What makes someone a great Bible teacher?

It isn’t necessarily a seminary degree, a booming voice, a brilliant personality, or the ability to explain Greek verbs. Some people know an enormous amount about the Bible and aren’t particularly good teachers. Others have never taken a formal Bible course, yet when they open God’s Word, people lean forward and listen.

Great teaching is a collection of skills, and skills can be developed.

That is the encouraging idea behind chapter seven of my book, You Can Double Your Class in Two Years or Less. The chapter is called “Ten Marks of Great Teaching.” I suggest ten benchmarks teachers can use to evaluate themselves—not as a way of beating themselves up, but as a way of discovering where they are strong and where they can improve.

You don’t have to score a ten in all ten areas. In fact, you probably won’t. Build on your strengths, work on your weaknesses, and keep getting better.

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1. Great Bible Teaching Has Passion

If the truth doesn’t seem to matter to the teacher, it probably won’t matter much to the people listening.

Passion doesn’t mean shouting. It doesn’t require pacing across the room, pounding the table, or working yourself into an emotional frenzy. It means you have been gripped by the truth you are teaching. You aren’t merely explaining something you studied; you are talking about something that matters deeply to you.

Psalm 39:3 describes it beautifully: “My heart grew hot within me. While I meditated, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue.” Apollos demonstrated the same combination in Acts 18:25. He taught about Jesus accurately, but he also spoke with great fervor. We need both truth and fire.

Before asking, “How can I make this lesson more interesting?” perhaps we should ask, “How interested am I?” A teacher who has been captured by the wonder of grace, the greatness of God, and the truth of Scripture has taken the first step toward becoming an interesting teacher.

2. Great Bible Teaching Is Practical

Imagine writing two words across the forehead of every person in your group: “So what?”

That is the question people are asking, even when they are too polite to say it. What difference does this passage make to my marriage? What does it have to do with the argument I had with my teenager yesterday? How does this help me when I go to work Monday morning? What should I believe, feel, or do differently because this verse is true?

Teaching is about application. We aren’t trying to make people repositories of biblical information. We are trying to make disciples.

One of the best ways to encourage application is to make it small, specific, and immediate. Instead of challenging people to become great evangelists, ask them to pray once this week for a friend who doesn’t know Christ. Instead of telling them to have a wonderful marriage, ask them to express appreciation to their spouse every day this week.

Little changes accumulate. The ship begins to turn.

Application isn’t always about doing something, either. Sometimes obedience means believing something. The application of Psalm 23 may be resting in the truth that God is my shepherd. The application of Philippians 4:4 may involve actually rejoicing in the Lord. Christianity involves behavior, but it also involves the heart.

3. Great Bible Teaching Includes Humor

Healthy groups laugh.

I’m not suggesting that every Bible teacher become a comedian. In fact, forced humor can be painful. But there ought to be moments when people laugh together simply because they enjoy being together.

Laughter is often an indicator of relational health. When people are comfortable with each other, laughter comes naturally. When there is tension and distrust in a room, laughter disappears.

Humor also helps people learn. It lowers defenses and makes difficult truths easier to receive. Sometimes a person laughs at an illustration and then realizes, “He’s talking about me.” The laughter opened the door for the truth.

Studying the Bible should be serious because the Bible deals with serious matters. But serious doesn’t have to mean grim. People ought to enjoy coming to your group.

4. Great Bible Teaching Is Personal

Small groups have an advantage that large gatherings don’t have: they can be personal.

Good teachers don’t merely explain what a passage meant to Abraham, David, Peter, or Paul. They help people see what the passage means for the people sitting in the room. In the book, I describe this as taking the cloth of God’s universal truth and tailoring it to fit the individual.

That also means the teacher should occasionally be appropriately transparent. Tell people how the truth has worked in your own life. Admit struggles when it is wise to do so. Let people see that you aren’t teaching Christianity from the safe distance of an expert; you are trying to follow Jesus too.

There are limits, of course. Transparency without discretion can become unhealthy. Not everything about your life belongs in a group discussion, and not every personal confession needs to be made publicly. The goal isn’t maximum disclosure. The goal is appropriate honesty that helps people connect biblical truth with real life.

5. Great Bible Teaching Gets People Involved

One of the easiest ways to tell whether people are engaged is to listen.

Who is talking?

If you have been talking for thirty minutes without anyone else saying anything, they may be interested. They may also be planning lunch, thinking about work, or wondering how long you are going to talk.

When people are participating, you know they are engaged. That is one reason questions are such powerful teaching tools. Instead of telling people everything you know, give them an opportunity to think, wrestle with the text, share experiences, and discover truth.

Involvement can take many forms. People can discuss a case study, solve a problem together, examine a passage in smaller groups, or talk about how they would apply a biblical principle to a real-life situation. The important thing is that learners become participants rather than spectators.

Great teachers don’t simply ask, “What am I going to say?” They ask, “What am I going to get them to think about, talk about, and do?”

6. Great Bible Teaching Requires Preparation

There is a particular kind of confidence that comes from knowing your material.

You don’t need to know everything. Nobody does. There is nothing wrong with responding to a difficult question by saying, “I don’t know. Let me look into that.” In fact, people usually respect that kind of honesty.

But you ought to know the passage you are teaching.

One of the best ways to prepare is to begin early. Read the passage repeatedly during the week. Read it in several translations. Think about it while driving. Ask questions about it. Talk with other people about it. Let the passage simmer in your mind. Most importantly, allow the Holy Spirit to teach you before you try to teach anyone else.

There is a world of difference between a teacher who first opened the material late Saturday night and one who has been living with the passage all week. Preparation produces familiarity, and familiarity produces confidence.

7. Great Bible Teaching Provides Background

People ought to occasionally leave your group saying, “I didn’t know that.”

Suppose you are teaching Luke 13:4, where Jesus mentions eighteen people who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them. An obvious question arises: What was the tower of Siloam? A good teacher anticipates that question and does enough research to provide useful background.

This is where commentaries, Bible dictionaries, atlases, good study Bibles, and other resources become useful. What was happening historically? Who was the original audience? What cultural practice is behind this passage? Where is this place on the map? Is there something in the original context that a modern reader would probably miss?

Background shouldn’t take over the lesson. You aren’t trying to impress people with everything you learned. Give them just enough to illuminate the text.

8. Great Bible Teaching Starts Strong

You don’t get twenty minutes to convince people to pay attention. You need to grab their attention at the beginning.

The opening of a lesson deserves special preparation. You might begin with a thought-provoking question, an interesting story, a surprising statement, or a brief discussion that draws upon people’s experiences. Whatever method you use, the goal is to create curiosity about what comes next.

Compare two openings. One teacher says, “Well, today we’re going to continue our study of Philippians. Turn to chapter two.”

Another begins, “What is the most selfish thing you have ever seen someone do?”

Suddenly people are thinking. A few are smiling. Someone has a story. The room wakes up. After a few responses, the teacher says, “Paul is about to describe the most unselfish person who ever lived. Let’s look at Philippians 2.”

Same Bible passage. Different beginning.

You haven’t changed the truth. You have created a reason to want to hear it.

9. Great Bible Teaching Inspires People

People often know more than they do.

Most Christians don’t need another lesson proving that they should pray. They know they should pray. They don’t need convincing that they should forgive, give generously, love their spouses, share their faith, read Scripture, or serve others.

The gap is frequently between knowing and doing.

Great teaching helps close that gap. It gives people not only the “how to” but also the “want to.”

That requires inspiration. Show people the beauty of obedience and the consequences of disobedience. Help them imagine what their marriage could become, what their relationship with God could become, and how God might use their lives. Most of all, communicate confidence that through God’s power they really can change.

Sometimes people need someone in their corner who believes God can do more in them than they presently believe themselves.

10. Great Bible Teaching Has One Big Idea

Perhaps the greatest danger facing many Bible teachers isn’t that they have too little to say.

They have too much.

A teacher studies all week and discovers fifteen interesting things. Then comes the temptation to share all fifteen. The result is a lesson filled with information but lacking direction.

Great teaching needs focus. In the book, I compare it to hunting with a rifle instead of a shotgun. Before you teach, you should be able to answer one question clearly: “What is the one big idea I want people to remember?”

If you can’t summarize your lesson in a sentence, you probably aren’t ready to teach it.

Everything doesn’t have to fit perfectly into the central idea. You can chase an occasional rabbit. Good discussions sometimes go in unexpected directions. But eventually bring everyone back to the main road.

A week later, people will probably have forgotten most of what you said. Decide what you hope they won’t forget.

How to Become a Better Bible Teacher

The purpose of these ten marks isn’t to make teachers feel inadequate. It is to give us a way to improve.

Evaluate yourself. Where are you already strong? Perhaps you naturally teach with passion. Maybe you are excellent at application or particularly skilled at getting people involved in discussion. Don’t merely congratulate yourself on those strengths. Develop them.

Then identify one or two areas where you could improve. If your lessons wander, work on focus. If you tend to lecture, develop better discussion questions. If you regularly begin with, “Turn in your Bible to…,” spend more time creating introductions. If you lack confidence, start preparing earlier.

The book includes a self-evaluation built around all ten areas: passion, practicality, humor, a personal element, involvement, preparation, background, introduction, inspiration, and focus.

Don’t try to fix everything next week. Pick one thing and get a little better.

Then do it again.

Great teachers aren’t necessarily people who began with extraordinary gifts. Often, they are ordinary teachers who have spent years paying attention to their craft. They teach, evaluate, learn, adjust, and teach again.

Every teacher can improve. And improving the quality of your teaching may be one of the most important things you can do to strengthen and grow your group. As I conclude in the chapter, if we want healthy, growing groups, we need to consistently offer people a worthwhile experience in God’s Word.

The next chapter takes that idea in a particularly uncomfortable direction. If we are serious about becoming better teachers, we have to become willing to look at ourselves accurately. Chapter eight is simply called “Self-Evaluation.”

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