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
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Anger
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Questions for Reflection and Discussion
1. Look up , ; , ; ; ; ; ; , .
How do these verses defend Calvin’s remark that God wills and assents to Satan’s work?
How does a knowledge of this give believers the assurance of victory?
2. The story of Joseph is a powerful testimony of God’s providence (see ).
What is predicted in the story?
How is this fulfilled?
What bearing does this doctrine have on so-called games of chance, e.g., the lottery?
3. How would you respond to someone who tells you, “I don’t buckle my seatbelts—if God wants me to die, then I will die; it is all according to His providence”?
4.
Many people dislike the idea of all things being governed and controlled by God, since it seems to undermine human freedom.
How do you respond to this worry?
What does it mean that God works through secondary causes?
5. Why is God’s providence a blessed doctrine to contemplate in connection with prayer?
6. Reflect on your own life, with its ups and downs, joys and heartbreaks: How does a knowledge of God’s sovereign control comfort you in the face of adversity or tragedy?
What if God was not in control?
7. Farmers in particular are affected by the weather; how does a knowledge of God’s providence lend comfort in a year of flooding or drought?
8. Why are we so prone to arrogance when things go our way—good health, good looks, good children, financial success, talents, gifts, etc.?
Even if we acknowledge God as the source of blessing and that we are under His providence, we can harbor pride in our hearts.
How do we combat this?
How might God wean us from such arrogance?
9. Open Theism, a modern view of God, argues that the future is open and uncertain because it has yet to take place.
Not even God knows the future in its details (though He can bring the future to the outcome He wants because of His wisdom).
Nonetheless, God is neither omniscient nor omnipotent—all-knowing and all-powerful—and so the future is not yet planned.
How would Calvin respond to this view and why would he insist it is unbiblical and absurd?
Beach, J. Mark.
Piety's Wisdom: A Summary of Calvin's Institutes with Study Questions .
Reformation Heritage Books.
Kindle Edition.
Beach, J. Mark.
Piety's Wisdom: A Summary of Calvin's Institutes with Study Questions .
Reformation Heritage Books.
Kindle Edition.
Beach, J. Mark.
Piety's Wisdom: A Summary of Calvin's Institutes with Study Questions .
Reformation Heritage Books.
Kindle Edition.
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