Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Analytical
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Acts 10:1-
Everybody lies, but Google searches reveal our darkest secrets.
That's the conclusion of US data scientist Seth Stephens Davidowitz, who analyzes anonymous Google search results.
His research shows disturbing truths about our prejudices.
Many people are, for good reason, inclined to keep their prejudices to themselves.
I suppose you could call it progress that many people today feel they will be judged if they admit they judge other people based on their ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion.
But many Americans still do.
You can see this on Google, where users sometimes ask questions such as “Why are black people rude?” or “Why are Jews evil?”
A few patterns among these stereotypes stand out.
For example, African Americans are the only group that faces a “rude” stereotype.
Nearly every group is a victim of a “stupid” stereotype; the only two that are not: Jews and Muslims.
The “evil” stereotype is applied to Jews, Muslims, and gay people but not black people, Mexicans, Asians, and Christians.
Muslims are the only group stereotyped as terrorists.
When a Muslim American plays into this stereotype, the response can be instantaneous and vicious.
Google search data can give us a minute-by-minute peek into such eruptions of hate-fuelled rage.
Consider what happened shortly after the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, on 2 December, 2015.
That morning, Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik entered a meeting of Farook’s co-workers armed with semi-automatic pistols and semi-automatic rifles and murdered 14 people.
That evening, minutes after the media first reported one of the shooters’ Muslim-sounding names, a disturbing number of Californians decided what they wanted to do with Muslims: kill them.
The top Google search in California with the word “Muslims” in it at the time was “kill Muslims”.
And overall, Americans searched for the phrase “kill Muslims” with about the same frequency that they searched for “martini recipe” and “migraine symptoms”.
The Lord destroys all of mankind except for Noah and his family.
In the days following the San Bernardino attack, for every American concerned with “Islamophobia”, another was searching for “kill Muslims”.
While hate searches were approximately 20% of all searches about Muslims before the attack, more than half of all search volume about Muslims became hateful in the hours that followed it.
And this minute-by-minute search data can tell us how difficult it can be to calm this rage.
The Lord chooses a people as his representatives.
Four days after the shooting, President Obama gave a prime-time address to the country.
He wanted to reassure Americans that the government could both stop terrorism and, perhaps more importantly, quiet this dangerous Islamophobia.
Obama appealed to our better angels, speaking of the importance of inclusion and tolerance.
The rhetoric was powerful and moving.
The Los Angeles Times praised Obama for “[warning] against allowing fear to cloud our judgment”.
The New York Times called the speech both “tough” and “calming”.
The website ThinkProgress praised it as “a necessary tool of good governance, geared towards saving the lives of Muslim Americans”.
Obama’s speech, in other words, was judged a major success.
But was it?
Google search data suggests otherwise.
Together with Evan Soltas, then at Princeton, I examined the data.
In his speech, the president said: “It is the responsibility of all Americans – of every faith – to reject discrimination.”
But searches calling Muslims “terrorists”, “bad”, “violent”, and “evil” doubled during and shortly after the speech.
President Obama also said: “It is our responsibility to reject religious tests on who we admit into this country.”
But negative searches about Syrian refugees, a mostly Muslim group then desperately looking for a safe haven, rose 60%, while searches asking how to help Syrian refugees dropped 35%.
Obama asked Americans to “not forget that freedom is more powerful than fear”.
Yet searches for “kill Muslims” tripled during his speech.
In fact, just about every negative search we could think to test regarding Muslims shot up during and after Obama’s speech, and just about every positive search we could think to test declined.
In other words, Obama seemed to say all the right things.
But new data from the internet, offering digital truth serum, suggested that the speech actually backfired in its main goal.
Instead of calming the angry mob, as everybody thought he was doing, the internet data tells us that Obama actually inflamed it.
THE LORD CONFRONTS THE HEART OF PREJUDICE BELIEVERS.
Despite being commissioned to reach the world for Christ the church remained homogeneous.
If the Holy Spirit doesn’t work in our hearts we will seek to reach people of our own kind.
Despite love and devotion for Christ Peter still struggled with prejudice.
We can live with prejudice in our heart while generally being fellowship with God.
Peter was praying while he had his vision.
There is enough sin in us that a thousand years of life on earth could not overcome.
Our sin is not a reason for Christ to cease his work it is the cause of His work.
Our sin should not cause us to flee from Christ it should be why we continue to flee to Christ.
Peter’s prejudice was innate as well as instilled.
Peter grew up believing his Jewishness made him superior to Gentiles.
The Jewish people had misunderstood what it meant to be chosen by God.
Deuteronomy 7:7
It was the grace of God that distinguished them and not something of which they could boast.
The Jews were even commanded to love aliens because they themselves had also been aliens in Egypt.
The grace of God is to be shown to those outside the church.
The Jews were not chosen to live a life of superiority but one of salvation.
Thomas, D. W. H. (2011).
Acts.
(R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & D. M. Doriani, Eds.) (p.
300).
Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.
THE LORD CONVERTS PEOPLE OF EVERY TRIBE, NATION, AND TONGUE.
It had always been God’s intention, expressly so, that the message of salvation was for the whole world.
Notice Peter’s location; Joppa.
This was the same port city in which Jonah boarded a boat headed in the opposite of God’s commission.
Jonah’s commission was Nineveh.
A Gentile city filled with violent and ruthless people; especially towards Jews.
The Bible is a full circle book.
What would Peter do? Would he see Gentiles as heirs of grace?
Would he follow in Jonah’s steps?
Would he believe ?
Would he be Acts 1:8?
Peter preaches to a large gathering of people in v.27.
His message is the same as minus its Jewishness.
Peter sermon is simple.
The gospel is for everyone (v.
34).
The gospel is; God, the perfect and just creator, looked at mans defiant heart with undeserving love by sacrificing His only son for those who would believe.
Who wants in (v.43)?
We are not told how many believed.
What we are told is that the Holy Spirit fell on the Gentiles just as He did on the Jews in .
T
Thomas, D. W. H. (2011).
Acts.
(R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & D. M. Doriani, Eds.) (p.
300).
Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.
This event sets into motion the fulfillment of John’s vision in .
PREJUDICE REQUIRES CONTINUED CONFRONTATION
The Lord began a work in Peter’s prejudice heart in .
Continued His work in using Paul to confront Peter’s regression into prejudice.
Completing His work by sending Peter into the center of Gentile power, Rome to minister and die.
CONCLUSION
The final – and, I think, most powerful – value in this data is its ability to lead us from problems to solutions.
With more understanding, we might find ways to reduce the world’s supply of nasty attitudes.
Let’s return to Obama’s speech about Islamophobia.
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