Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Emotion Tone
Anger
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Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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Analytical
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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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First Person Narrative
I’m the man born blind.
Let me tell you my story.
Born blind.
I was born blind, either because of my sin or my parents.
I know this because it was often the topic of conversation for those who would walk by me as I sat outside the temple.
Awkward!
I always assumed my parents were to blame.
That made it easier.
I know this now.
I didn’t understand then.
While I was physically blind from birth, I was also spiritually blind from birth.
Both Isaiah and Zephaniah prophesied of how the Messiah would come and give sight to the blind.
I always appreciated these verses.
Of course, I was more focused on the physical aspect of these verses than any spiritual aspect.
Jesus, on the other hand, as I would come to find out, physically healed many of my blind friends and I, but more importantly, he transformed my spiritual blindness into spiritual sight.
At the time of my healing my parents were still alive.
I was a young adult.
In this culture you may have considered me a youth still.
For nearly two decades I had supplemented my parent’s income by begging at the temple.
They were poor, and this was the only way we got by.
Couldn’t worship.
I had never seen, so I didn’t really know what I was missing as far as my sight was concerned.
I was aware, however, of a lot of things I couldn’t do.
Of course, I missed out on all the things you might expect of a blind child.
I couldn’t play with the other kids.
I couldn’t get around by myself.
I needed help getting ready and doing normal daily activities.
But, one thing you may have not considered was that I couldn’t worship.
You may recall that Jesus came to me after he had fled the temple.
I always sat outside the temple because I couldn’t sit inside the temple.
The blind and the lame were not allowed in the temple.
They thought we would defile it.
This goes all the way back to Moses’ writings in Leviticus.
Moses told the Jews that no blind or lame could serve as priests ().
Of course, this didn’t mean that I couldn’t worship in the temple, but only that I couldn’t be offer sacrifices as a priest.
The problem had more to do with David than with Moses’ law.
The reason I couldn’t worship in the temple goes all the way back to when David sieged Jerusalem back when the Jebusites were in control.
The Jebusites wanted to embarrass and ridicule David, so they placed the lame and blind on the walls to defend the city.
Ever since then, David loathed the lame and the blind and said, “the blind and the lame shall not come into the house of God” ().
Of course, the Pharisees took this as law and ever since then have prohibited us from coming in.
John’s primary purpose in his book is to prove that Jesus is the Messiah so that unbelievers will believe in Him and have life ().
John accomplishes this by offering three sets of seven, 7 signs, 7 witnesses, and 7 I AM statements.
In , the apostle John introduces one of the seven I AM statements, “I am the light of the world” ().
In chapter 9, John offers a physical illustration of this spiritual reality.
In similar fashion to this man being born blind and receiving physical sight; all mankind was born spiritually blind, and Jesus can give us spiritual sight.
Now, I don’t think that’s what Jesus wanted.
I say that because I can remember a day.
It was after the first time he cleansed the temple of all the merchants.
He was in the temple.
Of course, it was more empty than normal because of all the people he had just chased out.
While in the temple, he called many lame and blind to himself and he healed them in the temple.
I remember how mad the Pharisees were because of that ().
So, while I was daily by the temple, I had never actually gone in and worshipped like everyone else.
Relationship with fearful parents.
My parents and I had a strained relationship for a while following Jesus healing me.
They had been so afraid of the Pharisees that they had barely even acknowledged I was there son.
They didn’t stand up for me at all.
I get it though.
They were afraid of the Pharisees.
The Pharisees has already warned that if anyone talked about or believed in Jesus that they would be cast out of the synagogue.
This was a really big deal.
There were three ways in which they would cast some one out of the synagogue.
For smaller offenses, they would kick you out for 7 days.
This was obviously not good, but you were able to come back if you repented to them.
The second form lasted for 30 days.
The final form was the worst by far.
Not only were you kicked out of the synagogue, you were cut off from all social interaction as well.
You couldn’t talk with anyone.
No one could even give you directions.
While you could buy food and necessities, you were forbidden from eating and drinking with anyone.
And what was worse, since our eternal salvation was contingent on our connection to the Jewish people, we feared eternal damnation as well.
So, obviously it was a big deal if you got kicked out of the synagogue.
So, we were all afraid of the Pharisees and we did whatever they told us to do.
Yet, I can recall, once Jesus healed me, I had a certain boldness that I hadn’t possessed up to that point.
The Pharisees kept pressing me about Jesus.
I was pretty frustrated.
It seemed rather obvious to me.
How could someone heal a blind man if he were not from God?
I can remember what I told them right before they kicked me out.
“Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind.
If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
().
Isn’t that obvious, but they just couldn’t see it.
Recap.
So, I’m blind.
I can’t worship and my parents are about to abandon me out of fear of the Pharisees.
John’s primary purpose in his book is to prove that Jesus is the Messiah so that unbelievers will believe in Him and have life ().
John accomplishes this by offering three sets of seven, 7 signs, 7 witnesses, and 7 I AM statements.
In , the apostle John introduces one of the seven I AM statements, “I am the light of the world” ().
In chapter 9, John offers a physical illustration of this spiritual reality.
In similar fashion to this man being born blind and receiving physical sight; all mankind was born spiritually blind, and Jesus can give us spiritual sight.
Then Jesus came into my story.
He gave me sight.
He allowed me truly worship for the first time and he gives me boldness to stand up for the truth instead of being driven by fear.
Now let me be really clear.
You might be tempted to think this story is all about me and the kindness Jesus showed me.
Honestly, I had very little to do with this whole event.
I was just a blind person that God used to make a point.
I struggled processing this for a long time.
My entire life of blindness.
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