Angelo & Barbara Juliani | Mark | Steve Brown, Etc.

Steve Brown: It's the shortest gospel, but it's not short on power. Let's talk about it with Angelo and Barbara Juliani on Steve Brown, Etc. He's an old white guy, an author, broadcaster, and seminary professor who is sick of religion. And he's brought friends. Please welcome Steve Brown, Etc. We are so glad you're here. You always have a place at our table. As I've often said, I'm really glad for the gift that you give us of your time. Try and remember that we give you a gift, too, so we're even. If you're wondering, I'm Steve, the aforementioned old white guy. Matthew Porter is our executive producer. He's here now that the summer vacation is over. Matthew's kids have started school again. There were some tears and cries of "this isn't fair," but eventually Matthew calmed down and it was okay. Our producer, Jeremy, is in the little glass booth. Our producer is not a classy name dropper. However, he thinks his friend Kevin Max from DC Talk would agree with that. Our one-man IT department, John Meyer, is here in the tech bunker. John says if you used to play the Pac-Man arcade game, you're probably old. It's probably time to get some body part poked or examined. Dr. George Bingham is the president of Key Life. George wonders what it means when you get a nasty paper cut while reading Lewis's The Problem of Pain. Kathy is the warm feminine side of the program. Kathy says a lot of online cooking influencers would be jobless if we could actually taste what they're cooking. That's true. We have some great guests here today. Reverend Angelo Juliani is the founding pastor of Bridge Community Church. He couldn't stop with that, so there's a whole network of Liberty Global Churches, the international mission arm of the Liberty Communion of Churches. Barbara, his wife, is also a board member at Key Life, so I will be particularly nice to her. She's a Bible teacher, the vice president of New Growth Press, and the author of several books. The Julianis' newest project, which I hold in my nicotine-stained fingers, is a study guide called Mark: Life-Changing Power Through Jesus. We don't really have to do this program. If you want your life to change, read more Bible, pray a lot more, work a lot harder than you do at it, confess your sins immediately or you'll get cancer because we know about the discipline passage, and stay on the straight and narrow so that you don't hurt your witness. That works, doesn't it?
Barbara Juliani: It was not. I stormed out of my family's home at the age of 18 and out of our church and said that I wasn't planning to come back to either one. The Lord took me on a seven-year odyssey and along the way I picked up the Italian bartender that was working at the restaurant that I was working in. Good things do happen.
Steve Brown: Angelo, I'm not sure you helped, though, at the beginning. Incidentally, we kid around, but that's a very serious issue. There's a wonderful book, Come Back, Barbara, that Barbara wrote with her father, the late Jack Miller. If you want to read that story, you'd love it. But we're not here to talk about that book. We're here to talk about the Gospel of Mark. Why Mark? There's a lot more information in the other three. If you're going to do a book, why not do the research and the most complete and not the shortest? What happened?
Barbara Juliani: Time was definitely a factor. Angelo had just preached through Mark and these studies that we do start with a pastor's sermons. I had taught on Mark several times. It was the resource that was most available to us at that particular point. It was right at the beginning of COVID. I'm a writer, so I really admire good writing. Mark is the most amazing book to read. Every word counts and every word is picked on purpose. He has this portrait of Jesus that is so human. That's what he really concentrates on is what Jesus did, how he did it, and who he did it with.
Angelo Juliani: Absolutely. He writes it as an action-adventure, which for us in our particular culture at this point, it's very much something that especially young people can connect with quickly because it's just presenting one after another of these amazing things that are happening in and through Jesus. It just captures you in that way.
Steve Brown: As you guys have worked on this book, has it in any way affected you personally? You both have been walking with Jesus for a long time. How many times have you read the Gospel of Mark? Probably 800 or 900 times. When you really bear down on it like you did with this book, what did you see that was new or that affected you personally?
Angelo Juliani: That's a good question. For me, as I read it, especially in my different seasons of life, this word always comes to me in different ways. Speaking to me at this point in my life when I've got the responsibility of working with so many missionaries and seeing life overseas and being a part of that, the amazing power of Christ both in the demonic world but also in the ability to pray and see the power unleashed through the Holy Spirit just made a different impact in my life.
Barbara Juliani: We talked about it and worked on it. I had Angelo's sermons and the teaching that I did. Then I took it and wrote it and I would make Angelo go over it with me. It was such a hard year. This fall was just taking care of my 101-year-old mom basically 24/7 and managing our family, my job, our 14 grandchildren, and all the struggles that come with it. I was thinking about this this morning because we're starting up our women's Bible study again and I really want women to come. I always say this is what you need to get through your life. I'd be insane if I didn't have God's word, which they think I'm kidding but I'm not. I was thinking that people want to think that it's magic. I just thought it's not magic, it's manna. You have to be meeting with Christ through His word all the time. The gospels are just such an amazing window into who Jesus is. It's almost as if we need something different from Jesus every time through every season. It's not different in a way, but it takes a shape based on what you are encountering at that very moment. It's different for me than when I had little kids.
Steve Brown: That's so good and so true. We're going to get some details out of this when we come back. I remember Ruth Graham one time, she and her husband had come to the church I was serving. An issue came up and she got out her Bible and started thumbing through it. She said, "I love these things because they send me to Him." That's what Mark does. Mark sends you to Him. We're going to talk about that when we come back. The title of the book is Mark: Life-Changing Power Through Jesus. It's a study book. Don't go anywhere. Like Jesus, we're coming back. Welcome to The Vault, your home for classic sermons from Steve from the 90s, the 80s, even all the way back to the early 70s. The Vault is a one-of-a-kind online experience where you can explore more than three decades of grace-filled messages. Get the details and check out our free audio sample at keylife.org/vault. Hi, this is Steve Brown. In case you didn't know, one of the main reasons Key Life exists is to remind believers that God isn't mad at His children. Why am I telling you this? Because our weekly email, Key Life Connection, takes the best of the videos and articles and puts them right in your inbox. We'd love for you to try it. It's free. Go to keylife.org/subscribe. Thanks for joining us. We're talking with Angelo and Barbara Juliani. Their new book is a study guide, but not just a study guide. It will guide you through the Gospel of Mark, but it's a profound book in so many ways. It's titled Mark: Life-Changing Power Through Jesus.
Matthew Porter: Earlier on the other side of the break, we touched on the idea that Mark is actually a great entry point for somebody who has not encountered Jesus. Usually John is the one that gets teed up, but you guys made a really great point that it's punchy and concise. I don't know if it's too far to say that Mark is the Hemingway of the gospel writers.
Barbara Juliani: I think that's a good way to put it.
Matthew Porter: It's yours, since he's in good health. Even with that shorter view of the gospel story, Mark includes some things that aren't in the others, which is improbable. Would you touch on that? Not just events, but what kind of perspective does he bring that the other gospel writers don't?
Barbara Juliani: There's actually so much. One of the interesting things about Mark is that Mark is the original source for the other three gospels, and especially Luke and Matthew. But also the thing that I found really interesting was that we believe it's Peter's recollections. Mark compiled it from Peter's sermons. It's really like an up-close and personal view of Jesus. When you think about Peter's personality, he was so brash and he was always putting the wrong foot forward and saying the right thing and then the exactly wrong thing. I love that he lets the view of Jesus kind of unfold through the book. We're very familiar with the concept, no matter what you believe, that Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and is God himself. People understand that that is a concept, but there was no concept like that back for those folks. Jesus was the carpenter from Nazareth and they were hanging out with him and then he said, "Peace, be still," to the waters and they stopped. Or he said to the paralytic, "Your sins are forgiven." You can sort of see it all through Peter's eyes.
Angelo Juliani: You see it through Peter's eyes and it's very raw in the sense that it's really coming from the man who would sit there and his mind would be thinking, "Who is this in front of me?" That's one of the big questions that Mark is trying to answer. Who is this guy? It's very clear as you go on. You begin to see him calm the storm, heal the leper, and he begins to cast demons out. He has power over nature, he has power to heal, and then he forgives sins. Who is this guy? You can almost be reading the mind of Peter as he's looking at it for the first time and we're being drawn into that in a very real way.
Steve Brown: Mark had his own story, didn't he? We don't know the details of it, but he needed some forgiveness too. That must have been a wonderful thing to hang out with Peter who had screwed it up and giving him hope because Mark was not that wonderful himself.
Barbara Juliani: The thing about scripture that I find so amazing is that there's no white-washing of people. Nothing is sugar-coated. Peter just lays it all out there in a way that many Christians would find very off-putting. He tells the whole story of how he denied Jesus. He tells the story about how he told Jesus he shouldn't go to the cross right after he proclaimed him as the Christ. He throws himself under the bus, and you can only do that if you know Jesus.
Angelo Juliani: Mark would have been considered like a failure because he refused to go back out on the mission field. He had a problem with that and yet here he is with Peter. Certainly at that point he's going out with Peter and Peter's story of sharing that with him, what a comfort that could be to a guy like Mark who could say, "Well, if Peter can be forgiven, I certainly can be forgiven." If they can be forgiven, then I certainly can be forgiven. Hallelujah.
Steve Brown: By the way, excuse my using the word "screwed it up." Barbara, I used to write your mother and I loved her and miss her. She has a great attraction to heaven, as does your father. I would always say in my emails to her, "I'm praying for you, don't screw it up." She always made a point when she wrote back to say, "Steve, I'll try not to mess it up."
Barbara Juliani: The way I was raised, Steve, was that we weren't allowed to say "darn" or "heck" because everybody knew what they were really referring to.
Steve Brown: But your mom, I didn't feel condemned or anything. I still laugh about it when I think of her doing that. She was not a condemning person.
Barbara Juliani: It bothered her that you said it, she just wasn't going to say it back.
Jeremy: I was impressed by the way you structured the study. There's probably a lot of people that would like to get some people over and start a Bible study or something but might be a little intimidated. It really seems like you've led them by the hand so this can be a very easy thing for someone who hasn't ever led a small group study or something. Talk a little bit about that.
Barbara Juliani: This is the format that we have for all these Gospel-Centered Life in the Bible studies and they are meant to be introducing folks to scripture, to the Bible, who haven't really interacted with it or might be off-put by it or don't know what to do. Most people have a high view of scripture, at least Christians, but don't study it very much. This book will be helpful and for a small group at church, it would be a wonderful study. The title of the book is Mark: Life-Changing Power Through Jesus. When you do it as a small Bible study in your church, make sure you invite some unbelievers and for heaven's sake, be nice to them when they come. We're coming back. Hey, thanks for listening to Steve Brown, Etc. and if you're enjoying the show, would you help us let others know about it? You can share a link, click subscribe on our YouTube channel, or drop us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Hi, this is Steve Brown, and I'm excited to tell you about a new offer from Key Life called Living with Steve. Let me tell you the way it works. I travel with you wherever you go. If you need an entertaining conversation or even a sermon, there I am. That's the good news. The bad news is that it costs a million bucks. But wait, there's good news. You can get everything I've just described with the Key Life app, and for a limited time, it's not a million dollars. It's free. Try it now at keylife.org/app. Thanks for spending time with us here. We were talking about the Bible. We were talking to Angelo and Barbara Juliani and their book is on the Gospel of Mark and it's a great study guide. I didn't give you much time to talk about that, but we really have gotten behind on scripture in church. We think it's a good book and we read it occasionally, but mostly it's intimidating.
Barbara Juliani: I think that that is a great word for it. But if you take the time to read it and actually talk to other people with it, if you combine God's word with God's people, you come up with the most amazing insights. Then you can really see how the Holy Spirit speaks to you through it. This is the voice of Jesus and that's really what I would love that people could do with this study of Mark is that they would just hear the voice of Jesus talking to them. One of the things about this study that I had never noticed in Mark before was how many desperate parents are featured in Mark. There are so many parents who bring their troubled children in Mark and they throw themselves at Jesus's feet. I'm a desperate parent. I'm a desperate grandparent. I don't see any way to meet the needs of my family and my grandchildren without the life of Christ flowing into them. It's just amazing to me that every time you go through a gospel, for instance, you see more of Christ and you see more of his love, more of his care, more of the challenge that he is. That's really what I would love for people to take away, that it would connect to their actual lives and they would see that Jesus is right there with them through their actual lives.
Steve Brown: Angelo, as a preacher, don't you delight in seeing the lights come on when people cock their heads and think, "I never thought of that. I've never seen that"?
Angelo Juliani: I always want to get the amens and the hallelujahs. Presbyterians don't do that very well. I know. I come back from Africa and I have to realize, oh, I'm with the frozen chosen. Here I go. They nod thoughtfully. One of the things that we've done with this format is we've brought it into our church Sunday school hour and it really has provoked much more discussion the way it's written because you read the scripture and then you talk about it, but then there's an article that goes a little deeper into some of those themes. You come out of that and then basically from that there's more of a pointed discussion on that theme and then application exercises. What we have found is that it's not as intimidating for people because they're all doing it together and each actual lesson carries its own, so if you miss one, you haven't missed everything. That's been great in our church. Our people have really responded to that, feeling a part of the discussion but having it also led in a way that edifies the Lord but then also applies to your life personally. We continue to do these in our Sunday school classes, this format.
Barbara Juliani: I often think that people, when people become a Christian, I know this happened for me. Here was my faith and here was this turning point in my life which I desperately needed. Then here was me doing my life and I had a really hard time connecting the gospel on a day-by-day basis to my regular life. When you're reading the word, when you're reading a gospel, then all of a sudden you have the Spirit speaking to you about your regular life in a way that's really different than just trying to do the Christian life in your own power and strength. It's the word that convicts you. It's the word that shows you like, hey, maybe you shouldn't have said that. Maybe you need to repent. Maybe Jesus is a bigger person than you thought. Maybe "Peace, be still" is His words for you today. The difference between reading the Bible and studying the Bible versus not studying it is the difference between knowing about Jesus or walking and talking with Jesus. Even after I became a Christian, I read through the whole Bible and I didn't know what to do next. When I was in trouble, I would read a Psalm. It was when I started studying the Bible and I started with the Gospel of John and that's when I felt like I had a friend in Jesus, which is what we all need and have.
Steve Brown: By the way, the Bible in a real sense was all written by Jesus, who's the word. So it shouldn't surprise you that when you go to the Bible, you find Jesus there and the words are then applied by the third person of the Trinity in a way that's absolutely astounding. It's, in fact, how I became a spiritual giant. Hello, this is Pastor Jerry Cuparys again and I'd like to take a moment to ask you to pray for and give to Key Life. When you pray, ask for wisdom and blessings and that Key Life will continue to spread the message of God's grace for many years to come. And if you can give, please give as generous as you are able and you know that we will be faithful with every gift, big or small. Thank you. What if you could start your day by hanging out in God's Word and with some of the most significant theologians, authors and pastors ever? That's the idea behind the one-year devotional, God With Us. Find it now on keylife.org/store. This is Pete Alwinson and if you're a guy, I want to show you how to recover and reclaim an intimate growing relationship with your Heavenly Father. Check out Like Father, Like Son: How Knowing God as Father Changes Men, available now at keylife.org/store. Believer, I want you to remember that where sin abounds, grace does much more abound and you will run out of sin before God runs out of grace. Grace, the real good news of the gospel. Find it now on keylife.org/store.
Steve Brown: Hey, thanks for spending the time with us here. By the way, do you get our free weekly email, Key Life Connection? You can sign up for it today and the Julianis will send you the answer key for all the discussion questions in the book on Mark. Go to keylife.org/subscribe. My question is very pedestrian, but I wondered when you were writing this study guide if you had a particular amount of time in mind that you thought that this would take for a small group or something like that. I found this whole thing, and I know there have been others in the past, but there are so many great Christian writers that write these great books and it seems like everybody does a study guide now. This is just that simple. It's the Gospel of Mark. It's God's Word and we're going to read it and then we're going to talk about it as opposed to studying a topical thing that somebody else wrote and then we're all going to participate in how we think that gets applied to my life versus your life. I just think this is great, not just for a small group, but just taking it home and sitting in your own home in the evening and saying, "Okay, I'm going to read Mark chapter one." Were you thinking in that vein?
Barbara Juliani: Yes, we were. Thank you for saying that. I didn't know if I should raise that about Christian books versus the Bible. I'm an author, Steve's an author, and my day job is producing Christian books. I don't want people to stop buying Christian books, but I will tell you that I would always prefer a small group would do a Bible study. I'm always hoping that a Bible study like this would meet the need of our moment now where people have more limited time, where they're not coming and doing questions a couple days before. People just don't have the time. This is meant to be accomplished in one sitting or two. In our church, we think an hour and an hour and a half. A lot of times because when we do it with our Sunday school in church, the part with the reading the Bible, the discussion questions, and the article takes up the whole hour. Then the next time we meet, we'll do the activity. Because if you don't do that, then sometimes you just sort of get stuck. It just depends how much time you have. My mom and dad were the founders of Serge, which is a mission agency, and they were known for their grace-oriented renewal materials. People would go through some of those materials and then they would always say to my mother, "Well, what are we supposed to do now?" and my mom would always say, "Can't they just read the Bible?" I think that stuck in my mind because I don't get much out of a reading plan the Bible that way, although I do pray through the Psalms every morning that I can. I think you need some guidance. You need some help. You need somebody explaining to you the gospel and how it applies here and how it applies to your exact life. When people do that, they see that the word is so powerful.
Steve Brown: Angelo, before we go, I want you to tell us. I asked you, you don't stay home very much. I hope you have a good associate in your church. But tell us a little bit about Africa and some of the countries where you're involved.
Angelo Juliani: I'm very excited. When we planted our church in 2006, God opened up the door at the same time. No church planting association would say you can plant two churches, one here and one in Africa at the same time, but the Holy Spirit had a different idea. While we were planting a church here, we were also planting in Swaziland, in Eswatini. We were working there with a church who had a vision for planting churches and out of that came just an amazing ministry that started up. Originally we built a school in an area where there was no school, began to do digging bore holes for crops and everything. But then eventually what happened was people had gone on teams with me over there, got a vision to go over themselves. So we sent our first couples, missionaries, over there. His wife had been there before. There are a lot of deaf in Eswatini, probably the highest percentage per capita in the world. She wanted to be able to relate to them, so she came home, she learned English sign language, didn't realize that there's a Siswati sign language. They went out on the mission field together and in six months, God gave them the ability to learn Siswati sign language. Within a year, there was now a deaf church that God was using in a very powerful way, going into what was called the deaf primary and high school where maybe one or two teachers knew how to sign. Parents didn't know how. They were the lepers of their society. Over the last five years now, we are seeing children in that school come to the Lord. We just did 26 baptisms with the high school students there. They now are able to fight for their rights and it's just been an amazing open door that God's opened up.
Steve Brown: How can people get information on this?
Angelo Juliani: Our website is called comfortforafrica.org. You can go right on comfortforafrica.org and there will be information about that and then also information to the missionaries who are part of that.
Steve Brown: I don't know where this hour went. This was fun. We learned a lot and we grew a lot. Thank you for taking the time to be with us. Listen, keep working on these books and we'll keep talking, okay? Next week we have a newcomer to Steve Brown, Etc. His name is Jacob Coyne and his book is titled The Secret Life of Christians: How to Live Authentically Especially When No One is Watching. You know, we're all on show all the time, but you've got to say, what do you do when you go home and nobody's watching? We're going to come back next week, same time, same place, and it's our fond hope that you'll join us again. Between now and then, don't do anything we wouldn't do, and that gives you a wide, wide berth. Some of us need a wider berth than others.