I’ve been asked this question repeatedly: When is something considered “vain repetition”? The people who wondered, myself included, always referred to one verse, Matthew 6:7 which states: “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.” (KJV).
What does this mean for our prayer life? Is it wrong to repeat certain phrases, or pray the same prayer more than once? What does it mean for the way we speak in general? Is it wrong to repeat words out of habit? And, for many the most pressing question: What about repetitive worship songs?
In my own life, I had noticed that having these questions took away from the freedom I experienced when praying, praising, or sharing my testimony. In the back of my mind, I kept wondering if this repetition was wrong, perhaps even sinful. In a way, I became hyper-aware of it, which took my focus off of what I was doing. Thankfully, after some time, God answered this question and delivered me from that suppressing and nagging doubt. Today, I felt like sharing the lessons learned about this topic so that you don’t have to be burdened with doubts and can undistractedly pour your heart out to the Lord.
So, let’s dig in and explore how to interpret and apply Jesus’s words.
What did Jesus say exactly?
In Matthew 6:7 Jesus said, “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.” I’m quoting the King James Version here because it’s the translation I’ve heard people cite most often when talking about this topic. Other translations use words such as “heaping up empty phrases” or “babbling” to translate the Greek verb battalogeo. That word comes from logos (word, speech) and likely from the Aramaic word battah (idle, vain). This could refer to speaking words in vain, or uttering meaningless, empty words and being long-winded. Technically, it could also refer to any form of unnecessary use of words, such as saying “um” a lot, or using other habitual filler words, and even stuttering. Yet, that is not what Jesus was referring to. We know this from the context of His words.
Context 1: The way we should pray
First of all, within the same sentence, He clarifies that the people He refers to (unbelievers) think that they will be heard by God because of their use of many words (polylogia). They think the power is in the words, rather than in God. So, Jesus explains that God is so powerful that He does not need any words to know what you need.
Praying is about talking to God, it’s about turning to God with your needs because you have a relationship with Him. If I want my husband to help me grab something that is out of my reach in the kitchen, I simply ask him: “I can’t reach that, can you help me?” I’m not going to chant some sort of “magic” spell with specific words to make him do what I want. That would be totally weird, right? Especially since I don’t have to “make” my husband do anything. As long as I’m not asking for something bad or something that is not within his control, he will do it because he loves me.
With God it’s the same, with the important difference that everything is in His control, so why wouldn’t He help me if I need something? If I had to say and repeat specific words to get my prayers answered, that would give me the power. I believe that this is the point that Jesus makes throughout this lesson in Matthew 6: The power and glory belong to God. Instead of seeking power, control, respect, riches, and glory for ourselves, we should wholeheartedly and humbly seek and serve God. Then, our Father Who knows what we need, will provide.
That is why Jesus’ model prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 doesn’t only help us understand what to pray for, it also helps us understand the state of heart we should be in when we pray. He chose words that cover both our needs and our attitudes toward God. From those words, we can deduct that:
- God is our Father.
- He is in heaven.
- His name should be hallowed.
- God is the ruler of our Kingdom.
- His will should be leading (not ours, nor that of other people).
- God is our daily provider and we live by His grace.
- In order to be forgiven by God, it is necessary to forgive others.
- Without God’s help, we will be led into temptation and be subject to evil.
None of Jesus’s words are vain repetition; there is a lot of meaning in His prayer, even more than I talked about here. And that’s another thing His prayer modeled for us: being righteous helps us to pray according to God’s will, which will ensure that God hears us and our needs are met (1 John 5:14, Proverbs 15:29, James 5:16, 1 Peter 3:12). The more we are like Jesus, the more we pray like Jesus, and the more sure we are that we ask for the right things, for the right reasons.
Context 2: The importance of not being a hypocrite
Secondly, Jesus said this in the context of His teaching about not being hypocritical.
He wants us to worship God in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24). We are no longer bound to a temple or other specific location to bring physical sacrifices to worship God. Thanks to Jesus’s perfect sacrifice, we can – and should – stop focusing on anything carnal and put our minds on what is above. Those carnal things include following worldly protocols and religious traditions to pray in a specific way. The Holy Spirit guides us into all Truth, so by implication, Biblically accurate, pure, honest worship and prayer come from Christians who live according to the Spirit. Not by those man-made rituals.
When we live according to the flesh and start “worshiping,” we probably don’t really do it for God but for the approval of other people. And that is the practice that Jesus is speaking against: Practicing righteousness with the goal of other people seeing it and praising you for it (Matthew 6:1). These are some of the other examples that He gives us:
- Letting other people know about your acts of charity so that they give you glory (Matthew 6:2).
- Praying in a public place with the intention to be seen by others, so that they’ll “reward” you (Matthew 6:5).
- Demonstratively fasting (Matthew 6:16).
Essentially, all of these make clear that we should practice righteousness to please God, not to get praise from other people, or to conceitedly demonstrate how “holy” we are. But even if we enter our room and pray to God behind closed doors, we can still be hypocrites if we believe that we can control what God does by the words we use. That is not faith, that’s trying to cast a magic spell.
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Vain repetition in worship and speaking
Jesus specifically talked about prayer when He talked about vain repetition, which makes it dangerous to conclude that this would also apply to worship songs, speaking, or anything else for that matter. And when you think about it, it’s quite a stretch trying to fit it into the context of worship songs. Worship songs have the purpose of giving something to God: praise, honor, and expressed gratitude. In contrast, the praying Jesus referred to is a manner of asking God to fulfill existing needs. He spoke against believing that those needs are met by the use of many words since they are met by believing in Him (1 John 5:13-15). We have the confidence that God always helps those who are seeking to do His will.
Then again, the principle of worshiping in spirit and truth still applies, whether we worship God through songs of praise, prayer, or public speaking. When we worship in spirit and truth, we aren’t doing it to mesmerize with words or to forcefully persuade, we are doing it because we mean it and because we know it pleases God. We mean it because we live by the Spirit, are truly grateful for what God has done, and love Him with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. No word in a song sung from a heart like that is vain; it is merely an overflow of joy, awe, and gratitude. And nothing in a testimony or a sermon spoken from a heart like that is meaningless (1 Samuel 3:19, 1 Corinthians 15:58).
Meaningless and evil talk comes from the flesh, so we always need to make sure that we live by the Spirit (Romans 4:17-32, James 1:26). However, no one is perfect; we all make mistakes when we speak and we need to learn to keep our tongue in check (James 3:2).
It helps to remember to speak, pray, and sing only to the glory of God. Because whatever we do, we should do it for the glory of God (and not for our own) (1 Corinthians 10:31). Singing worship is an activity specifically designed to give God glory, honor, and praise. But, who are we worshiping if we sing praise to demonstrate how beautiful we can sing and how high of a note we can reach? Who would we be giving glory, honor, and praise if we do that? Following Jesus’s reasoning: any applause or compliment that would bring us, would be the only reward we’d get.
Repetitive worship in the Bible
Interesting fact: we see the principle of repetitive worship in the Bible Itself. For example in 2 Chronicles 20:20-22, where we can read how Jehoshaphat, in an act of bold faith, put a choir before the army. We can conclude that the choir repeated “Give thanks to the Lord, for his steadfast love endures forever,” for some time. They didn’t have to lift a finger to win the battle, as God won it for them.
Before this time, when the Ark was brought back to the Temple, the Levitical singers had an awesome experience when they sang, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever,” until they could no longer minister as God filled His house with His glory (2 Chronicles 5:12-14).
Perhaps it was Psalm 136 that they sang in both cases, as it repeats the words, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever,” in different variations.
An unbeliever might assume they sang that way to “summon” God. But if you read well what went on before and during those instances, you will see that it wasn’t their words, nor the repetitiveness of their words, but their faith and obedience to which God responded as soon as they lifted their voices!
How much repetition is too much?
I think that it’s important to realize that by focusing on the repetitiveness of words we might put ourselves in danger of doing the exact same thing as the heathens Jesus talked about: attaching too much weight to word count. If word repetition and empty words are not the means to achieve the goal of your prayers or praise being heard, it is also not the reason for them not being heard: it is the “why” that matters, not the “how.” If we repeat a word three times because we believe that that’s the magic number to which God responds, that is treating Him as if He is a genie in a bottle. If we repeat things three times because we forget that we had already said it two times before, that is called being a human being. God does not listen because we say the right things in the right order the exact amount of times, He listens because He is our Father, and He loves us. The right words to say will come from our state of heart: our faith, our love and fear for Him, and our surrender to Him.
If we start obsessing about which words and how many repetitions we can use exactly, we miss the point. Instead of becoming more like Jesus, we become more like Pharisees and practice legalism, creating rules where God gave us freedom. Why not let the Holy Spirit guide the way we pray, the way we praise, and the way we speak?
Yes, words are powerful; we must bridle our tongue and be careful about what we say – by our words, we can curse and we can bless (James 1:26, 3:8-10). But is there such a thing as blessing too much or too often, even if it is the same blessing? I don’t believe that we can bless the Lord or other people too often, even if we use the exact same words over and over again, as long as we mean it, and don’t say it to receive praise from people.
The downside of repetition
And that brings me to a way in which repetitiveness can be problematic: focus. Sometimes repetitiveness can lead to distraction and a kind of blindness to the meaning of the words. It can become harder and harder to mean what you say or agree with what you read or hear, as your flesh lures your mind away to other things, like what you will cook for dinner, or what you forgot to say to someone. Or we kind of glance over words we have seen too many times, and we don’t pay as much attention to them as when we read them the first couple of times. However, we should be careful before blaming the speaker or writer for that distraction, because most of the time the cause of this is our own flesh. How often did we not get distracted while reading the Bible? Yet, we know that God is the best Author imaginable.
When we get distracted, we have to actively subject our flesh to the will of God, and turn our focus back to Him so that whatever we are doing, is wholeheartedly done for His glory again. Personally, I see it as a good opportunity to practice self-control, one of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:23).
The benefits of repetition
But the opposite can also be true: sometimes you have to repeat something multiple times to let it sink in so that you understand it more deeply. That is also one of the reasons why the Bible Itself uses lots of repetition and why we need to read the Bible multiple times to understand the Scriptures more deeply. All of life is that way; we have to repeat to learn. Sometimes we think we have conquered a sin, only to find ourselves battling the same war again and again until we finally get it and find true victory in Christ. And sometimes we find ourselves falling for the same deception, because each time it presents itself a bit differently. Through every repetition, God’s truth sinks deeper into our whole being, and we become more spiritually mature.
We also need repetition to remember things. As soon as we go to school, we repeat multiplication tables, word meanings, historical dates, and geographical locations over and over again to make them stick. Our brains are wired to remember best what we repeat the most, almost like grooves on a well-traveled road. So, when we repeat something, we best make sure that it is in line with God’s truth, or we will become stuck in a rut of sinful behavior and thought patterns.
When we stick to the truth of God’s Word, repetition can be useful and God-glorifying, for example when we want to memorize a Bible verse or make a habit of Godly behavior. In the same way, repetitions in worship music and spoken words can be useful for educational purposes.
Lastly, repeating something important can also have another purpose. We see this in armies and demonstrations when large groups repeat a chant or sing a military cadence. The reason why they do this is to build morale, to keep them in step, and to foster unity. Isn’t that exactly what the army of God should do?
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Artistic freedom
God made us creative beings. He loves it when we use our gifts and talents to honor Him. Sometimes repetition can be part of that artistic expression, such as in poetry. Some of the Psalms are poetically repetitive (for example Psalms 119 and 136) and Jesus sometimes repeats certain words or sayings over and over again. None of that is without meaning, it’s purposeful and intentional.
When people add repetitions to their work, it depends on their reasons whether or not it’s meaningless. That is also true for the people who use that work. But if either of them is done to glorify and honor God, how can it be meaningless?
Some people like or need repetition more than others, but God allows us to bring our own personality into what we do for Him, just like we can see the difference in the writing style of the Gospel writers.
We should be careful to judge singers, (song) writers, worship leaders, and people who speak publicly. Which would be better, being forbearing when someone says something one too many times or judging them for it? If we judge we will be judged (Luke 6:37), and who is to say that we are perfect in the way we speak, pray, or praise? As Christians, we should be forbearing, loving, and forgiving, and that doesn’t include nitpicking about someone’s choice of words if it isn’t spiritually significant. If it is something that really bothers you or something that could mislead people from the path of Truth, it is beneficial to have a conversation – with God and with them.
That said, people make mistakes. Christians make mistakes. And therefore, some worship songs, prayers, and other work miss the mark. That’s why we should test everything to the Word of God and hold on to what is good. Remember that to worship in spirit and truth also means that you should not repeat words that aren’t Biblical, or that you feel conscience-stricken about. If you feel that you are hurting the Holy Spirit by saying or singing something, I urge you: don’t do it. Don’t follow people only to grieve the Holy Spirit in the process.
Could it become a “mantra”?
Some people fear that too much repetition can become a kind of “mantra”, a practice used in some religions to guide the mind into meditation and devotion to focus, memorize, and visualize. You could say that those religions use repetition precisely in the way that Jesus told us not to: as a form of religious works through which they believe that they will be brought closer to holiness and their gods.
That is what we should definitely not use words for because we aren’t saved by works, but by grace. God doesn’t come to save us because of a specific prayer, He comes to save us because we earnestly seek Him (Deuteronomy 4:29, Matthew 6:33, 7:7). We can only earnestly seek Him when we humbly accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Word repetitions and sounds don’t bring us any closer to God, nor do they make us holier. Faith and obeying God, on the other hand, do. So, if we believe that continuously repeating specific words brings us closer to God, we are using those words as a mantra. In other words: It’s not the repetition itself that makes it into something unChristian, like a mantra, but our belief about that repetition.
That’s why when we meditate (on Scripture verses) we do that for other reasons: to spend time with God to get to know Him better, to understand Him more deeply, and to learn how to please Him best. We do it because we love Him and hang onto His every word.
So, the best cure for vain repetition is to stop getting distracted by negative thoughts about it, and to get back to the heart of the matter: Love God with your whole being, love one another, become righteous through faith, and worship God in spirit and truth. So that every word you speak will be pleasing – to God.