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
0.43UNLIKELY
Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
0.59LIKELY
Sadness
0.62LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.21UNLIKELY
Confident
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Tentative
0.51LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.65LIKELY
Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
0.23UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.83LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.62LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
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Dearly loved people of God,
When I was a kid, we had snow.
Snow up to here!
When my dad shoveled the laneway, he made huge piles.
I remember one time carving a fort out of one of those piles.
As I was digging, a snowball landed near the fort.
Then another.
I kept digging.
After a pause, there was another.
I kept digging.
What are you supposed to do when someone throws a snowball at you? Throw one back.
That’s how snowball fights get started!
It wasn’t until the neighbour kids yelled, Fight back!
That I knew what they wanted and we had a great time pelting each other with snow.
That’s Jesus’ problem with the people of his generation.
Jesus was throwing snowballs and they weren’t fighting back.
When he played a pipe, none of the other kids danced.
When he sang a funeral song, nobody cried.
They just refused to engage.
Nobody was willing to play along.
What game is Jesus inviting them to play?
What response is he looking for?
This whole account begins with John’s question:
Matthew, the narrator has already tipped his hand.
He tells us who Jesus is: he’s the Messiah, the anointed rescuer of the world.
But John isn’t so sure.
Matthew hasn’t told us much about John since he baptized Jesus.
Until now, all we’ve heard about John was in
But John is puzzled by what he hears about Jesus.
So Jesus tells John’s disciples to describe Jesus’ actions in very specific language.
Jesus picked his words very carefully.
For someone who is familiar with the way OT prophets spoke about God’s redeeming work in the world, Jesus’ description of his work rang a bell.
When Jesus sends John’s disciples to describe his actions in these tones, John will understand the connection.
“God has come to save you.”
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> .9