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
0.1UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.08UNLIKELY
Fear
0.11UNLIKELY
Joy
0.56LIKELY
Sadness
0.55LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.6LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.48UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.88LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.58LIKELY
Extraversion
0.17UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.68LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.71LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
I. Introduction
Prayers
Pray for the persecuted church.
Open doors gave the most difficult places to be a christian
More prayers
Memory Verse
The Forerunner Foretold
2. Catch- What are testimonies and how do they help us?
Testimonies are stories of what God has done in a person’s life
In the bible we call those narratives, unlike epistles or poetry, they tell a story
Approximately 43% of the bible is narrative
A professor of mine explained that God breathed out narrative for a reason.
Stories effect us
But the problem is that we can read the story wrong and miss the meaning.
What kind of story is Romeo and Juliet?
Is it a love story?
What is the lesson?
So, the job of the bible teacher and the bible student is to tell the story correctly
We can do that by knowing the purpose the author is writing, so let’s review
Review of The 5 W’s of what Luke Offers
Who is The author? (title)
When?
After other gospels (1-2)
What?
An orderly account of eyewitness (v3a)
Where was this letter supposed to go? (3b)
Why?
To provide certainty (4)
We are in the Advent section of Luke still, trying to get ready for Jesus
And if the goal is to be sure of what we believe, how does the beginning help us?
I. 4 faith building examples in the lead-up to Jesus
1.
The righteous example shows the kind of people who honor God (5-7)
i. Explanation
The time of Herod
We start in the time of the shrewd politician Herod was also great as a soldier, an orator, and a builder
We have evidence of his existence in archeology like this fragment from the city of Masada in 19bc which says, ““Belonging to Herod king of Judea”
He famously built many great structures all over Israel during BC 27-13.
This is the city of Caesarea.
Here, he constructed a palace, a theater, a temple, and a harbor.
But his last years, BC 13-4, where full of fights, largely within his difficult family, which should be obvious because of the 10 wives and infighting within his children.
If its not a good time, why might Luke bring it up?
It is clearly not the best of times political,
But worse, it is a bad time spiritually as God has not spoken to the people of Israel through a prophet in 400 years
This is the intertesmental time period when God did not speak and the people were waiting in silence
How do you think it is was hard for them?
Why might it be challenging to honor God’s commands during this period?
We’ll come back on how much a blessing it would be to hear God then
So, in this dark time politically and spiritually... we are introduced to
The Faithful Priest
Zechariah, or the Greek, Zecharias… as some translate it
Luke does not give a specific location for the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah, but writes that Elizabeth lived in “a town in the hill country of Judea” (Luke 1:39).
Literary tradition from the 6th century identifies Elizabeth’s hometown with Ein Kerem,
Here is a priest who is a descendent of samaritain priests who one worked in the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizam
He was of the division of Abijah
Which connects us back to kings of Israel because King david setup this large system of rotating priests to cover the temple in 1 Chronicles 24, so no one group would exclusively have the care of temple.
The divisions were to serve in a sequence for one week at a time.
Abijah was the eighth division (1 Chr 24:10), indicating that Zechariah was serving in the eighth week of the year
The Righteous Wife
Priests had to marry virgins, but nothing said they had to marry the descendants of other priests.
But here Elizabeth came from a long line going all the way back to Aaron, the first priest
As we will see, she is a relative of Mary, the mother of Jesus
But most importantly, they were both a righteous couple
What comes to mind when you hear righteous before the lord?
What are some wrong ideas people may have?
He gives a description of what being righteous is, right?
Walking blamelessly in what God commanded in his word
This doesn’t mean without sin, because what did the Torah command needed to happen when someone sinned?
Make a sacrifice so that animal died instead of them
Their trial- barrenness
They had no children
Zacharias describes himself to the angel as an old man (Luke 1:18), but the specific age is not given
Some say the duties of the priest’s office could not be performed beyond the age of 50
enrolled widows were not to be less than sixty years of age
Either way, they had not had a child anytime in life
Look at verse 25, how did this effect them?
She was reproached or shamed among the people
people believed that God would bless faithful servants by giving them children.
The mention of their age is probably to make it clear that they could expect no change in the situation
But how do we know they were not cursed by God?
We could compare this with Jesus’ words
John 9:2–3
ii.
Illustration
these two are an example of those honoring God in a hard time but those around them thought poorly of them
There are lots of ways our culture looks for success in people
Business, successful family, wealth, possessions, fame, experiences…
But do any of those things show approval of God?
Solomon calls all those things vanity, soap bubbles that are here one moment and then pop.. gone
But what did Solomon say lasts forever?
The fear of God
iii.
Let’s apply
What are some examples of wrong evidences church people look for to see who is honoring God properly?
Is it possible for you or I to be considered righteous?
What makes that hard to say?
What should we look for then?
Salvation is by faith alone… but can faith be alone?
No
John piper writes, ““The psalmists were justified by faith alone.
But their faith worked through love.”
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9