Teaching Essentials

The Holy Spirit gives the power to all influential and impactful Bible teaching. Yet, like everything else in Christian service, he chooses to work through the vehicle of human personality and human agency. As we prepare to teach God’s word, the Holy Spirit will empower our efforts.

When it comes to delivering high-quality teaching, we think several components play a significant role. It is my goal to list these essentials, as well as explain how to sharpen them. Even though I wrote this list, I still consult it regularly before I teach. I hope you find it useful as well.

1. Memorable Main Message

If your audience was to forget everything else that you said, what is the one single thing that you would want them to remember? Public speaking expert Akash Karia writes, “By the time your audience leaves your presentation, they’ve forgotten 20% of what you said. The following day, they’ve forgotten 50% of your message. Within four days, they’ve lost 80% of your message.”^[1] If you asked a friend what your teaching was about, could they answer in just a few short words?

Rather than having many separate good points, aim to have a strong main point. Preaching professor Bryan Chapell writes, “It is easier to catch a baseball than a handful of sand even if the two weigh about the same amount.”^[2] Pastor Gary Delashmutt refers to this concept as the difference between having a spear, and a handful of darts. What he means is this: If you throw a fist full of darts at a person, maybe one or two will stick, but will quickly fall out. However, if you have a sharpened spear, it will pierce right to the heart.

Consider Martin Luther King’s speech “I Have a Dream.” You might forget many of the details about this talk, but you will always remember this memorable phrase that captures the main message. The key to a memorable main message is to make it catchy without making it corny. Otherwise, you might sound condescending or manipulative. Here are a few memorable main messages:

While your teaching may have many points, distill your topic into one memorable phrase or quote that will lodge in the memory of your listeners. You can often derive your memorable main message from the text (“Why this waste?”).

2. Antithesis

The most boring teachings often fail to develop a strong antithesis. Without a strong antithesis, our teaching will sound like Sunday school class. Predictable. Routine. Boring! When the listener senses that two perspectives are fighting over control of their lives, it creates tension and demands that we pick a side. To develop a strong antithesis, consider these questions:

There are a number of ways to build a strong antithesis, including (1) using a whiteboard with two separate columns, (2) research the opposing view and use statistics and quotes, (3) play devil’s advocate, and (4) read common song lyrics, slogans, movies, TV shows, advertisements.

3. Burden

Some Bible teachers claim that burden is the most important aspect of teaching. Burden gives your teaching electricity and power. This gives us the ability to preach and not just teach. A day before your teaching, pray quietly before God. After you’re done preparing the teaching, pray over your outline. If you do not finish far enough in advance, you will have no time to develop a strong burden. Ask God:

Think through specific people in your church. Ask what would happen if they never grasped this truth in their own lives.

4. Storytelling

Storytelling adds a lot to teaching. It helps abstract content become practical; it is memorable; it helps recapture your audience’s attention if they are fading. It’s amazing to see how your audience will regain interest and focus when you tell a good story.

Tell embarrassing stories about your own mistakes. These break down self-righteous barriers between the teacher and the audience. This is an excellent way to teach younger Christians. As the teacher or leader, they look up to you. When they hear a story about how this passage applied to your life, it can be very powerful in helping them grasp and own your central message or application. Make sure not to glorify yourself in the story. It’s better to share how you struggled with this principle, and how someone around you applied this well (e.g. your spouse, roommate, friend, etc.).

Utilize vicarious teaching. Tell stories about people from your past that learned (or failed to learn) the principle of this passage.

Tell stories that create mental movies.^[4] Good storytelling engages your senses. You can see the scene, hear the sounds, and feel the emotions of the story. It’s better to be specific, than general, in storytelling.

Don’t say, “I gave my life to Christ a few years ago…” Instead say, “I gave my life to Christ on November 4, 2004…”

Don’t say, “He was really angry…” Instead say, “His face turned red, veins burst from his neck, and his voice was trembling as he spoke…”

Avoid “thought” verbs. As in good fiction or narrative, eliminating thought verbs (e.g. thinks, knows, realizes, wants, remembers, etc.) helps show what happened, rather than telling them what happened. Author Chuck Palaniuk explains:

Instead of saying: “Adam knew Gwen liked him.” You’ll have to say: “Between classes, Gwen had always leaned on his locker when he’d go to open it. She’d roll her eyes and shove off with one foot, leaving a black-heel mark on the painted metal, but she also left the smell of her perfume. The combination lock would still be warm from her butt. And the next break, Gwen would be leaned there, again.”

Tell stories that are not predictable. Stories usually end with a lesson or punchline. Keep your audience guessing where things are headed. The listener should not know where the story is going, but the ending should surprise them.

5. Analogies

Analogies help people to understand abstract theological concepts, and they are often very memorable for learners. Jesus and the apostles taught through analogies or parables often.

Read and study good authors, who illustrate well. Read authors like C.S. Lewis, Watchman Nee, and Tim Keller. They are great on analogies and illustrations.

Keep a record of good illustrations and analogies. The Bible teachers at our church are excellent with analogies. Whenever you hear a good analogy, write it down. Save these in a Word document for later teachings, or just write it in the margin of your Bible.

Get help. Give your analogies to a friend before you teach. Ask them to help sharpen your illustrations.

Keep them simple. If you need to explain the analogy for too long, it might not be a good analogy! It’s supposed to be easier than the abstract, theological concept itself.

6. Humor

Humor helps the listener feel like they have entered a fun atmosphere, rather than a boring lecture. Humor helps us to bond with the teacher, making them less intimidating, and it can reclaim the attention of your audience. Moreover, humor is biblical. We were designed to laugh (Lk. 6:21), and God laughs (Ps. 2:2, 4; 37:12-13). Indeed, there are many examples of humor in Scripture.[5]

Make category errors

In philosophy, a category error occurs when we mix up the essential substance of something and ascribe an incompatible and false substance to it. For example, we might say that we’re using sensory perception to perceive something that is immaterial. Here are a few examples:

Set up an expectation and then break it

Why do we laugh when we’re surprised by something? People are drawn to novelty and having their expectations broken.

A “set-up” in comedy is how you prepare your punchline. Karia writes, “A comment is humorous when it creates an expectation and then suddenly breaks it. We laugh when we are surprised. This is why we usually burst into laughter when we see someone suddenly trip and fall on their face. It was unexpected—it was a surprise—and it causes us to laugh.”^[6] Most humor comes from an unexpected punchline.

Make fun of yourself

Some of the best humor can also be some of the most offensive if you’re not careful. By making fun of yourself, you eliminate the risk of offending your listener. Karia writes, “Self-deprecating humor refers to making yourself the butt of the jokes. If you’re willing to make fun of yourself, you’ll never run out of humorous possibilities.”^[7] This can be accomplished through embarrassing stories or details about your life—made funny.

Exaggerate or embellish stories

The best humor comes from not looking like you’re trying to be funny. Exaggeration lets your audience know that you’re kidding without committing yourself to telling a joke.

Exaggerate people’s reactions (“I never saw my dad so angry. His face was so red that he looked like… he was trying to pass a kidney stone.”).

Exaggerate people’s weaknesses or abilities (“I was so strong that I could… do three to four pushups in a row without a water break.”).

Exaggerate people’s optimism or pessimism (“I was at a wedding recently… When I told people I teach the Bible for a living, they said, ‘Why did I get stuck at your table? I was really looking forward to a great night out, and now I’m stuck with you!”).

Make cultural allusions

Comedians spend most of their time making cultural references. It helps the audience know that you are engaged in culture, and you see the world the same way. In our culture, it is also commonplace to pick on celebrities, so you don’t run the risk of unnecessarily offending a listener:

Use funny comparisons (similes or metaphors)

Good similes and metaphors make us laugh because they’re clever and unexpected. These are also good for humor, because they’re quick comments—not long and drawn out jokes. This helps you keep to your content, so you’re not wasting time on humor:

Work your humor into your storytelling and your illustrations

You could say that one sin is similar to squeezing one drop of poison into a glass of water, poisoning the entire drink. This is a good illustration, but not very funny. Instead, you might say that one sin is like squeezing off one torpedo of poop into a pool, ruining a hot summer day for everyone.

Warnings regarding humor

(1) Don’t offend your listeners for the sake of humor. The point of humor in Bible teaching is to connect with your listener—not alienate them.

(2) Don’t allow humor to become a narcissistic endeavor to glorify yourself. You’re only using humor to draw people in—not to be a comedian!

(3) Don’t let humor become distracting. Insecure teachers will use humor to lighten the conviction of a passage. Resist doing this! Don’t diffuse what the Holy Spirit could be doing through the Word just to crack a joke.

(4) The best humor is that which connects to the passage that you’re teaching. This is especially useful in teaching biblical narratives, because it helps people to connect with what they’re reading. Consider Scott Risley’s teachings on narratives for a great example of this.

7. Gospel Presentation

Many people will be convicted to receive Christ, when they are sitting under a strong explanation of the gospel. The non-Christian guest has come to a Christian meeting presumably to hear what the Bible is all about. The non-Christian guest usually sits quietly, without interrupting, while they hear an uninterrupted gospel message. What an opportunity! We should learn to maximize these opportunities. For helpful illustrations, see our earlier article “Do Good People Go to Heaven?”

Instead of telling the person that you’re pleading with them, you should just plead with them to meet Christ. This sounds like a subtle difference, but it isn’t. Why tell them if you can show them instead? Charles Spurgeon writes, “Preach... as you would plead if you were standing before a judge, and begging for the life of a friend, or as if you were appealing to the Queen herself on behalf of someone very dear to you. Use such a tone in pleading with sinners as you would use if a [gallows] were erected in this room, and you were to be hanged on it unless you could persuade the person in authority to release you. That is the sort of earnestness you need in pleading with men as ambassadors for God.”^[8]

[1] Akash Karia, How to Deliver a Great TED Talk (2013), 16.

[2] Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 45.

[3] Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 48-49.

[4] Akash Karia, How to Deliver a Great TED Talk (2013), 106.

[5] Abraham and Sarah laugh because of the absurdity of having a baby in old age (Gen. 18:10-15). Aaron’s excuse for the Golden Calf is funny (Ex. 32:24), just as Elijah is funny when he taunts the prophets of Baal (1 Kin. 18:27). Jesus gave many humorous illustrations (Mt. 7:3-5; 23:24), as did Paul (1 Cor. 12:21; cf. Acts 26:28-29). D. Elton Trueblood lists 30 examples from the gospels. See “The Humor of Christ.”

[6] Akash Karia, How to Deliver a Great TED Talk (2013), 149-150.

[7] Akash Karia, How to Deliver a Great TED Talk (2013), 151.

[8] Spurgeon, Charles. The Soul Winner. New York, NY: Cosimo, 2007. 74.