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
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
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-13
“Good and Evil”
Cheaters never prosper.
The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
The Lord opposes the proud, but exalts the humble.
Love wins.
We hear all these phrases, and more, about how good triumphs over evil, and love conquers all.
The book of Proverbs has dozens just like them.
It seems like the conventional wisdom is that good guys win, bad guys lose, and all is eventually right in the world.
But there’s a small problem: If good always wins, then I need to change my understanding of what’s good.
That’s the point being made in the song we just heard.
Evil does well.
Good; not so good.
Evil is reliable.
It’s bankable.
It’s something you can count on.
In a world where we constantly tell one another that right will win the day, the things that win the day don’t look quite right.
So if who’s winning
Writing on the same topic, the Apostle Paul compiled two lists.
One, he calls the works of the flesh.
The things people do when giving in to the worst of who they are.
And it’s not so great a list.
It’s full of abusive, harmful, selfish behavior.
By comparison, he offers the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.
It’s impossible to make laws against these things! he declares excitedly.
Why does that matter?
Well, Paul is a Christian, writing to an audience of Christians, in an empire where Christianity has, at various times, been outlawed.
To claim to be a follower of Jesus could land a person in prison - in fact, that’s exactly what happened to Paul a few years after writing this letter.
The second
But these things, the fruit of the spirit?
There can’t be a law against them, because they’re not unique to a religion or spiritual tradition.
They are both universal, and the best humanity has to offer.
Paul is essentially providing a blueprint for how anyone, Christian or not, can live a good, moral, beneficial life.
And why wouldn’t we want to do that?
Why wouldn’t we all, Christian or otherwise, want to live a good, moral, beneficial life?
Can you imagine what would happen to the world if we did so?
As Lucy sings, “it’s hell that we choose, and heaven must lose.”
Humans have a choice about the kind of world we want to live in, and it looks like we have collectively chosen hell.
But if, together, we have managed to create hell on earth by pursuing the works of the flesh, then what would happen if we all, individually and together, began to produce the fruit of the spirit?
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