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
0.11UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.1UNLIKELY
Fear
0.09UNLIKELY
Joy
0.58LIKELY
Sadness
0.51LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.51LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.7LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.9LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.75LIKELY
Extraversion
0.41UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.73LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.82LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Announcements
Collection
Birthdays and Anniversaries
Our sermon will be on Acts 9:1-19
We have a website: https://tahlequahworshipcenter.com/
We have started Wednesday Night service back up
We need a work day
We are having a candlelight service after church on 12/26
Prayer requests
Sue
Georgey
Billy
Dorcas
Mark Wilson
Cristy’s Grandparents
Sandra
Jim’s Son
Stephen
Tornado victims
Songs
Beautiful Star Of Bethlehem
Angels We Have High
Mary Did You Know
The Star
Matthew 2:1-12
We are going to talk a little about Christmas and what the Bible says about it.
There are 2 accounts in the Bible.
One is in Luke and it talks about the time of the birth of Jesus.
The visitation of the Angels, the shepherds, the manger and all the rest.
The account we are looking at today has very little in common.
Luke brings the account from the viewpoint of Mary and Matthew seems to bring it from Joseph’s account.
The Star isn’t mentioned in Luke’s account.
Here’s probably the truth, they happened at different times.
We’ll get into that in a bit, but the point is that the birth of Jesus probably didn’t happen like it’s often portrayed
Not only that, but the time of his birth may be off.
We don’t even know the year.
It was probably between 6 and 4 BC.
but some place it closer to 1 AD
We don’t know what the star was.
Was it a conjoining of planets?
Was it an especially bright comet?
Was it a supernatural event.
Here’s what we know for sure: Jesus made such an impact on the world that our calendar revolves around his birth.
Let’s dig in and see what Matthew has to say about the birth of Jesus.
They Saw The Star
Let’s talk about the wise men.
This is an image of a mosaic in Ravenna, Italy dated to 565 AD.
Notice that there are 3 of them in the picture, but the passage doesn’t tell us that.
By the way - they are wearing Persian clothing
It says in our passage that they are “wise men”
In the Greek, it uses a word Magi.
We have the word Magician
That word comes from a Persian word Magus - it was a word used of a priestly caste of Persia.
And Persia is east of Israel so that’s probably where they were from.
Their religion was probably Zoroastrianism.
Tradition puts their names as Mellchior, Caspar, and Balthazar.
Tradition even calls them kings.
Since the text doesn’t tell us their names and how many, we just don’t know for sure.
We do know that they traveled a long distance and likely had a caravan of other people with them.
It would have likely taken a while for them to put together the supplies, get the necessary permission, and traveled to Jerusalem.
It was probably a few months and maybe longer from the time they saw the star to when they got to Harod.
When Harod hears their story, he is troubled.
He doesn’t want a new king.
We know from history that he had some of his children killed because He thought they were trying to take his kingdom from him.
Later, when he finds out that the wise men had left, he had all the children in Bethlehem killed 2 years and younger.
He was an evil man.
Harod gets all the scribes and priests together and they all agree that the wise men should go to Bethlehem.
That’s because it says in Micah 5:2
So Harod sends them out to Bethlehem.
They Followed The Star
When the left, the star went before them and then it stood over where Jesus was.
So what was the Star.
I said before that it could have been a conjoining of planets, or a bright comet, or even a supernatural event.
Here’s the problem.
Nobody but Matthew wrote about this star.
Usually, these types of things were written about.
It couldn’t have been a comet because comets don’t stand still.
A conjunction could be what it is taking about because they do funky things because how we are moving around the sun.
To these Magi, the alignment of the stars meant something to them.
There is a documentary called “The Star of Bethlehem” that tells of a special alignment that occurred on December 25, 1 BC.
Now, modern scholarship says that the star would have been somewhere between 6-4 BC because of when they think Harod the Great died.
However, they could be wrong about it.
I think it’s based on when a supernova happened.
I don’t put much faith in any of that because the Bible doesn’t state a date, except to say that Harod was king.
The point is that whatever it was they went and found the small child in a house.
Notice it wasn’t a stable.
That’s because this probably happened sometime after the birth.
So they went inside this house and ...
They Saw The Savior
It says they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.
When you put 2 adjectives on something.
Especially 2 where the meanings intertwine, it magnifies it.
Joy is a wonderful thing.
Great joy is is even more wonderful.
When you add exceedingly to it, you are talking about the max.
This is the greatest thing that has ever happened.
There are traditions that say these men were kings.
One from Babylon, one from India, and one from Ethiopia.
If that is true, then it gives special meaning to them bowing down and worshipping him.
There is a passage that might be associated to this event.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9