Welcome to Man Talk, brought to you by TAWCMN, talking and walking Christian men's ministry where they're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination, and challenging men to take their God-assigned role. Here's our hosts Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Well, we thank you all for joining us again here on Man Talk. And Roy, I don't know about you, but I am thoroughly excited about our guest today. Always a pleasure to speak with Justice Newby.
He always challenges me, even in just the briefest conversations with his scripture knowledge and how he loves the Lord and just the efforts that he's putting forth to try to change today's life for the kingdom. So listening audience, today we have the Honorable Justice Paul Newby joining us by phone. And so, Justice Newby, we'd like to thank you for the opportunity to just talk with you today on Man Talk. I'm delighted to be with you all, and thank you for what you're doing. You know, it's so important that we Christians dialogue about things that bring disharmony among the body, and I really appreciate what you all are doing to bring healing. So thank you. Thank you, Paul.
Paul, we've only got about 30 minutes with you today, but we want to maximize that time. So we're going to jump right in with the questions, and just feel free wherever God takes you with your answers. When I think about Paul Newby, I think about an Eagle Scout, I think about a professor, I think about an attorney general, I think about a Supreme Court justice. Would you just, for a quick moment, tell me what the role that your father played in your life as you went down this journey? Yeah, you know, my dad was a true man of faith. He had a bit of a hard upbringing.
He was what, in the printing trade, is known as a linotype operator, that's a blue collar worker. But he was very disciplined in his quiet time, and he would get up, and I can remember, as I would be getting ready for school, he would be on his knees praying, he would be diligently reading the Scriptures daily. I hit those teenage years, and I know he prayed a whole lot more.
I'll take credit for that. But just seeing him take that responsibility, frankly, he didn't have a real nurturing or loving father. He had a very, by today's standards, would be a very harsh upbringing. But I think through study of the Scripture and through seeing the way that other men acted as dads, he was able to learn, and certainly devoted himself to my older brother and to me, in terms of spending time with us. His true hobbies were just being a daddy. He was working a lot of hours to try to provide for the family. Mom was a schoolteacher, and they worked hard, and they sacrificed for my brother and me. So to see my dad in that role daily, on his knees before the Lord, but also he understood the role of the church in helping our family grow spiritually.
So he was always involved, you know, as an usher or, you know, counting money or carrying the money. At one point he actually let the thing in at a small church, and he was willing to do whatever job needed to be done. And I know that was a great role model for me in terms of seeing the importance of the local church. I think in our culture today it's very easy to kind of think we can be Lone Ranger Christians, and that's not the model I see in the Bible. You know, the church is the bride of Christ, and it's the broad church, the universal church, the body of all believing individuals make up that body. But still the local church has a significant role.
That's a great point, Paul. One of the things that you're sharing there comes to mind is obviously your father played an important role, and he broke the legacy, as you were telling the story. He broke the legacy. And I think for men that are out there listening today, that's important to know. It doesn't matter how you grew up or what your experience has been, you can indeed break the legacy and change that for your children and for the rest of your life. Let me say, you know, one of the things that was significant in his breaking that legacy was seeing fathers that had different approaches.
And I think that's vital. I know that both of y'all have hearts for this, but it's vital for folks our age to be willing to mentor, to spend time with younger men, and to help them learn. Perhaps they didn't have the best models in their dads. But I think we as men of God are called to be that for younger men.
And that was my dad. He had some older men, actually it was my mother's dad, who I think really helped him see that it's a good thing for your children to like you and not just fear you. But it's by God's grace that he was able to learn that, to see it, and then to put that into practice. What a great point, Paul. That's wonderful, Judge Newby, because, you know, there's a lot of men out there without father figures and so many men, I think they come to this realization that if I don't have a father figure that is willing to love me and to nurture me and to teach me the scripture, then I have to find that nurturing somewhere else, which is typically outside of the boundaries of the law.
And so how, from that standpoint, how can a young man, what would you say to that young man to put him on the right side of the law? Yeah, you know, it's so interesting in scripture that we don't have a lot of young people mentioned in scripture that had good daddies. And I want to point particularly to Timothy. The apostle Paul kind of took Timothy as a spiritual son, but when you look at all the references to Timothy and Acts and then the letters from Paul, what you find out is Timothy had what we would call a Bible-believing grandmother. He had a mother that strayed, married a Gentile, probably at some point repented, because I think the name Timothy has something to do with the Lord being faithful or something like that.
So, you know, again, I'm just putting some pieces together. But it's clear that Timothy's daddy was not part of the picture. Did he die when Timothy was young? Did he kick his mother and young son out of the home because she had gone back to her Jewish roots and then ultimately became a follower of Jesus?
We don't know, but he's not there. And Paul calls Timothy his son in the faith. So, you know, I understand to the extent that I can that when there is what seems to be rejection by a daddy, that that leads to anger.
And, you know, I've read an autobiography of successful African Americans who grew up without dads and how they were able to overcome that. And generally, that overcoming is through faith in God through Jesus Christ. It's through forgiveness. You know, when we don't forgive, who are we hurting? We're hurting ourselves. We've allowed that person to hurt us twice.
They hurt us the first time, and then by not forgiving them, they're hurting us continually. So, this sounds simplistic, but a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is the thing that will bring healing to that wound. It's total acceptance by the God of the universe. And Scripture, in the book of Psalms, it says, when your mother, Father, forsake you, the Lord will take you up. So, my encouragement to young people who don't have that father figure is, I mean, we all have one of two choices. You know that little poem that says, only two choices on the shelf, pleasing God and pleasing self. Okay? I mean, you can go to God or you go to self, and every time you go to self, you're going to end up empty.
Every time. Indeed. Five people today will die of an opioid overdose in North Carolina. The crisis is epidemic proportion.
Yes, it is. And what it is, is a crisis of hopelessness, because people don't understand that they are created by a loving God who knows each person by name. I mean, it goes beyond that.
He knows all the hairs on our head. Now, it's pretty easy when it gets to me, but, you know, there are a lot of folks, that's a whole bunch of counting to do. I'm in that zero counting, Justice Newby. But my point is, you are not a cosmic accident. You're not just kind of put here for your own selfish reasons, and when the bad outweighs the good, suicide or drug overdose. I mean, that's not why you're put here. You're not going to find fulfillment or satisfaction in drugs or alcohol or sex or popularity or power. None of that stuff leads to the kind of peace and contentment and satisfaction that we all long for.
We long for. And if they can just hear the God of the universe knit you together in your mother's womb, you're not an accident, you're not a mistake, you're not an afterthought. God knew you individually by name before He put the world together. That's unbelievable, Paul. And people think about that.
God loves you that much, that He knows every bit about you, that He put you together before you ever arrived. We've got to go to a quick break. Justice Newby will be right back with you. Folks, we appreciate you joining us. Hang in there with us.
We'll be back in just a couple of moments. TAWCMM would love to have you join their community of men for breakfast every first and third Friday of every month. They have Bible discussions and fellowship after the best breakfast in town. The meeting location is at their gracious Host Church First Christian Church in Kernersville, 1130 North Main Street in Kernersville. They have a hard start at seven o'clock and a hard stop at eight o'clock. First time visitors eat for free.
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Message and data rates may apply. Welcome back to Man Talk Radio, and we have the Honorable Justice Newby on the line. And Justice Newby, when we left for the break, you were very passionate in describing those things that young men need in order to keep themselves on the right side of the law. And I want to go back to one point you made in reference to mentoring. How important is a mentor for a young man, and how do you sort of match a mentor with the young men that we have out here?
How do you match those two personalities together, in your opinion? I think that's one of the vital roles of churches, the body of believers. So let's say I'm a young man and I'm looking for answers, and I go into a church. Hopefully there will be some older men that will dissent upon me, that they will want to take me to lunch, that they will want to spend some time with me to get to hear what's going on with me. And then at the same time, as I get to know them, and I see God at work in their lives, that I will want that for myself if I'm the young man.
It's like we talked about before the break. Life's full of choices, and you're going to end up being like the people you hang out with. And if you hang out with folks that are on the wrong side of the law, that's where you're going to end up. But if you hang out with people who are trying to live their lives to honor God, then I think you're going to be encouraged to seek God as well. That deserves an amen, hallelujah, and praise the Lord all in one breath. Paul, that's a great lead-in to my next question. I was going to ask you if we can go back to the legal side of your career. We are about breaking down the walls of race and denomination.
Along the path of having a role model and a father in the house, and if you don't have a father in the house that's leading, to seek out that mentor. In your experience, Paul, on the bench, is there a particular race that you've seen more of as it relates to men in front of you? And if so, why do you think that is?
If you were to provide a root cause, is it a white group, is it a black group, is it a Hispanic group? And if there is a differentiation in the number of people that you've seen throughout your career, what would you say is the root cause of that? So there's a big difference in the appellate process and the trial process. So the trial process, the defendant is in court, the judge, the jury, everyone sees the defendant.
The appellate process, which is the court of appeals, and then ultimately to the highest court in the state, which is the Supreme Court, that's my court. We're looking for errors of law. In other words, it's up to my court to ensure that everyone gets a free trial, free from error, that impacted the outcome. So not a perfect trial, they're not perfect judges, despite what we think about ourselves. No perfect judges, no perfect lawyers, no perfect jurors. So it's a fair trial free from error that would have impacted the outcome. So from my personal experience as an appellate judge for 16 years, there are certain jury challenges and things like that where race is an issue. But generally speaking, on the cold record, unless you dig and go look for it, you don't know the race of the people before you.
So I do want to make it clear that from that perspective, it's a colorblind system. But as an appellate judge, and opportunities to interact a lot with the trial judges, one friend in particular who was a longtime trial judge, now retired, he made this statement. He said he always asked the defendant before he sentenced him.
He'd ask, of course, if he had anything to say. And then the judge would say, tell me about the relationship with your dad. He said he never, ever had a violent criminal who had any relationship with a father. As a matter of fact, many of the violent criminals would say, I never knew my father.
And you could still see the anger, the hurt that that caused. Justice Newby, you mentioned the word fair, and I know sometimes that confuses certain people within our listening audience. Can you define what is fair versus what is just, or is it the same thing? Okay, so just as a perception of the outcome, but by fair trial, it means that the rules of court were uniformly applied. So in other words, this witness wants to testify what a friend told him. Well, there's an objection, that's hearsay, and the objection is properly sustained. So that means that evidence doesn't come in. So if there's an error in what the jury or what the judge considered, what the jury listened to, then often that can result in a new trial. So the process, it's a matter of, was the individual notified of the charges against them in the indictment proceeding? Were they represented by competent counsel? And the procedure of the trial itself, did that proceed along the established legal lines? And if all that happened, then we call that, that's a fair trial, free from reversible error or error that would have changed the outcome.
Now, is that just? Well, the structure itself is set up to evaluate different types of testimony. So let's take a typical case, someone has been shot and killed. And so it's a matter of, a defendant has been arrested. Let's say they've been identified by a couple of people. It could be a situation where the defendant says, no, I didn't shoot the guy.
The other two people did. So you're going to have different types of evidence. You might have a ballistics test.
You might have evidence about fingerprints on a gun, things like that. So you've got the technical aspect of the trial. And let's say that it comes, that the individual is found not guilty. Was that just? Did truth prevail?
We hope so. That's the aim of the, quote, justice system, is you take truth, that's what really happens, and you fairly apply the law. That means uniformly apply the law. It's the same whether you are the richest guy in the city or the poorest guy in the city. It doesn't matter. The law is the law. And you take the facts, you take the law, and that should equal justice. Is it 100 percent?
No, not 100 percent. But it is a very good system. And it's worked well. So great point, Paul.
Thank you so much for that explanation. Paul, we want to get to something that's really passionate on your heart. Let's talk about abortion right quick, because we've got a lot of young men listening in the audience and a lot of young women listening. And there's been a lot of- Before you go too far with that, any issue that possibly can come before the court, I can't comment on. Sure.
So, you know, this is a period of time where there's a lot of litigation about a lot of aspects of pro-life issues. Great. So- Thanks for your guidance there, Justice Newby. That's why you're on that end and we're on this end. You get to tell us to stay off those topics, so that's really good. Well, let's shift back then to one of the things that's really been a big issue for us has been purity.
We just talked about that in the last couple weeks. And let's take it from a different approach. As a follower of Christ, and if you're listening and you're not a follower of Christ, let's talk about why it's important to live a life of purity. What the end result would end up being, Justice Newby. If they're out running rampant and doing things they shouldn't be doing, and the lack of responsibility, I guess, is what we're trying to get to here. Is that, you know, back to not having a father figure. So young men are out doing things, they are, as Nikita put it a couple weeks ago, they're experiencing malehood, but they're not living manhood.
So it's providing a lot of activity out there. So it looks like we've just about run out of time, unfortunately, Justice Newby. But real quickly, if you could tell us, in your mind's eye, over all the years of being a scout leader and stuff, what is the best advice for these young men to control their natural desires and to deal with life in the appropriate way, and how God originally designed it?
Or, better put, Justice Newby, keep their pants up. Yes and yes and yes. Here's the bottom line.
Folks are turning to sex and drugs, abusing alcohol, all this stuff, because they have a Jesus-shaped hole in their heart and they're trying to fill it with all the wrong stuff. Folks, look at movie stars, look at sports stars who are just totally unbridled in their lifestyle, who think anything goes, are they happy? No. Are they content and satisfied? No.
Look at how many of these folks are committing suicide or found dead from an overdose alone in their hotel room. I'm sorry, all that glitters ain't gold, folks. That's fool's gold.
Yes it is. Well, Paul, we thank you so much. If you'll just hold on just a moment, Paul, we'll chat with you for a moment after we close the show. We thank you so much, Justice Newby. Will, you want to close us out?
Well, we just thank Justice Newby for his time and his wisdom. I'm Will Hardy, the black guy. And I'm Roy Jones Jr., the white guy. And we'll see you next time on ManTalk Radio. Thank you for joining us. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, is building a community of men that are Christ followers with a desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches, and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on ManTalk today. Visit us at www.tawcmm.com. Men walking the talk.
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