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
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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
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Emotional Range
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Tone of specific sentences
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Emotion
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Anger
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Owens vs.
All
Tribalism and the Owen Brothers.
Tribalism and the Owen Brothers.
My oldest friend, born two months before me, is Jeremiah Owen.
And he is still my good friend today.
The Owens were a family with 5 boys and 1 daughter, the youngest.
And man, could they tear into each other.
Verbally and physically.
Hilarious.
Brothers beating on brothers was completely free reign, making fun of one another.
But if, even for a moment, anyone else, including me, tried to join in...
Jeremiah might say to Aaron “Dude, you’re such an idiot!”
and I say “Yeah, Aaron, you’re an idiot!”
All of the Owen boys stop what they are doing and turn and look at me.
And they’d turn on me, mid-fight.
They can pick on each other, within the tribe… but fire and brimstone upon ANYONE who dared to attack the Owen tribe!
The Shibboleth Slaughter
Jeff the Judge, Jeff the Shaman, Jeff the Gileadite
Recap Jephthah… the Gileadite.
Being a Gileadite is a clear part of his identity.
It was an identity denied him as a young man, driven out into exile by his brothers.
And now it is part of him, such that just about every time his name is mentioned in Scripture, it is “Jephtah the Gileadite”.
And now he is made King of the Gileadites, in addition to being called a judge over Israel.
The emphasis is not on “Israelite” but on Gileadite.
This epic victory over the Ammonites.
They are feeling good, feeling proud, they did it.
Here we can see why it was the Gileadites who were most threatened by the Ammonites.
Over on the east side of the Jordan, where modern day nation of Jordan is, they were the first line of defense against the foreign invader.
The Ephraimites
But the most powerful tribe, the Ephraimites, they got left out of the party… and now they are upset.
They were left out of the victory, left out of the glory.
As brothers in Israel, brother tribes, shouldn’t they have been invited to defeat the Ammonites?
They remember generations ago when they were left out of Gideon’s victory too… so they are sensitive to this kind of treatment.
Plus, many in the Gileadite region are from the tribe of Ephraim, or related.
Shouldn’t they give proper respect to family, to the tribe, to the most powerful tribe amongst the tribes of Israel.
Their pride is offended.
There pride is hurt… but that escalated quickly!
Straight from feeling left out to “BURN YOUR HOUSE WITH FIRE!”
Judges 12:2
Sounds like he is going to negotiate again.
Until...
Judges 12:4
So Ephraim was talking more trash against the Gileadites, like they were tribe rejects.
But this word “struck” means that the Gileadites just trashed the Ephraimites.
To strike.
To smite dead.
Jeff’s team won.
They smashed the “enemy”.
The Gileadites defeated the Ephraimites soundly, scattering their army.
But in order to get back home, the scattered Ephraimites soldiers need to get back west across the Jordan.
But the Gileadites sneak around and capture the fords so that, as the scattered men of Ephraim try and make their way home, they are caught.
And the Gileadites sneak around and capture the fords so that, as the scattered men of Ephraim try and make their way home, they are caught.
Judges 12:
The Gileadites talked funny, it seems.
Arabic is like this, it has no “sh” sound, and so apparently the men of Ephraim didn’t say the “sh” sound, they used the “s” sound.
This was then a clear marker.
Shibboleth isn’t a magic word, it means “ear of grain”.
But this becomes the dividing line.
Who is “us” and who is “them”.
It is us vs. them.
And “they”, the other, the stranger-danger, the Ephraimite… they have to die.
42,000 (or 42 divisions or clans) were killed.
That is a lot of murder based on an accent.
Shibboleth?
I have heard sermons on Shibboleth and Shibboleth enters the English language (somewhat obscurely) as a kind of magic password or sign showing true believers or true membership in the group.
The idea here being that the Gileadites were righteous in following Jeff and the Ephraimites were unrighteous in rebelling or invading.
This is another situation, though, in which there is no moral judgment in the text whatsoever.
God doesn’t seem to command this war, and we certainly can’t infer from the fact that Jephthah is a “judge” that he is acting righteously here.
We have seen too many judges acting in monstrous sin, including Jephthah himself in sacrificing his daughter!
I believe that both sides of this conflict are acting in sin.
Why?
Because they are family, they are brothers, they are the people of God, commanded to unity and peace.
Jephthah above all, a judge of all Israel, acts for the pride and defense of Gilead alone.
Where he could have turned aside anger with a gentle word, like Gideon before him, he rises to battle.
Ephraim acts out of foolish wounded pride.
You didn’t invite us to the battle so we will burn your house down?
This is a war within the family of God.
Everybody loses.
And it is rooted in this dangerously attractive idea.
Tribalism.
This is my tribe.
That is theirs.
It isn’t about fault.
Perhaps Ephraim was the initial aggressor.
They are certainly wrong.
Jephthah is slaughtering fugitives of war.
Tribalism in politics.
Tribalism within family.
Between brothers, between sisters.
Tribalism between churches.
Tribalism within churches.
We don’t do this, right?
Only “they” do it.
(See what we did there?)
This is human and this is me.
I am going to draw a line around my family, my church, my team, my people.
And in a thousand practical ways, that makes sense.
To love or not to love?
But then comes this question: How am I going to treat this person?
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