We are never to allow people to walk down a pathway of sin because of a misunderstood view of Luke 6:37 or Matthew 7:1.  In love, the church is to confront people in their sin with a goal of restoration (see Matt. 18:15-20). In love the church confronts unbelievers regarding their sin in evangelism (which is not sinful). Many people who pursue various forms of sinful autonomy misquote Jesus’ “judge not” statement while demanding a proper execution of justice which involves judgment. The statement must be interpreted properly.

Historically, the most famous verse of Scripture has been John 3:16. It’s like the gospel in one verse. It has been preached, quoted, and memorized more than any verse in the history of the world. Tim Tebow once wrote John 3:16 on his eye paint under his eye during the National Championship game for college football. Following the game, as he was eating supper, it was announced that some 94 million people had googled “John 3:16” during the game.
Long before Tim Tebow stormed the college football field, an eccentric man named Rollen Stewart, popular for his rainbow-colored wig and his “John 3:16” sign. He would position himself in strategic locations for popular televised baseball, football, and basketball games in the 70s and 80s. Rollen Stewart, known as Rock ’n’ Rollen and Rainbow Man, popularized John 3:16 by the use of signs and well planned campaigns.
Today, it seems that another verse is the most quoted verse of our day and it’s Jesus’ words found in Matthew 7 and Luke 6:
“Judge not, and you will not be judged.”
As with any verse in the Bible, you can alter the meaning if you interpret it outside of the proper context and outside of the biblical teaching of that particular subject. In short, the statement by Jesus has become one of the most misquoted and abused verses in the entire Bible.
Jesus Never Taught People Not to Judge Others
In our day, it’s common to hear people begin a statement or a personal confession with the preface, “no judgment” or “don’t judge” or “judge not.” In fact, the LGBTQA+ community often uses the statement by Jesus to condone their lifestyle and to shield themselves from judgment as they engage in hypersexualized behavior that violates God’s design for humanity, marriage, and the family.
It may come as a complete shock, but Jesus never condemned judgment. In fact, he commands that people engage in judgment. The statement by Jesus taken from his famous sermon known as the sermon on the mount. Jesus gathered his followers, apostles, and the growing curious souls from the surrounding communities together where he delivered his sermon with power and authority.
The statement by Jesus regarding judgment is centered on hypocritical judgment that refuses to judge properly. Therefore, to misinterpret Jesus’ “judge not” statement by imposing a meaning that prohibits judgment not only butchers Jesus’ intention, but it likewise proves that we must carefully and rightly interpret holy Scripture.
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Men, masculinity is defined by God in Scripture. When that is the kind of man you are learning to become, or striving to become, then you have aligned yourself with God’s “very good” vision. Care nothing for what the haters and critics say. Do not apologize for your masculinity, do not be ashamed of it, and do not run from it. Instead, embrace your manly call in Christ and live it out with strength and conviction to the glory of God.

Men, This is Why They Hate You
As society stumbles ever closer toward the cliffs of insanity, speaking the truth has become all the more offensive. But, on the other hand, if you suppress common sense and genetics, dutifully bow the knee like a good boy, and virtue signals the rankest perversions, then you will be perceived as a reasonable man. All you have to do is toe the party line, walk in lockstep with the kind of people who think twelve-year-old boys should be chemically castrated and that men can expose themselves to young girls in lockerrooms, embracing the queerification of America, and then maybe you will go places.
But, if you think Dylan Mulvaney is a groomer, homosexuality and transgenderism are abominations (Biblically defined), that Bud Light wasn’t a real beer in the first place, and that Target should stop selling girls bathing suits with penis pockets, well, then you are a bigot of the highest order. Similarly, if you think education should not be secular indoctrination, that children’s programming should not have lesbian kisses included within it, that pronouns are based upon God’s design of biological sex, and that it should be illegal for drag queens to twerk in front of children in libraries, then you are precisely the kind of rational man, steeped in objective reality, that the rainbow railroad is reeling to run over. They hate you because you love truth and reason, plain and simple.
If that is you, then I want to encourage you with this blog. And I want to equip you for the battle of our lifetimes. Men were made to fight. Not with activism or finger-pointing vitriol that combats hatred with more hatred. No. But also not with a spineless winsomeness popular in the evangelical world that pretends to care about everything but takes a stand for nothing. No, no, no. I want to equip you to fight. Not by wasting your time calling out all of the lies, which at this point are legion. Not in getting angry and going to war with every ideology we, as Christian men, are rightly opposed to.
Today, however, I want to equip you to begin fighting for what you are FOR instead of fighting what you are AGAINST. We should remember that the only way to spot the counterfeit is by knowing exactly what the authentic actually is. With that in mind, I want us to understand Biblical manhood and unapologetically celebrate it. I want us to hold our heads high that God made us men and that being a man is very good!
In the weeks ahead, we will look at how Biblical womanhood is “very good,” how Biblical sexuality alone is “very good,” and how covenant marriage brings all of these “very goods” together into one home. But today, we will be focused on the men. And to do that, we will go back into the pages of Genesis, where we left off last week, speaking about God’s good design of masculinity.
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A caution, though, is in order.  Economic vocations can easily change, and sometimes people in one line of work, which they find frustrating, can be called to another line of work.  Some vocations, though, such as the family callings and the calling of the Gospel, are permanent.

Dealing with the COVID epidemic has been taking a toll on nurses and other health care professionals.  The overtime shifts, the staffing shortages, the triage of patients, the grief at losing so many, exasperation with the healthcare establishment, and firings due to the vaccine mandate are leaving frontline medical workers frustrated, exhausted, and emotionally drained.

It has gotten so bad that two-thirds of America’s nurses say that the COVID epidemic has made them consider leaving their profession.

So reports The Wall Street Journal in an article on burnout among nurses that turns into a reflection on vocation. Rachel Feintzeig has written the feature story When You’re Burned Out at Your Job, But It’s Also Your Calling , with the deck “Overworked nurses are considering less intense and remote jobs due to Covid-19, but stepping away is hard when you’ve dedicated your life to caring for others.”
The term “calling,” along with the Latinate form “vocation,” of course, has become commonplace even in secular circles.  But it derives from the Christian doctrine of vocation, a preoccupation of my recent writing (see  the links below) and of this blog.

Though the Wall Street Journal doesn’t discuss “calling” in terms of the One who calls us to love and serve our neighbors in all of our stations in life into which He has brought us, it raises some important issues that are worth thinking through theologically.

The problem of burning out in one’s calling is not, of course, limited to nurses.  Nor is vocation limited to our economic callings, what we do to make a living.  We also have callings in our families (as spouses, parents, and children), in the church (as pastors, other church workers, and laypeople), and in the state (as citizens, officials, voters, etc.).  We can burnout in our work and we can burn out in those vocations, as well.
In the course of her discussion of the plight of nurses, Feintzeig says,
In recent months, as I’ve written about burnout, I’ve heard from overwhelmed teachers and social workers who say they too struggle with toxic bosses and unsustainable workloads, but wrestle with the guilt of abandoning people they pledged to help.
The question they face: How to leave a job that feels like a calling?
“When you do really feel called to your profession it becomes intertwined with your identity,” says Delaney Barsamian, a 31-year-old in the Bay Area who left her emergency-room nursing role last year for a remote job helping patients make end-of-life plans. “It was almost like a breakup. I was in love with emergency medicine.”

Of course, all callings have as their purpose, in different ways, to help people.  And the constellation of our multiple callings, given to us uniquely and personally, constitutes our identity.  So frustrations with our callings and leaving our callings can be traumatic.  The article gives a useful term for why that can happen:

“Nurses are so angry,” she says. “I’m seeing and hearing this incredible sense of malaise and hopelessness.”
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