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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Anger
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Sometimes you need a funny intro.
And sometimes you need a young man tearing apart a lion with his bare hands.
(Bear hands?)
One Hot Philistine
Yeah she is.
She was “all right” in Samson’s eyes.
“She pleases me” would be more literal, but in our vernacular I think the closest is “She is smokin’ hot!”
And that is the verse I got absolutely stuck on this week.
More about that later.
but apparently Samson’s father and mother start putting the pieces together and soon it is time for Samson to meet this girl.
And along the way he has a BIZARRE encounter.
The Honey-Sweetened Lion Carcass
Lion - think mountain lion, not Savannah lion.
Just as one tears a young goat???
You know, like you do with goats all the time.
(What is this?)
But he didn’t tell his parents, maybe he was ashamed he had been near a dead body, even though his Nazarite vow is strictly about being near human bodies.
Regardless, he now is a secret bare-handed lion killer.
And the woman was what in his eyes?
She was all-right.
I’m going to go check out that lion I killed… with my bare hands (bear hands?).
Oh, look, it seems something i buzzing around this dead lion.
BEES!
You know what sounds really good right now?
He reaches into the dead lion (how long had it been there???).
He “scrapes” (that’s a lovely word), he “scraped” some out of the carcass.
And he eats it.
MMmmmmmm… it has a certain flavor to it.
Wild honey with just a hint of organic sun-dried lion.
Delicious.
Does Samson have no friends?
Why are the Philistines providing his companions?
They do and they have big wedding feast.
Fun bachelor party game.
Riddles!
This is great.
Kind of a clever riddle that sounds better in Hebrew.
Six words, but the English here is great because they managed to make it rhyme.
And what is at stake?
A few sets of clothes.
Light-hearted fun.
“Out of the eater came something to eat.
Out of the strong came something sweet.”
But I would super disappointed if someone gave me this riddle because it’s based on this random and bizarre experience Samson had.
Tell me what weird thing I had for breakfast this morning!
That’s not a riddle.
And sure enough, the Philistines can’t guess it.
So they go to Samson’s wife.
Remember that Samson’s wife is a Philistine.
These are her people, her brothers and cousins, her neighbors and friends.
And she doesn’t know Samson at all.
He is a guy who thought she looked fine and had a dad who could arrange the marriage.
She doesn’t know him.
So its understandable she would try to help out her peoples.
Seven days she wept!
What is Samson thinking?
This girl is “all right” but she is whiny!!! Shutup about the riddle!
“But you don’t love me, you don’t trust me with the riddle...” “Fine fine, I’ll tell you the stupid riddle”.
And she tells her people.
This is fun, now they are going to win some clothes, a little gentle ribbing to the new guy, Samson.
WHAT???
They answered his riddle, and sure enough, Samson knows they must have gotten the answer from his wife.
But what he SAYS is “if you had not plowed with my heifer...” That sounds horrible, and it is, but it isn’t sexual innuendo.
It is an idiom essentially meaning “if you had not intimidated my wife...” Samson knows they got to his woman and so he chuckles, says “you got me” and buys them 30 nice outfits.
Right?
Nope.
He goes to the big city, one of the five biggest Philistine cities, right on the coast, and he murders 30 random men of the town and robs the bodies.
If breaking his Nazirite vow before was in doubt, it’s absolutely clear now.
Was he near a dead body?
Yes. 30 of them.
And he made them dead by way of murder… and robbing the bodies… and that’s how he repays the bet.
Here are your 30 outfits, stripped off the bodies of your fellow Phistines from the next town over
Oh, and what happened to the girl?
That will play into next week.
All the wrong reasons.
God saves anyway.
Samson, more than almost any other character is Scripture is setup to be a super-hero in the hands of God.
Impossible child of prophecy, born to a barren woman, his birth announced by an angel who went up in a burst of sacrificial fire: awesome.
And his name was “wonderful”.
The Spirit of God was upon him, and gave him miraculous strength.
Tearing apart a lion with his bare hands.
Able to, again, empowered by the holy spirit, he struck down thirty men of the town.
He is He-Man, he is Super-man.
He is defeating the Philistines the enemies and oppressors of God’s people!
But what is this man’s inner life?
Does Samson follow the quiet inner leading of the Holy Spirit to the battle?
No.
He follows the lust of his eyes.
He spots a girl that he thinks is “all right..” or “pleasing to his eye”.
And he won’t take no for an answer.
He is lustful and proud, stubborn and obstinate, and spoiled by his parents who give in and setup the marriage.
They have to hold the party in her home, probably because all their friends and family disapprove of marrying outside the tribes of Israel.
And when they guess his riddle, what does Samson do?
Blind murderous rage… except it’s not quite blind rage.
It’s 23 miles between the two!
So even if he runs, it’s a Marathon between the two (though it is downhill).
He gets a ways a way, this is premeditated and kind of scary psychopathic territory.
Then he returns… carrying at least 30 outfits.
Probably days for this round trip.
So we have lust and we have murderous rage.
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