In December 2024, just months before his death on the 21st of April 2025, Pope Francis pleaded for preachers not to exceed 10 minutes in their preaching. Vatican News reported Pope Francis as saying that, “After 8 minutes, preaching gets dispersive and no one understands. Never go over 10 minutes, ever! This is very important.” Pope Francis also urged preachers to preach one idea, one sentiment or feeling, and to issue one invitation to action, all within the 10 minute limit.
I wondered if Pope Francis wasn’t arguing so much about length as about clarity.
I have preached for nearly 30 years, and my sermons have always been considerably longer than Pope Francis suggests. In today’s world, people regularly sit through movies lasting in excess of two hours; television series are designed to be 40 minutes an episode; schools and universities routinely schedule classes lasting around an hour; and even TED talks are longer than the Pope’s suggested time frame. So why is it then that Pope Francis thinks people’s attention span is limited to a maximum of ten minutes? I started to wonder if Pope Francis wasn’t arguing so much about length as about clarity.
Maybe Pope Francis Has a Point
In his influential book, Biblical Preaching, Haddon Robinson has noticed that sermon listeners have an almost universal complaint with preachers. The complaint is not that preachers preach too long, but rather that they say too much; that sermons contain too many unrelated points and ideas. The problem is not length, but the amount of unrelated ideas that preachers attempt to cover which makes it difficult for the listeners to appropriate what is being said. It seems to me that preachers routinely confuse what can be said with what can be heard.
Preachers routinely confuse what can be said with what can be heard.
The complaint of listeners is that sermons often offer little more than scattered comments on words, contexts and themes. Their complaint is that preachers make little attempt to communicate a clear central theme or argument because they haven’t done the work of formulating one. The central theme of a sermon, when provided and reinforced by the preacher, enables the listeners to then use the sermon’s content in the realities of their lives. Pope Francis is doing preaching a real service by urging them to consider the work of clarity.
Four Questions for Achieving Clarity
In order to provide clarity preachers must master four questions:
- What is the author of the biblical text saying?
- What am I saying?
- Is what I am saying faithful to what the author of the text is saying?
- Have I said, what I am saying, in a way that can be heard?
Let’s consider each of these briefly.
1. What Is the Author Saying?
The Bible reveals God as the everlasting creator (Isaiah 40:28), who speaks (Genesis 1). God is unlike the idols who are silent (Isaiah 41:21). But modern Christianity finds itself muddled on how to hear the voice of the living God.
Modern Christianity finds itself muddled on how to hear the voice of the living God.
The Reformation re-emphasised that God is the author of the scriptures and that he presently speaks through them. Preaching is then a sacred trust, where a human is tasked with proclaiming the living voice of God from the scriptures. In order for a preacher to fulfil this trust they must know what the text of scripture says. They must know what the dominant message of the text is and be able to articulate it in a coherent and simple way.
This is an exercise in comprehension, requiring effort and skill but it also an expression of submission and faith. It is insufficient for a preacher to simply hear what is in the text. With the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, this hearing must also translate into faith, understanding, conviction and obedience. Preachers begin by seeking an understanding of the text not simply for comprehension but for the sake of a personal encounter with the living God. They seek to hear him and submit themselves in listening-obedience to the God who speaks through the text.
2. What Am I Saying?
Secondly, clarity develops as the preacher articulates what they are actually going to say in their sermon. Many preachers approach the pulpit without knowing the answer to this question, hoping that in the crisis of speaking, this will crystallise. It seldom does.
Clear preachers are disciplined. They seek to clarify and simplify.
Teachers of public speaking universally recognise that effective public speaking actually limits itself to communicating a single idea. For the purpose of effective communication, preachers must clarify what argument they are endeavouring to make. This argument may have subordinate aspects to it but it must exhibit a coherence for the sake of understanding. If the preacher doesn’t know what they are trying to say, it is little wonder then that this confusion is communicated. Sermons then, often become, a scattered commentary on words, contexts, phrases and themes. Clear preachers are disciplined. They seek to clarify and simplify, leaving out much material in order to serve their listeners’ understanding.
3. Is What I’m Saying Faithful to What the Author of the Text Is Saying?
The third question calls for a correspondence between the message of the text and the sermon to be delivered.
A preacher’s task can never be about innovation. We must be faithful to the given word.
I clearly recall hearing a preacher stand up to preach on Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). The text begins “An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus.” The preacher then introduced his sermon by saying that he was an “expert in drinking.” The sermon that unfolded had no correspondence with the text of scripture, other than the use of the common word ‘expert.’ This preacher failed to recognise that preaching is a trust; his task is speaking for the living God. Thus a preacher’s task can never be about innovation. We must be faithful to the given word.
The preacher’s job is not to provide warm encouragement for a difficult life; a gentle challenge to embrace morality; or keys to successful living. Faithful preaching is an expression of the living voice of God, present in the text of scripture.
4. Have I Said What I’m Saying, in a Way That Can Be Heard?
Finally, the preacher must give consideration to communicating in a way that enables hearing. This requires a recognition that hearing is difficult and culture specific. Listeners come to preaching asking, “Pastor, teach me how to live.” They are not primarily interested in exegetical nuances, translation controversies, historical contexts or textual puzzles. In order to communicate clearly, preachers must integrate communication techniques of repetition, explanation, illustration, humour, music and application so as to communicate the text’s central message.
The preacher must give consideration to communicating in a way that enables hearing.
Clear preachers repeatedly signpost and emphasise their message in order to give their hearers ample opportunities to access and apply the text—previous generations called this “uses.” Clear preachers say what they are saying, and they say what they are not saying. They give examples from the scriptures and from life. They use the memory aids of music and repetition, emphasis, pause and pace. In doing so they signpost or spotlight importance, seeking to give their hearers the means to appropriate the text. Such preaching will be rich with application, not content to settle on the ‘what’. Through application, preaching must help its listeners with the ‘how’ and why’ to achieve what has been said.
Preach Like the Pope
I doubt that Pope Francis is correct in his call for sermons to be under ten minutes. No love relationship of any value would be content with an occasional dose of such scarce minutes. The more the people of God know the voice of the living God, the more they will desire it. However, Pope Francis is certainly right to demand clarity in preaching, as preachers seek to be faithful workers with the sacred trust of scripture.
