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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8 "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, a curse be on him!
9 "As we have said before, I now say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, a curse be on him! 10 "For am I now trying to persuade people, or God?
Or am I striving to please people?
If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
()
The gospel preached by Paul is not the true gospel because it is Paul who preaches it;
it is the true gospel because the risen Christ gave it to Paul to preach.
The gospel is the gospel because it is God’s gospel.
If Paul himself, or any other apostle, or even an angel were to bring a different message
from that which had proved its saving power to the Galatians
when they heard and believed it, both
the messenger and
his counterfeit message
should be rejected.
The authority and character of the preacher are important, no doubt,
but their importance is secondary:
more important is the content of what is preached.
Because the gospel is God’s gospel, there will never be another.
Certainly the gospel has its rivals.
Islam claims to be based on the revelation of angels.
Some cults claim to have a special message about how to be saved from the coming judgment.
Some cults claim to have a special message about how to be saved from the coming judgment.
To any and all challengers we give the same answer that Paul gave to the Galatians:
8 "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, a curse be on him!” ()
To show that this was not a rash exaggeration, fueled by excessive passion,
but his mature and settled judgment,
Paul virtually repeated himself: 9 "As we have said before, I now say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, a curse be on him!” ()
Notice the subtle shift from v8 to v9.
“if we or an angel from heaven should preach...”
v9.
“If anyone is preaching…”
Paul is addressing the real situation in Galatia, where false teachers were preaching a false gospel.
There is no other gospel.
Sinners must either receive this one true gospel or be eternally condemned.
God offers the free gift of eternal life,
through faith in his Son Jesus Christ,
who died for our sins and rose again.
If we reject this gift, what else can God possibly do to save us?
Just quoting these verses makes us seem intolerant.
The gospel pulls away man’s chance to boast of his salvation.
Once a prideful man loses all chance at saving himself and must humbly cast himself
upon the arms of a willing and all powerful Savior,
it’s inevitable that we quickly encounter
bitter hatred,
persecution,
excommunication,
condemnation, and
execution.
The apostle Paul faced all these things himself—
including execution—
because of his life-or-death commitment to the one true gospel.
He was willing to face them because he knew whose approval really mattered.
As committed as he was, apparently Paul was accused of being inconsistent.
Verse 10 gives a clue what his enemies were saying: 10 "For am I now trying to persuade people, or God?
Or am I striving to please people?
If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
()
Paul’s opponents said that he was a people-pleaser.
They claimed that he would say or do anything to be popular.
When he was with Jews, he behaved like a Jew; but
when he was with Gentiles, he told them they didn’t have to keep the law or get circumcised.
All he really cared about was his own reputation.
For example, Paul had Timothy circumcised right in Galatia, just to keep the Jews happy ().
But Titus wasn’t circumcised at all ().
Not surprisingly, Paul was accused of being inconsistent.
After all, he was the man who said, “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” ().
The truth is that however inconsistent he seemed, Paul was always consistent with the gospel.
Timothy was circumcised so that they might not cause the orthodox Jews to stumble.
So that circumcision happened to further Jewish Evangelism.
Titus was allowed to be circumcised because people were saying that he needed to, so that he might be saved!
So, while inconsistent with the outside observer, Paul was always consistent with the gospel.
People who are seeking the approval of fellow human beings, don’t go around hurling anathemas (1:8-9).
These are hardly the words of a man who cared very much what people thought!
So the apostle posed the question, “Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?
Or am I trying to please man?” ().
Obviously not.
Paul was one of those rare individuals who did not live to please anyone except God.
If we ask how he was able to do this, the answer is that he was living by the one true gospel.
To be sure, there was a time when the most important thing in his life was what people thought of him.
He refers to this at the end of verse 10: “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ” ().
Before he came to Christ, back when he was still a Pharisee,
Paul did everything he could to keep up appearances.
He put his confidence in his
circumcision,
his ethnicity,
his family connections,
his cultural background, and
especially the way he kept the law ().
Back then he was living by a different gospel, which was no gospel at all.
Then Paul left Pharisaism behind and came to Christ.
He stopped living for his own publicity and started living for God’s pleasure.
This is a question every person has to answer: Whose pleasure do I seek?
If we try to please ourselves, or other people, then we are living by a different gospel.
Pleasing God and pleasing others are mutually exclusive.
We cannot follow our own ambitions and follow Jesus Christ at the same time.
For us, the “good news” is a bigger paycheck, a better job, a new romance, or some other personal accomplishment.
But once we understand the one true gospel, then we stop living for ourselves, or for others, and start living for God.
Consider what the gospel says.
It does not tell us what we have to do to please God.
Instead, it announces that God is already pleased with us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
God is as pleased with us as He is with his own Son.
This liberates us from seeking the approval of others.
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