<\/p>\n
Despite growing in 2025, Bible engagement has ticked down and returned to 2024 levels, according to the American Bible Society\u2019s (ABS) State of the Bible survey.<\/p>\n
Listen to the latest\u00a0episode\u00a0of \u201cQuick Start\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Dr. John Plake, editor-in-chief of the State of the Bible series and chief innovation officer at ABS, told CBN News the results came as many wondered \u201cwhat was going to happen with Bible engagement in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, the headline is that uptick did not stick,\u201d he said. \u201cIn 2026 \u2026 both Bible use and Scripture engagement returned to about what they were in 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n ABS divides people into three groups. First, there\u2019s Scripture Engaged, those who allow the Bible to shape their decisions and views. Next, there\u2019s the Moveable Middle, which consists of people who are curious about the Bible but are often stuck or confused about Scripture.<\/p>\n The third group is the Bible Disengaged, a cohort of people who never pick up the Bible intentionally but might accidentally encounter Scripture.<\/p>\n With that in mind, Plake pinpointed another \u201cheadline\u201d beneath the surface that\u2019s worth noting.<\/p>\n \u201cThe big headline here is that, compared to 2024, the Moveable Middle has increased in size by 9 million,\u201d he said. \u201cWe actually see that the Bible Disengaged are down by 5 million compared to two years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n Plake continued, \u201cThere is this moment of opportunity that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n The researcher said people are curious right now and need context, and encouraged Christians to step up to the plate to help answer questions these curious believers in the Moveable Middle might have.<\/p>\n Plake also noted the data shows men continue to grow steadily as Bible readers, moving from 22% in 2024, to 23% in 2025 \u2014 and now to 24% in the latest survey.<\/p>\n \u201cThose moments [of curiosity] are a gift to us,\u201d he said, but warned of lost opportunities if Christians don\u2019t engage.<\/p>\n And Plake also detailed one of the \u201csleeper trends\u201d in the data: journaling. Millennials who use the Bible (22%) practice Bible journaling, something in which he said only 15% of Bible users overall engage.<\/p>\n With younger people engaging Scripture in that way, he believes it could indicate a bigger behavioral wave in the future and open new ways to curate biblical interest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Despite growing in 2025, Bible engagement has ticked down and returned to 2024 levels, according to the American Bible Society\u2019s (ABS) State of the Bible survey. Listen to the latest\u00a0episode\u00a0of \u201cQuick Start\u201d Dr. John Plake, editor-in-chief of the State of the Bible series and chief innovation officer at ABS, told CBN News the results came<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[45,195,82,1235,5088,1565,1790],"class_list":{"0":"post-28066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jesus","8":"tag-bible","9":"tag-big","10":"tag-church","11":"tag-find","12":"tag-opportunity","13":"tag-sparks","14":"tag-surprising"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}