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
0.17UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.47UNLIKELY
Fear
0.14UNLIKELY
Joy
0.46UNLIKELY
Sadness
0.56LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.63LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.06UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.89LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.64LIKELY
Extraversion
0.35UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.51LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.69LIKELY

Tone of specific sentences

Tones
Emotion
Anger
Disgust
Fear
Joy
Sadness
Language
Analytical
Confident
Tentative
Social Tendencies
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Emotional Range
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
By Pastor Glenn Pease
Dave Howell, The World Service Secretary Of The YMCA, was going to give a speech on his experience in Liberia.
There were three speakers before him, and the first mentioned that Howell had come from Libya to be there, instead of Liberia.
Howell whispered to the next speaker that he would appreciate it if he could correct the mistake.
This second man rose to speak, and referred to Mr. Howell, there guest from Nigeria.
Howell nudged the speaker who was to officially introduce him, and reminded him to set the record straight.
The gentleman nodded, and rose to introduce him.
He said, "Now it is my pleasure to present Dave Howell from Siberia."
There are some situations where it is so hard to set the record straight, because you cannot get people to be accurate by focusing on details.
Agassiz, the Swiss Naturalist, was one of the world's best teachers, and many of his students became famous, because his first lesson was on detail.
New students would come to his study, and he would give them a fish in a jar.
He would tell them to observe it, and he would be back.
He would be gone for hours, and the student had nothing to do but watch that fish, and count the bones in the fins, and the number of scales.
They would get disgusted and discouraged, but when the professor returned, he did not relieve them of their task of observing.
For three days they spent hours looking at that fish, and they learned the knack of careful observation of all detail, and the rest of their lives were benefited, and they went on to become the best in their field.
If you want to be the best at anything, you have got to be an observer of detail.
This is not the same as being picky, and a person who is devoted to the trivial.
Paul warned about getting all hung up on foolish questions dealing with genealogies.
There is also the folly of dwelling on detail.
Like the man who said, "My wife and I had an interesting fight last night.
She said it was five days since our last fight, and I said it was four."
Detail is only crucial when our understanding of more major issues depends on our grasp of detail.
This is certainly the case with this complex chapter of I Cor. 7. Paul is making all kinds of distinctions in this chapter, and if you do not give heed to detail, you will miss the essence of his whole approach, which is, a clear recognition of individual differences.
One of the first things you learn in counseling is that people who have the same problem are radically different.
You can not deal with people like barrels on an assembly line.
You have to deal with them as persons, and to do this, you have to reject legalism as your guide.
If the church would have followed Paul in rejecting legalism, and have dealt with people as individuals, there would never have been the dark ages of the church, and the folly that has done so much harm to God's people.
Just one illustration out of many dozens reveals the point.
St. Benedict, as a youth of 16, fought off lust for a beautiful maiden.
So determined was he, that he cast off his simply garment, and threw himself into a thicket of brambles and nettles.
He thrashed and rolled until his body was lacerated from head to foot.
This crude, but successful, method of conquering the flesh made him a hero, and he founded a monastery, and gained a great following, and did great things for the kingdom of God.
So far so good, but the church officials said, "What is good for St. Benedict is good for everybody," and they passed a law that said all priests were to abstain from sex.
They were not to marry, or if they were married, they were to stop sleeping with their wives.
All clergy were to be celibate, or lose their office.
Some actually were successful.
One holy man kept his wife at a distance for years, and when she approached him on his death bed to see if he was still breathing, he gathered up his strength and said, "Woman depart!
Take away the straw, for there is yet fire here."
The tragedy, however, is that this legalism forced the non-gifted to live a life they were not fit for.
The result was centuries of Christian scandal.
By forcing everyone to be celibate, they made a mockery of all the Bible teaches about sex.
Sex starved priests, by the thousands, who could have been happily married, were visiting prostitutes, sleeping with parishioners, making all kinds of arrangements with nuns, and, at one point in the tenth century, the Archbishop of Sens had the entire Abby of St. Peter filled with concubines.
Temple prostitution became as common as it was in pagan Corinth.
You cannot begin to imagine the mess Christians have made in history by not paying attention to Paul's advice.
He is constantly making distinctions, but legalists make no distinctions.
They just cast everybody into the same mold, and say this is it, there is no other perspective.
Paul says to avoid to being a fool you have got to recognize that people differ.
They differ in their gifts, in their personalities, and in there circumstances.
For example, in verse 8 he says it is well for the unmarried and widow to remain single, but then he immediately says it is better for them to marry than to burn with passion they cannot control.
It is well to stay single, but better to marry if there is this difference in their makeup.
So Paul clearly puts the burden on the individual.
There is no rule here that applies to all.
Which is best for you depends upon you, and only you can know what you are capable of handling.
It is folly to make a rule which applies to all which does not recognize individual differences.
The church has tried it many times, and it always leads to tragedy.
Those who learn nothing from history are condemned to repeat it.
Two tired donkey's came to a stream on a hot day.
One carried a load of salt, and the other a huge pack of sponges.
The one carrying salt went in first, and when he came out the other side he called back and said, "It was easy and delightful," for his burden was lightened as the salt dissolved in the water.
The second donkey plunged into the stream and the sponges filled with water and he drowned.
The point is, do not assume that what is a blessing for you is a blessing for others in Christ.
It may very well be a burden to them.
Celibates who feel all should be celibate, and marrieds who feel all should be married, are dangerous legalists, for if they had the power they would impose their preference on everyone.
History is full of this kind of nonsense.
Paul will have no part of it.
He recognizes distinctions, and honors individual differences.
We see him maintaining the same spirit as we come to his dealings with divorce.
He makes a distinction between marriages of two Christians, and marriages of a Christian and a non-Christian.
His point is, divorce in never good, but it may, in certain cases, be the only alternative that makes sense.
The case he deals with is a non-Christian mate who refuses to live with his Christian spouse.
If the non-Christian gets a divorce, Paul says in verse 15, let it be so, for the Christian mate cannot be bound in such a case.
It is obvious to all that a non-Christian can just say, "I refuse to try and save this marriage," and go off and get a divorce.
The divorce Christian, in this case, does not need to have the slightest guilt for being divorced, unless, of course, they were terrible mates.
For now, let's focus our attention on verse 10-11, where Paul deals with two Christians who are married to one another.
He first addresses the wife, and gives a clear word of warning that it is not just his authority, but from the Lord.
The Christian wife is not to get a divorce.
By not paying attention to detail, I always saw this as a warning not to separate, as if the mere act of separation was itself wrong.
Paul is not writing here about separation, but about divorce.
This is clear from the 11th verse, where Paul says, if the wife goes ahead and does what he says not to, she should remain single or unmarried.
Obviously, a mere separation does not make her single or unmarried.
She has gotten a divorce, and so Paul is saying the same thing to the wife as he does in verse 11 to the husband-don't get a divorce.
The one thing that is clear in the Bible is that divorce is never the best way to go.
Divorce is negative.
Nobody ever rejoices that a divorce is a part of their life.
The most liberal Bible interpreters recognize that divorce is a sad ending to a beautiful dream.
The cults even agree, there is no praise for divorce.
Paganism, and even secularism join in the universal agreement that divorce is not success, but failure.
But the fact is, it is a reality.
It always has been, and always will be.
It is a growing menace in our culture, and Christians can no longer be smug about it, for it is no longer a problem of the world only, it is a major problem of the church.
The church can never escape the changes in the culture, and the result is, Christian marriages are breaking up at a faster pace than ever in history.
It is not new, however, for Paul dealt with a culture where the same problem existed.
He is writing to Christian couples, telling them not to divorce each other.
You may think Paul knew very little about women, but he proved you wrong, right here.
He told the Christian wife she was not to divorce her husband.
Then in the very next sentence, he tells her what to do after she ignores that first command.
Don't let anybody ever tell you that Paul did not understand women.
Paul knows some of the problems in Christian marriages are so bad that it is superficial to assume there will never be a divorce.
Instead, he assumes there will be, and so he goes on to say what the next step is after a Christian wife does get a divorce.
Paul was a realist.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9