How to Improve Your Bible Teaching: 20 Phrases to Eliminate

I just listened to forty sermons on the same passage. I teach expository preaching in the Middle East and East Africa, which means hours of homework to grade. Listening to my students—and to preachers wherever I travel—I notice trends in their language: phrases that mean little or send a message the speaker never meant to send. These phrases distract from the passage and weaken the speaker’s effectiveness.

Bible Study vs. Communication: A Battle for Preparation Time

What we say when we teach is paramount: it must be true to the text, discovered through faithful exegesis of the text. But how we say it is also crucial.

Unfortunately, communication rarely gets the preparation time it deserves. We improve in two ways: by devoting time to how we phrase the text’s message and by eliminating habits that hurt our delivery.

Habit vs. Intentionality: A Battle for Concise Clarity

Here are twenty phrases every preacher or Bible teacher should cut from their vocabulary. Eliminating them sharpens your communication, shortens your message, and helps to keep it focused on the main point.

1. “I think/believe that” – In teaching Scripture, the goal is to proclaim what the text says, not offer a personal opinion. This phrase shifts the weight of authority from God’s Word to the speaker’s private view, making truth sound negotiable. Save this phrase for the times where an interpretation is truly debatable.
2. “I would like to say…” – Um. We all know you are talking. Announcing the intention to speak before speaking wastes the moment of attention that you have. If you have something to say, just say it.
3. “What I am trying to say is…” – Again, just say it. There is no try. This phrase just communicates that you are not confident in your explanation. It may also indicate to your audience that you should have prepared your delivery better.
4. “Needless to say” – If it’s truly needless to say, then don’t say it. Oddly enough, after a teacher says this phrase, he usually says something he believes needs to be said.
5. “To be honest with you” or “Honestly” – This unintentionally implies that what was said before this may not have been true. Usually, this phrase is meant for emphasis, but it actually undermines trust.
6. “If you are here this morning”– When I hear this, I am concerned that the teacher looking at the audience does not know for certain if the people he is seeing are actually there. Nearly as bad is the phrase, “if you can hear the sound of my voice.” Why is this in question?
7. “If you will”– This indicates that you do not have confidence in the wording that you just used. Practice your wording ahead of time, especially when more complicated explanations are necessary. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. “If you will” just weakens your argument.
8. “In that regard”– You sound like a legal document. Do you want to sound like a legal document? In most cases, you can delete this phrase without changing the meaning of a sentence. So be succinct. Delete it.
9. “As it were” – This is an apology for what you just said or how you just said it. It softens statements that should land with clarity.
10. “Quote unquote” – Saying the quotation marks out loud distracts from the quotation itself. It breaks the flow of thought. Why not just say, “Charles Simeon says…” And then deliver the quote. People are smart. They can usually figure out when the quote ends. But if you are going to start verbalizing punctuation, then take a lesson from pianist/comedian Victor Borge because that’s what I start thinking about when someone says “quote unquote.”
11. “Let’s unpack this” – Cue fingernails on the chalkboard. This phrase has been overused to the point that audiences mentally tune out the moment they hear it. This phrase promises depth but delays it with meaningless words. Besides, nobody likes to pack or unpack.
12. “Here’s the thing” – What thing? There’s probably a better way to introduce what you are about to say.
13. “The importance of this is the fact that…” – This and similar phrases often start sentences and always should be deleted. It conveys that you are not quite ready to say what you are about to say. You can emphasize the importance of a concept in more effective and less wordy ways.
14. “Like I said” or “As I said before” – If you already said it, do you need to say it again? If you do, because repetition is key to learning, then why not just say it again, maybe using different words, rather than announcing that you are about to say something they already heard. You might as well just say they can tune out for the next paragraph.
15. “You know what I mean?” – There are times when this phrase can be effective, but often it slips in too often, communicating that you doubt you have gotten your point across.
16. “Boy” or “Dude” – I think most speakers do not realize that this word has slipped in. But informal language slipped into formal teaching is distracting and does not convey the seriousness that the Word of God deserves.
17. “Amen?” or “Hallelujah” or “Praise the Lord” – These are deep, meaningful words. Use them when you mean them. However, they can become filler for when the teacher is not quite sure what to say next. Or, they may reveal a teacher’s insecurity, as he looks for reassurance that the audience is with him when listeners echo the word back.
18. “That being said” – Usually, you can replace this wordy phrase with one word: so.
19. “At the end of the day” – This cliche is overused and wordy. Find a more succinct way to say what you mean unless it really is the end of the day.
20. “In conclusion” – It means nothing because it rarely comes at the end. Except here. This article is done.