of the world.  Again, I am not letting feminists and gender ideologists dictate English language changes to me.  Now, what are you going to do?