Christian / Devotional
Date Published: December 4, 2025
Publisher: MindStir Media
Can a Christian lawyer zealously represent a client without compromising biblical truth? Can a judge administer justice while honoring God's principles? How does a law student prepare for a successful legal career without sacrificing their relationship with Jesus Christ?
These are the challenging questions explored in The Christian Lawyer: Not an Oxymoron, a #1 Amazon Best-Selling Christian devotional by distinguished trial attorney, former President of the Kentucky Bar Association, and award-winning legal leader Joe Bill Campbell.
After more than 50 years in the courtroom, Campbell shares a lifetime of experience, biblical wisdom, and spiritual insight to encourage Christian attorneys, judges, law students, and legal professionals who desire to honor God while serving the law with integrity.
In a profession often defined by difficult ethical decisions, this inspiring devotional demonstrates that faith and the practice of law are not contradictory—they are a powerful calling when grounded in Scripture.
Inside this inspiring Christian devotional, you'll discover:
✔ Practical guidance for living out your Christian faith in the legal profession
✔ Encouragement for Christian lawyers, judges, and law students facing ethical challenges
✔ Biblical principles for pursuing justice, righteousness, honesty, and integrity
✔ Scripture-based reflections that strengthen your walk with Jesus Christ
✔ Wisdom for navigating today's legal system without compromising your values
Drawing on decades of courtroom experience and a deep commitment to Christ, Campbell reminds readers that every legal professional has the opportunity to serve not only clients but also God's greater purpose. Through thoughtful reflections, biblical teachings, and practical encouragement, he challenges readers to become lawyers, judges, and leaders who pursue truth, justice, mercy, and righteousness in every decision.
Inspired by Matthew 16:24–26, The Christian Lawyer: Not an Oxymoron calls believers to take up their cross, follow Christ, and discover that genuine success comes not only from winning cases but from faithfully serving the ultimate Judge.
Whether you are an experienced attorney, newly appointed judge, law student, legal educator, or someone interested in Christian leadership and ethics, this devotional will encourage you to live boldly for Christ while excelling in your profession.
If you're searching for Christian books for lawyers, Christian leadership books, legal ethics from a biblical perspective, Christian devotionals for professionals, or faith-based workplace inspiration, The Christian Lawyer: Not an Oxymoron belongs on your bookshelf.
Perfect for readers who enjoy:
● Christian Living
● Christian Leadership
● Faith in the Workplace
● Christian Professional Growth
● Biblical Wisdom
● Legal Ethics
● Christian Law Students
● Christian Attorneys
● Christian Judges
● Christian Business Professionals
● Inspirational Christian Books
Discover how your profession can become your ministry—and how faith, truth, and justice can work together to glorify God.
"He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life." — John 14:6
FOREWORD
Joe Bill Campbell was my professional mentor
and law partner four decades ago. He had mentors, too, from his early years as
a law-yer, godly men and great lawyers like Reginald Ayers (Protestant) and
Justice Charles Reynolds (Catholic), whom he quoted often to me. He passed
along their advice as earthly gospel, stories of honesty and integ-rity and
superior legal ability. We talked a little back then, but not a lot, about
faith and religion and God. Mostly, we would discuss and handle our clients’
cases. However, he always advised and encouraged a posi-tive way forward; and
in hindsight, I can see those paths were formed by Christian morals and
righteousness. “OK, John, now move on,” he once told me after I complained
about the sharp practice of a particular lawyer in a particular case, and he
meant, “what are you going to do now to resolve that case in a fair way?”
Joe Bill handled many big cases, some with significant wider
consequence in affecting the development of the law, some
with sig-nificant public interest, and most with significant consequence to the
litigants. He pursued his clients’ interest realistically and with confi-dence
and was always looking forward. He advised Governors closely, and worked on
boards and commissions, including as the president of the Kentucky Bar
Association. He spent his early and middle years solving the problems outside
the window. Later, like many thoughtful and experienced people do, he shifted
his focus to personal sanctity. Many professionals start and spend most of
their years solving the world’s problems, at least the world around us, perhaps
because they are easier to solve.
Now, at age 82, Joe Bill speaks often of his faith and Jesus
Christ’s
place in his life, not because of any negative piety (as he
describes in his Introduction), but from a lifetime of experience, good and
bad, and a realization that the time has come to leave nothing unsaid.
The great theologian John Calvin (who studied to be a
lawyer)
believed that government, including laws and our judicial
system, are gifts from God; and that God’s laws and man-made laws and systems
are not antithetical to each other. To the contrary, the just pursuit of the
latter is necessary for the realization of the former. Lawyers and judges have
a great responsibility to pursue justice and peace and a more per-fect union.
The adversarial nature of our legal system does not negate these goals as long
as its participants play by “the rules.”
In Kentucky, like most states, we have Rules of Professional
Conduct, and a Code of Professional Courtesy. Lawyers’
responsibili-ties as advocates for their clients, as officers of the legal
system, and as public citizens are usually harmonious. But sometimes those
respon-sibilities seem to conflict with one another, and “such issues must be
resolved through the exercise of sensitive professional and moral judg-ment,
guided by the basic principles underlying the rules of professional conduct.
Those rules prescribe a “courteous and civil attitude towards all persons
involved in the legal system.” (SCR 3.130 IX-X)
The rules require confidence, diligence, and communications;
they demand candor, and meritorious claims and contentions,
fairness to opposing parties and impartiality of the tribunal, truthfulness,
fair-ness with opposing counsel and unrepresented parties, and respect for the
rights of third persons. All of these basic principles, which are gifts from
God, allow an adversarial system, and a conflicted world, to func-tion
harmoniously in the pursuit of truth and justice. These basic prin-ciples on
which our rules are founded, of course, are really Christian principles, which
certainly apply to all walks of life, and which are encouraged in this book.
All lawyers, including Joe Bill and me, are imperfect people
and
sinners who can do better. Jesus came to save lawyers (and
others), not to condemn them (John 3: 17), by promulgating the
Golden Rule of “do to others as you would want them to do to you.” Joe Bill
wanted me to be smart, fearless, courageous, honest, fair, by adhering to
principle rather than to the whims of perception. None of us get this right every
day, but this book of devotionals might help keep us on tract.
Interpretations of scripture differ, and Joe Bill would have
no hard
quarrel with that. Here in this book, however, he gives
insight and argu-ment for Jesus Christ’s bridge to life in the practice of law
and elsewhere. You might suggest another analysis of one of these basic
principles. Good! Just think about it, justify it, cite your authority and
sources. But know that there is an objective truth to the big questions, and
not just a subjective standard. This book, at the very least, gives us a chance
to grapple with our beliefs and hopefully arrive at The Truth. There is such a
thing. We each do not get to determine that truth but, rather, just to discover
it.
As the great philosopher and lawyer, Sir Thomas Moore (as
quoted
in this book) prayed, “Lord…stand beside me in court, so
that today I shall not, in order to win a point, lose my soul.”
John R. Grise
Former Trial Lawyer
Trial Judge
About the Author
A lifelong resident of Bowling Green, Kentucky, Joe Bill built one of the state's most distinguished legal careers. He graduated with honors from the University of Kentucky J. David Rosenberg College of Law, where he was later inducted into the College of Law Hall of Fame. Throughout his legal career, he served as President of the Kentucky Bar Association, chaired the Kentucky Council on Higher Education and the Western Kentucky University Board of Regents, and received the Kentucky Bar Association's Most Outstanding Lawyer Award. He was also recognized by Super Lawyers as one of the Top 50 Attorneys in Kentucky and is a Fellow of the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers.
While Joe Bill's legal accomplishments are significant, he considers his greatest calling to be serving Jesus Christ and helping others grow in their faith. At the age of 80, he answered God's call to become an author, writing devotionals that combine Scripture, practical life lessons, and decades of professional experience to inspire readers of all ages.
His growing collection of Christian devotionals includes:
● Just Win Baby: The Game of Life — 101 sports-inspired devotionals designed to encourage young athletes and young adults to make Jesus Christ their ultimate coach.
● Virtue Triumphs Vice — A practical devotional demonstrating how biblical virtues can transform workplaces, businesses, and everyday life through faith-centered decision-making.
● The Christian Lawyer: Not an Oxymoron — A #1 Amazon Best-Selling book that explores how Christian lawyers, judges, law students, and legal professionals can faithfully pursue truth, righteousness, and justice while honoring their commitment to Christ.
Joe Bill's upcoming devotional, The End of Life Is Not the End of Life, continues his mission of offering biblical encouragement and eternal hope through every season of life.
As a father, grandfather, attorney, and devoted Christian, Joe Bill believes every person has a God-given purpose. His writing encourages readers to strengthen their relationship with Christ, choose virtue over vice, lead with integrity, and impact their families, workplaces, churches, and communities through biblical principles.
Whether speaking to attorneys, business professionals, churches, Bible study groups, young athletes, or anyone seeking spiritual encouragement, Joe Bill Campbell reminds readers that success is measured not only by earthly accomplishments but by faithfully following Jesus Christ—the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Through every devotional, Joe Bill's mission remains the same: to honor his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and fulfill God's purpose for his life by helping others discover the joy, wisdom, and peace that come from living according to God's Word.
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