Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

In the previous session, we briefly reviewed what “Scripture” is and what it means to “us”.

The take away key points are:

The take away key points are:

The take away key points are:

All Scripture

Inspired by God

Profitable

Purposeful

The entire Bible came from God in order to show us how to live.

We also see the social identity group (in-group / out-group) in the personal significance reflection to the “Scripture”.

So, what exactly is social identity?

In this session, we will have a brief overview of social identity, and continue learn about reading “Scripture” with a social identity lens, which is mainly based on my limited understanding of Dr. Tucker (“Reading 1 Corinthians,” 2017) and from Jacob Townsend’s lecture on social identity formation (Tucker & Baker, HSINT, 2014).

A Brief Overview of Social Identity

1.

What is Social Identity?

“Social identity will be understood as that part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership.”

(Tajfel, “Categorization, Identity, Comparison,” 63),

Henri Tajfel, was a founder of the social identity theory and a Polish Jew who served in the French army during WW-II.

He was captured by the Germans as a prisoner of war.

However, Tajfel survived because he was thought as a French rather than a Jew.

(Tucker & Coleman, HSINT, 13)

Personal Significance:

Does social identity matter to you? “die” or “live”?

Tajfel’s real-life story is proof that social identity matters to me.

This reminds me that the spiritual “die-to-live” in Christ identity.

2. What is a Group?

A group is two or more people perceived of as a group; social identities begin with the formation of group / groups.

Below are the three key components in which people form into groups (Tucker & Coleman, HSINT, 17)

Cognitive component: Has knowledge that one belongs to a group.

Evaluative component: Being a part of a group carries a negative or positive value connotation.

Emotional component: Being a member of a group may direct emotions toward one’s own group and towards others which stand in certain relations to it.

Group Actions:

Within a group (intragroup), people attempt to create or preserve ingroup members’ distinctiveness in terms of salience / common / uniform behavior from outgroup, or ignore individual differences of outgroup members, extreme ethnocentrism can create intergroup bias and conflict.

Personal Significance:

What are some of the example in your life may reflect your group identity and actions?

What are intergroup bias’ that you may not realize?

3. Examples of Group:

There are many groups that existed in ancient history and our modern society based on social-economic, political, religion and ethnic identity.

Simply look at our church locally, within Oak pointe campus, we have many groups, such as:

Gender: Men, Women

Marital: Single, Married, Divorced, Widows

Race: White, Black, Spanish, Asian

Age: Adult, Kids, Infant

Student: Elementary, Middle and High school Student

Faith: Believer, Seeker, Non-believer

Service: Elder, Pastor, Group Leader, Volunteer.

Pastoral: Sr. Pastor, Community Pastor, Student Pastor, Mission Pastor, etc.

Social Comparison:

As you may see the two columns above, that the social categorization and social identity is linked together by social comparison.

(Tucker & Coleman, HSINT, 19)

Personal Significance:

I am confused with my own identity outwardly since I was born in China, migrated to Canada later in life and now live in the United States.

Am I Chinese?

No, I am no longer hold a Chinese passport, but I was born and raised within Chinese culture and society

Am I Canadian?

Yes.

That is my current nationality, but I live in America and look Chinese

Am I American?

No.

I do not have a US passport yet, but I am legal resident of America and again, still look Chinese

You may see the disconnection above, However, my social identity of being an Asian married men, who is also a believer, only make sense in the self-categorization of gender, race, faith and marital status in social comparison with intergroup / intragroup context.

Reading “Scripture” with A Social Identity Lens

1. Relevance of Social Identity

“Tajfel’s identification of ‘ingroup’ and ‘outgroup’ distinctions consequently has the potential to offer much to scholarly understanding of intergroup relations in ancient Mediterranean society.”

(Tucker & Coleman, HSINT, 44)

The “Scripture” frequently speaks in the language of groups.

Especially the first-century Mediterranean societies that were significantly stratified and categorized by group identities, with a large measure of discrimination between groups.

(Tucker & Coleman, HSINT, 44) Such as:

Such as:

Slave / Free

Rich / Poor

Greek / Roman

Jew / Gentile

Under the Law / Outside the law

Weak / Strong

Within the category of Jewish religious party, Jewish philosophy takes three forms in ancient Israel history.

(Gundry, A Survey of the New Testament, 86)

● Pharisees: “A Jewish religious party who required strict adherence to the Law and the traditions of their predecessor.”

In the NT Gospels, the Pharisees appear as the chief opponents of the Lord, whom they attacked, such as for forgiving sins, breaking the Sabbath, and consorting with sinners,

● Sadducees: “A Jewish religious party who recognized the Torah as the only divine authority and rejected resurrection.

They were part of the ruling elite with religious and political responsibilities connected with the Temple.”

● Essenes: “A Jewish religious party who saw themselves as the true people of God and retreated to the desert to practice purity and devotion until the coming of the Lord.”

(above three point refer to Witthoff, The Lexham Cultural Ontology Glossary, 2014).

Personal Significance:

the “Scripture” was originally written to somebody else, who lived a long time ago, in another part of world, where they spoke a different language and had different social identities and cultural values.

(Klein et.

al, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, 44).

Therefore, in order to better understand the meaning of the Scripture back then, and apply that meaning to our life today, we must understand the ancient history setting, cultural, social, political, religion and ethnic identity context.

Social identity plays a big role in terms of textual social historical context.

2. Social Identity in the “Scripture”

There will countless references which we may find through textual studies of the “Scripture”.

Here are just a few examples abstract from Tucker & Coleman (HSINT, 2016) or otherwise stated.

a.

In the Books of Gospel:

A social identity interpretation of the Matthaean Beatitudes ()

Matt 5 3-12

Jesus teaching in parables reflect to different groups ()

Filial piety, neighbor-love, and non-violence (; )

luke 6

Jesus’s Prototype and Pontius Pilate ()