Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.62LIKELY
Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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Sadness
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Language Tone
Analytical
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Confident
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Tentative
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Social Tone
Openness
0.84LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.76LIKELY
Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Emotional Range
0.68LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
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Start with a Compliment
We’ve all had those conversations, probably on both ends.
But, you know someone who is speaking and acting as if they are missing something important.
And, you feel like you’re the one who is supposed to tell them what they are missing.
Making mistakes, making ppl mad, they’re oblivious or don’t care.
And, it’s making you mad b/c there is unnecessary hurt and conflict going on.
If they would just see what they are doing.
Could be they are doing the right thing just in the wrong way.
Or, maybe, they’re doing the wrong thing.
Somebody needs to point this out to them and it may be you.
And, likely, you’ve been on the other end of that conversation, too.
Where someone thought you were missing something and they were the one to point it out to you.
How’d that go?
Maybe we’re not reading the situation right.
Maybe, we’re missing how we’re coming across.
Maybe, inaccurate assumptions are being made.
These are difficult conversations and if they have to happen they need to start out on the right note.
Preachers have always faced this.
How do you start a message that you hope will connect w/ people in a positive way that leads to positive life-changes?
There was a time when this was less of a concern.
Billy Sunday.
Evangelist.
Hard core preacher.
100 years ago.
He’d take his suit jacket off and start swinging it.
He’d be emotional and loud, angry.
“Sinners in the Hands of an angry God”
He would reflect that anger as he spoke.
Nobody wanted to be that guy who stood before God a guilty man w/ not defense.
By the end of the sermon people were begging him to give them the answer to their hopeless plight.
Over the years we’ve come a long way and that style of preaching doesn’t play well, anymore.
One of the issues we face is when you’re a citizen of the greatest nation in the history of the world what do we have to apologize for?
Clearly, God has smiled on us collectively and by default me, individually.
That is, if there is a God.
We’ve done pretty well by ourselves.
If anyone needs to apologize it’s those other nations that cause problems that our military, scientists, politicians, education system, doctors, etc., have to fix.
So, when speaking to a group of people that may not be aware of the situation they are in it would be a bad idea to start out mad or insult them.
God’s anger is justified.
But, not ours.
Though, if we care about them at all we might get angry.
But, generally speaking, it’s a bad idea to start out angry or w/ and insult if you’re hoping to have a positive influence on the people you’re talking to.
So, that said, “My, you’re quite the attractive bunch today.”
is the story of Paul in Athens
Seed-Pickers
Paul makes his case
Athens is the center of the Greek universe.
Like Rome to the Romans.
But, Athens was while Rome Is.
Paul looks around at all the statues of their gods and he is very angry.
God views idols as an abomination that make men stumble and catches the feet of fools.
They are distractions that keep people from considering God.
Paul starts in the synagogue as usual.
Same place, same case.
OT prediction and recent history prove Jesus is the the Messiah.
When he’s not in the synagogue, he goes out to the marketplace to make his case for Jesus.
But this is an entirely different audience than the synagogues.
Non-Jewish.
Greek.
The area was lined w/ the statues of their gods.
There were other statues as well.
This was a very sexualized society.
The Greeks believed only the gods were immortal.
Humans died and went to Hades and stayed there forever.
That was their fate.
Since there was no hope for an afterlife then live it up in this life.
No reason to sacrifice anything.
Only the gods were immortal so the humans were immoral.
So, to the Greek philosophers, the resurrection was their flashpoint.
Reaction
Acts 17:
Paul engaged their philosophers.
Neither Epicureans nor Stoics believed in an afterlife.
Stoics sought hun
So, their first reaction was accuse Paul of being a babbler.
That is, one who picks up bits of information here and there then passes them off as if he knows what he is talking about.
Picture a hen pecking at the ground randomly after seeds a kernels.
Like being accused of being a 3rd rate journalist.
Pick up bits and pieces here and there fill in the blanks w/ his own feelings and unsubstantiated ideas then present the case as if it’s a sure thing.
The Athenians were intellectually arrogant.
They believed no one was their equal.
The Greeks had been the lone world power.
They were the first to build an educational system and civilize the people.
They were smart and self-disciplined.
When Rome conquered them, they kept much of these pieces of the Greek Empire.
Rome brought gov.t structure, infrastructure (roads and highways), and a powerful military to enforce all this and keep the peace.
So, the Greeks egos were inflated believing they were more educated, civilized and smarter, though the Romans were more powerful and blue collar.
Who is this Jewish seed-picker who thinks he’s so smart?
Their second reaction was to see Paul as a teacher of foreign gods.
Maybe he does have something, or someone to offer them.
If they just gave him the opportunity to get his thoughts together and present them in a more organized fashion.
He’s talking about a God they know nothing about nor do the understand His activities.
An afterlife?
Resurrection?
There was nothing like this in their theology.
A totally foreign concept.
Still, there was a synagogue in Athens.
How does that happen?
A place where the Greeks could go to learn about God and an afterlife if they were curious.
And Jews who had been commissioned by God to model a blessed life so outsiders would want in.
How come the Greeks had no knowledge of God?
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