About a month ago I took a swing at the diet phenomenon of intermittent fasting. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s the practice of going 16 hours without eating anything. I’d start at around 9 pm and eat precisely 1 pm. It works, but the people who know me best have encouraged me to give it up. I’ve lost weight but it’s best not to interact with me around noon. My personality changes and I say things that are just plain out of character and none of them nice. My hangryness kicks in. I have little patience for anything or anyone. They would much prefer the slightly overweight, jolly, patient, kind person that I am on a full stomach than the skinny, twitchy, crass, impatient, grumpy guy that watches the clock like an astronaut, waiting to blast off toward any loaded platter of complex carbohydrates at 1PM. I have come to the sober realization that I am a broken man with an incredible aptitude for pizza. 

12:30 PM is about the time when coworkers scatter to distant cubicals and watercoolers far from my workstation.  Yes, they know. I try to avoid making any important decisions from noon to 1pm. Decision making on an empty stomach is dangerous. Just ask Esau. I think he invented intermittent fasting and paid a high price for it. After a morning of hunting on an empty stomach he caught the scent of Jacob’s stew and he made a stupid decision: 

He said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stuff, because I’m exhausted.” That is why he was also named Edom. (Genesis 25:30 CSB). 

It doesn’t sound he knew what the dish was!  “Give that uh…. RED STUFF!” And on top of that, he got a nickname: Edom, meaning “red.”  When you get a nickname for something you ate, it’s always bad.  If I were Esau, the scripture might have read: “’I’m starving! Let me have some of those crunchy things!’ That is why they called him, ‘Doritos’.”

It’s just not safe for me to continue intermittent fasting. I’ll stick to fasting for spiritual growth, not weight loss. It’s just not worth it. Appetites are a part of life but just think of all the people who made bad choices because they let their appetites get the best of them. Take it from a recovering sinner, when you’re hungry for food, power, sex, or notoriety, you tend to make stupid choices. You might even sell your birthright. 

One of the great blessings in my marriage is this:  My wife knows how to mingle. I just tag along.  I’m not much a talker. As much as I’ve prayed for it, the Holy Spirit never anointed me with the gift of mingling. Perhaps something happened in my childhood or maybe it was that rule that I took too seriously:  Don’t talk to strangers. Darlene has never obeyed that rule and I couldn’t be happier. At dinner parties or church fellowships, I’m happy to just smile, nod and let her practice her gift of conversation. She even successfully invited a salesman to visit our church when we attended his timeshare pitch.  We didn’t even have to buy a condo and he showed up at our church the following Sunday. She’s talked her way out of my speeding tickets. 3 times! She turns on the tears and shares the reason I was speeding and the next thing I know we are given the tip of the hat and we’re back on the road. I’ve never talked my way out anything. She’s a pro. 

I hate haircuts, and not because I long for a man-bun or to look like a member of Led Zeppelin. No. I hate it because I have to make a short list of things I to say to the gal who cuts my hair. After two or three universal topics like the weather, what I do for a living, who I am, I usually create about 10 minutes of awkward silence. I tip a little more than most because who can put a price tag on awkwardness. 

My dad was a total extravert. He could and would talk to anybody. I remember days as a child watching him figure out a way to talk to everybody. He’d start with a joke. He’d have about ten in his holster. And then he  would try to figure out if he was related to the stranger. I learned at a very young age that, in fact, we are somehow related to everyone in town. Even an exchange student from Japan. 

For me, the polarities are striking. I don’t have any trouble getting up and speaking at conferences or church services. No problem there… It’s a controlled environment. I plan what I’m going to say and no one talks back.  At least not often. They stay in their seats and I stay on the platform. No problem. After it’s over, it gets strange though. My impulse when I speak to people after the meeting is to begin a long screed of apologies. 

“Sorry it took so long.” 

“I hope you could hear me.”

“I don’t think I said it the way I want to say it.” 

As parents and grandparents, we have to talk. The generations behind us need our words about the important things like defensive driving, the importance of a daily quiet time and the complete absurdity of the American League designated hitter. I think I do well at these talks especially about salvation and walking daily with Jesus. The difficult conversations about human sexuality are the ones I dread. I never felt qualified. I’d take my kids on a special trip and along the drive, I’d spill the beans on how everything works. For me, the strategy was perfect because I could keep my eyes of the road while I’m talking.

These days I am willing to embrace my introversion while seeking to be more daring in my interactions. In fact, yesterday, I even talked to the parking officer who happened to be placing a citation under my windshield wiper for parking in a no-parking zone.  We had a wonderful  conversation about our kids, the growth in our city, the power of random acts of kindness. We must have talked for 15 minutes. But he still gave me the parking ticket. 

Being a parent is the perfect metaphor of “two steps forward, one step back.” It’s just the way things work in parenting. I thought about that as my youngest son wheeled out of the drive in his ’99 Subaru, loaded to the gills with his belongings to venture from the nest and into the great unknown. Parenting is uphill both ways. It’s not a race to the finish line. There is no finish line, and many days it’s a slow slog.

It’s like those moments when you get your kitchen so clean that you could be considered obsessive compulsive, and then you walk into a family room flooded with the chaos of matchbox cars, action figures, building blocks, and dinosaurs (some of them slathered with chocolate pudding cups). Two steps forward, one step back.

I don’t know how many times I’ve had to jump through all the hoops of getting the guys to bed, but now that we’re past that stage, I’ve realized that hoop jumping was my superpower. A certain number of pages must be read, teeth need to be brushed, prayers must be said, and covers need to be adjusted. And just at the right time, they’d crave water like a Labrador Retriever in the Sahara Desert. It seemed like my boys were never tired until they collapsed. Darlene and I said what all parents say from time to time: “It’s not about how tired you are, it’s about how tired you are making us.” After our last son, we relaxed as parents. We were so busy with the schedules of Upward Basketball, birthdays, carpools, parties, and science projects, we’d find him sprawled out on the family room floor with a half-eaten fruit roll-up in his little hand. Two steps forward, one step back.

We’ve missed a lot of adventures because we had kids. We’ve never been to those luxury resorts with crystal blue waters and not a stroller in a hundred miles. But we’ve been to a few amusement parks and wrestled a wild, squirming five-year-old for thirty minutes to administer amoxicillin. We found these moments both traumatizing and, I must confess, somewhat exciting. Sometimes they get so dirty, the bathtub was out of the question. They were backyard, spray-them-down-with-the-water-hose dirty. We found parenting a rewarding rollercoaster ride of sound and fury, signifying a whole lot of stuff. Two steps forward, one step back.

I’m not a perfect parent, and we didn’t raise perfect kids. Becoming a good father has been two steps forward and one step back. I said, “Maybe” when I was really thinking, Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. For years I’ve stolen peanut butter cups from my sons on November 1^st. I’ve made stuff up when the answers to their questions would require more wisdom and intelligence than I have at 5:30 in the morning. But now that they are gone, we still hear their voices echoing quietly through the house in our memories. They robbed our peace but stole our hearts. And that’s for good. We treasure the days they return as adults for holidays and celebration. Our roles as parent have changed. We made progress even though it was two steps forward and one step back.

Don’t you love the process of putting all your earthly possessions in boxes and moving across the country? I didn’t think so. Who would?  I’d much prefer staying in one place but for some reason God has other plans. When we move ourselves without the assistance of professionals we look like the Beverly Hillbillies. If you’re too young to understand the reference, go to YouTube. That’s pretty much us, with the exception of Grandma in the rocking chair on the flatbed. But God always shows up in mysterious ways.  

Before we left, my wife had her car stuffed with our belongings and I was in the moving van.  I left earlier than she did and before we parted I asked her to take my laptop bag. It was really the one thing I could not lose. I didn’t want it in the back on the truck where it could be crushed under the weight of a refrigerator loaded by unskilled teenagers. 

Somewhere on a Mississippi interstate I got the call: “Hello, are you Matt Tullos.” I said, “yes” and he continued.” I found your laptop in the middle of Main Street. I thought it was my lucky day. I found a brand-new highfaluting computer! But then I looked closer and saw that Bible of yours, all marked up and I thought to myself, Lordy, it’s a preacher-computer. I’m not a church-going guy but one thing I do know, is that you don’t want the wrath of God poured out on you for hijacking preacher stuff. Your number was in the Bible and so I’m calling you.” 

After I thanked him profusely and we got off the phone. My wife called me in tears. “Something terrible has happened!” Before she got too worked up over the whole thing I told her about the unchurched angel that found it. Darlene’s trunk had popped open a few minutes before I got the call. We were both relieved. In a matter of an hour the laptop and Bible were both safe and sound in the cab of her car. She rewarded him handsomely for being such an unexpected hero in the midst of our pilgrimage.

I’m so glad I wrote my name and number in the Bible. This custom has saved me many times. I’ve mindlessly left my Bibles in places all over the US like an overly enthusiastic Gideon. This time it saved my Bible and a new Macbook Pro. It was a wonderful tap on the shoulder from God in the middle of transitional chaos.  

When I think I’ve got it bad, I remember Paul of Tarsus. I’ve had my opportunities to complain but Paul always had it worse than me. Most theologians and historians agree that He was probably on the upper crust of the economic scale in the first century, but then there was that Damascus road experience, when he met Jesus. Sounds great, but I’m sure it wasn’t all that thrilling that the first thing Paul ever heard from the Son of God would be, “Paul, why are you persecuting me?” It was a reality check. He’d spent his life as a religious zealot, only to find out that he was on the wrong team. And then he was blinded. He must have thought, now I know the truth but how do I find my stuff?

They charted his travels in the maps section of almost every Bible I own, but the maps are a reminder that Siri wasn’t available back then and he traveled by foot, or beast of burden or by ship. But the ship sank.  That’s bad. He survived. That’s good! But he got bit by a viper. That’s bad. But he miraculously survived. That’s good!

He rode the roller coaster of a church planter like a cowboy on the back of a two-ton bronco. He was done wrong by a lot of friends, but he kept going. No doubt he was on Jerusalem’s 10 most wanted list and escaped out of a window in a basket, but he kept on going. He was beaten with rods three times, whipped 40 times minus one, five times. (I did the math on that one: 145 lashes!) But he kept on going. He was left for dead, but like a cast member of a zombie apocalypse he got up and kept going. He sang in jails, wrote 28% of the New Testament, caused a ruckus in a market, and lulled a guy to sleep during one of his lectures, and somehow the guy fell out of a window, died, was resuscitated and Paul kept on going. He was the Hebrew version of the Energizer bunny. Oy vey!

Oh, and he made tents as a side-hustle. Just a little detail…

Onesiphorus, a contemporary of his day, described him as short, bow-legged, and bald, with a slightly hooked nose and a unibrow!  Is there any wonder he was single? He had a dual citizenship, but most of the time, he was a citizen of the road. His story falls into the category of riches to rags. He didn’t leave a lot of material wealth when his head was placed on the block, but I can hear him now as the Roman executioner led him to the place of his death, still making conversation: “Did I ever tell you this story? I was a rich, religious scholar. I had everything going for me. I was the cat’s pajamas. Little did I know something better was in store. A crazy thing happened on the way to Damascus.”

My grandma always figured a pandemic would happen.  I can just see her now, putting down her needle work next to Martha, Ruth and Eunice in the great sewing circle of Heaven and shouting down to me, “I told you that you needed to keep 5000 potatoes in the crawl space under your house!” I always wondered as a kid why she did things like that. I wonder no longer. She always stocked up for the apocalypse. That country lady knew how to survive, and she would have done just fine in 2020. A quarantine wouldn’t bother her in the least. 

She and my grandfather were never people of means. They never went out to eat. Why do that? No one knew how to cook cornbread, fried okra, field peas and collard greens like she did. She was Whole Foods™ before the franchise existed. And of course, if the cupboard was empty there were always plenty of potatoes under the house. She survived with no wifi, Grubhub™ or Bluetooth. It’s amazing how well she got around without all the creature comforts we have today.

We’ve been getting a taste of primitive living. In March of 2020, we almost resorted to using newspapers and catalogs for toilet paper like she did. Social distancing would be easy for my grandparents. The coronavirus would have a tough time trying to make contact with them. They lived down a winding gravel road in the middle of a North Louisiana forest. You’d have to go over ten cattle gaps to make it to their door. Yes, cattle gaps.  It’s was a thing. Google it. My time with her was always a feast for the senses: Squirrel gumbo, wood stoves, real butter, canned figs and something called mercurochrome (which is banned by the FDA now). I’m amazed that she lived to 90. I guess fresh veggies cancels out mercury poisoning. I never feared bullying, pandemics, or cyberattacks. Those things didn’t exist in Dry Prong, Louisiana. But I definitely had concerns about Big Foot. 

Times were a whole lot simpler there. But who knows? We might return to them soon. We don’t know what the future holds. I might need to purchase a milk cow for the back yard in the coming months if the homeowners’ association allows it. But when life slows down like it did last spring, there’s always some beauty that rises to the surface. My grandparents were dirt-poor, but they were surrounded by wonder. And that’s a pretty good trade-off. It’s amazing how rich life becomes when you’re thankful for simple things like God’s grace, running water, a good meal and lots of time with the people you love most. 

A couple of years ago, I had some equipment for sale and this guy messaged me and asked if I would want to sell it for some Bitcoin. He started explaining it. The words he used were English but my brain could no more process the sentences than it could process Mandarin Chinese. Back then, I hadn’t even heard of bitcoin and the more I looked into it the more confused I got! It was defined as a type of digital currency in which a record of transactions is maintained, and new units of currency are generated by the computational solution of mathematical problems, and which operates independently of a central bank.

It sounds like a cross between monopoly money and my 9^th grade algebra that I had to take twice. A totally bogus proposition if you ask me. And the other part about being operated outside of a central bank sounds like you are working for a part of the mob or you are buying groceries with 1990’s Pokémon cards. I was totally not interested. The only transaction I ever made that came close Bitcoin was buying some throw pillows for my wife with PayPal.  Even then I was nervous. PayPal sounds like that buddy you owed milk money to in the 3^rdgrade. 

But there is a currency that’s outside a central bank that married couples use all the time: BlissCoin.BlissCoins are those investments we make in our spouse that lead to the marital bliss we seek. You may not know about BlissCoin but if you’re marriage you already use it. It’s worth a lot and it’s pretty easy to invest. 

• Remembering and planning way ahead for special dates will get you about 10 BlissCoins. Pretty Sweet! 
• Cleaning up your six-year-old’s vomit of the hardwood floor: 30-3000 BlissCoins, depending on how squeamish your spouse is. 
• Guys, for your wife, really listening to her without looking at your phones is an easy 5 BlissCoins. 
• Listening without getting defensive as she shares a hurt you caused can gain you 20 BlissCoins.  Be carful here, if you can’t do this, it might just land you in the BlissCoin Doghouse and the accommodations are awful!
• Saying I love you first, 2 BlissCoins. 
• Showing you love him or her, at least 8 BlissCoins.
• Praying with your spouse? Well, it’s hard to calculate, but it’s in the thousands.

This matrimonial exchange system varies from couple to couple but it’s always wise to invest in BlissCoin. When you invest in your marriage the interest accrues throughout your life and besides, you might do something really dumb and having the BlissCoins is a handy thing to have around.

Last Thursday, I was behind a lady at the grocery store. It’s a national chain, but not one of those fancy all organic places where they offer free samples of tofu ice cream and sushi. It’s the “bag your own stuff” kind of place where you can buy enough beans to feed the French resistance at a deep discount. She had a baby on her hip, one in the cart and three right beside her. She was a professional. She carried more coupons than I’ve ever seen. Totally organized. By the time she finished checking out and redeeming her coupons, I thought they were going to have to pay her for taking the groceries.  It was really close. In the middle of this important and somewhat shadowy financial transaction, she also managed to tamp down a sibling mutiny between two of her toddlers, convince a 12-year-old that chocolate causes acne, and give a plausible explanation to an 8-year-old for fake UFO sightings printed on the National Enquirer nearby. I was in awe. This lady had it going on in the “Mom Department.”  It reminded me of how difficult mothering can be, if done right. 

Being a mom requires a ton of multitasking and lots of counterbalancing. In order to be a good mom, you must have the patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon, the compassion of Mother Teresa, the financial savvy of Warren buffet, and the defensive prowess of Chuck Norris, all in the same day.

I’ve seen a mom settle a dispute simple with a single sentence. Of course, the tone and volume of that sentence may have had a little to do with it. A mom can ease a pain with a kiss on the affected area. I’ve never pulled that one off successfully. I’ve tried.

My wife can handle and clean up just about anything with the exception of vomit. I am chairman of the vomit department at our house. She has a sensitive gag reflex. Just about everything else she can handle just fine, thank you very much. Sincerely, Dear… Thank you very much.

I’m also grateful that I’m the designated driver on long trips. That seems to be a fairly universal agreement in most families. The dude drives. I’m not a better driver but someone has to drive while negotiations worthy of United Nations treaties are being conducted in the back of the minivan. My wife is a firm yet gentle mediator. When we disagree and a debate ensues, it usually goes badly for me. Maybe it’s just me but about halfway through an argument, I forget what my original point was. How does she do that? Such verbal sleight of hand! If true be told, no man has ever really won an argument with his wife, the mother of his children. If you do win, you kind of lose in the long run. Our doghouse has room for only one dog and it’s a rough place to spend the night. I’ve kind of decided that she’s too attractive to argue with and that suits me just fine. 

I think we can all agree that no one’s just a mom. Mom is a big enough title for a gal to rock the world and I got to see another example in the checkout line on a Thursday day afternoon.  

 It happened at the start of my first year of junior high school. My dad got a new job in another state and so the week before school started, we were moving. The great thing about this move was that in the middle of the chaos, I was shuffled off to my grandparents so far into the sticks that I couldn’t be contacted to move a single box. My grandparents lived in a little house in the woods of central Louisiana, complete with a ten-acre pond and a cousin nearby.  The day before school was our last day to fish and so we rose up early. In a crude boat made of a tractor tire and a metal tub, (Yes, I share the DNA of Larry the Cable Guy.) we navigated our way through the dead trees rooted throughout the pond. Then something unexpected happened. We hit a stump filled with yellow jackets. The swarm would rival the plagues of Egypt. My cousin and I both dove out of the boat and into the pond. The result was very visible. The yellow jackets bit what they could: my head. I looked like the Elephant Man with measles. And the next day was the first day at the new school in a new town and a new address. As fate would have it, I was transported across the state by my grandmother who dropped me off directly at the school where my hideous head would be the talk of everyone in the 7^th grade. In fact, I still have a few tiny scars on my forehead today.

After school, I rode the bus home, but I had forgotten the address. So, as I remember it, I just took a stab at where to get off and spent the next hour trying to muster the courage to knock on a stranger’s door and ask to phone home.  Looking like E.T., it seemed to be the right course of action. It was the worst day of my life up to that point.

But one thing good came from it. Years later I’d have a story to share when my kids experienced humiliation. I not only could say, “Wow, that’s got to be tough.” I could say, “I know how you feel.” First day of middle school is bad. Looking like a Halloween mask on the first day of school? Well, there had to be some use for that day. 

I think that’s really the beauty of the Gospel. When I’m in a really dark place, Jesus doesn’t just sympathize and say, “Wow, that’s got to be tough.” I can sense Him pointing to the cross that’s hanging on the kitchen wall and saying, “I know how you feel.” And that, my brothers and sisters, is good news. 

I was having coffee with a friend the other day. He’s one of my favorite people in the universe and I love his take on the Bible and church. Our church models are very different. Still, we marveled that even though our churches are about as different as Switchfoot and Lecrae, we’ve both experienced the same awkward moment when our fellow leaders and group members take the Bible completely out of context. Context is key if we want to disciple and lead believers into an authentic faith. All this started me thinking about all the cringe-moments I’ve experienced through the years. I’d categorize these as “filter fails.” They are fails because the Bible requires at least a moderate amount of contextualization. (I’ll call them filters, because contextualization reminds me of my AP English class my parent made me take in the 9^th grade. The scars are there, trust me.) At best, a lack of appropriate filters has twisted a minor phrase into a cross-stitch verse that was never intended to be hung above a fireplace or sewed on a doily. At worst, they have lead cults, crusades and Bentley owning, name-it-claim-it, TV preachers.

So let’s take a look at 5 of the most frequent filter fails on teaching the Bible.

1.Failing to understand what’s really going on the story.

I have a confession to make. I am guilty of this. I use Bible Gateway™ key word search to look for that perfect verse to summarize a Biblical truth. One verse that I absolutely loved was Habakkuk.

The Lord replied,

“Look around at the nations;

   look and be amazed!

For I am doing something in your own day,

   something you wouldn’t believe

   even if someone told you about it.

Now if that’s not a verse destined for the wall art section of a LifeWay Store, I don’t know what is. Right?

Well… Let’s look at the context. It’s not hard. Just read a couple of verses after that, where we learn about God’s ultimate threat of destruction of the people with whom this promise is speaking. God is sending the dreaded Chaldeans to wreak havoc on the people of God. So although Habakkuk 1:5 sounds like a great life-verse, certainly in its context, it’s not exactly the kind of amazement you’d ever really want.

2. Ignoring the Voice

If you’re knee-deep into church culture you have heard it in songs, cheers, sermons and in pregame interviews of famous Christian athletes.

“I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”

Philippians 4:19

It’s often referred to in contemporary circles like this: I can solve this promise, score this touchdown, win that award, and (I’m sorry but it’s true…) marry that girl. But often, the person referring to the verse forgets the voice of the writer.

Paul was in prison. In earthly terms, like girls, football, acclaim, financial success, Paul would seem like a loser. Paul is writing a letter from prison about being able to endure not achieve. He’s enduring a loss of freedom, loneliness, uncertainty and pain. Speaking in modern terms, this is not a Joel Osteen kind of verse. It’s a Martin Luther King Jr. kind of verse.

Now, you don’t have to agree with me 100%, but I want to submit that Paul’s voice, his circumstance, and the entirety of the book of Philippians is not well served by a trite, fist-bumping take on it. Watch your toes. I’m dropping the mic.

3. Evangelical Cherry-Picking to Drive a Point Home.

This is the main reason expository Bible study is so effective. In expository Bible study you aren’t simply going on a fishing expedition to string together related verses on a subject. You are going through the narrative to understand what God is up to in the passage, while also realizing that you have to understand and ask some really important questions:

• What is the culture?
• When was it written?
• What’s going on around the writer?
• What has God revealed so far to the people in the book?

Expository Bible study is much like practicing legitimate journalism. – Who, What, When, Why Where and How. This is elemental to understanding and teaching scripture with integrity. History is important. What was going on the culture when the passage was written? Progressive revelation is important. It goes without saying that Peter, even though he was a knucklehead every now and then, had more revelation than amazing Isaiah. He got to see more revelation by the simple fact that he was born later and happened to be a disciple of the Son of God Himself! Therefore, we can’t look at the annihilation of the enemies of Israel in the Old Testament as a proof text to carpet bomb towns. Otherwise you’re going to have to throw out a lot of Jesus teachings.

4. Jumping the Gun

I saved the worst for last: You head off alone. Bible study and Bible teaching will be cold, ineffective, and futile if you don’t have Someone working with you. (You see what I did there with the capitalization, don’t you?) The Holy Spirit must guide you as you study scripture or prepare to teach. Scripture comes alive when we have a dialogue with the Source of all knowledge. This is what makes reading the Bible so incredibly transforming. There’s something going on between the reader and the text. So prayer is a vital link to understanding the text. Prayer makes the Bible a dialogue.

There are other fails out there, but these are four that you surely want to avoid.