Curiosity in the Bible grows

When a woman asked pastor Matt Capps if she could hold a Bible study at his church, he encouraged her to try a different approach instead: hold it at her workplace. Soon the supervisor at her work, a North Carolina financial institution, gave her permission to host the study.

Within a few months, the study grew to half a dozen people, and many more popped their heads in to see what was happening. Capps, now a pastor at Fairview Baptist Church in Apex, N.C., recalled how proud he was of her step of faith. He said actions like hers equip those who are curious about the Bible to become engaged and immersed in it.

That story echoes findings that American Bible Society released in April. The group’s 2026 State of the Bible report highlighted a growing number of people who are curious and interested in the Bible. According to American Bible Society, what it calls the “Movable Middle” has increased by an estimated 9 million people since 2024. The organization said this increase in the Movable Middle is a call for church leaders and members to reach out to these curious individuals and teach them how to regularly engage with Scripture.

“It’s an open door for the local church to really lean in on here,” said Capps, who also serves as the editor of the Timeless Truths Bible and an ambassador for the Christian Standard Bible translation. “The church is the primary venue for learning to grow and understand Scripture.”

To compile the report, American Bible Society collected data through a 14-question survey of 2,600 U.S. adults from all 50 states, said John Farquhar Plake, the chief innovation officer at American Bible Society. The questions probed how frequently individuals used the Bible both with others and on their own, its spiritual effect on them, and how it informed their worldview. Their answers determined whether they were engaged, open, neutral, or disengaged with the Bible.

The percentage of those regularly engaged with the Bible, which is around 17%, returned to 2024 levels after rising slightly in 2025. The proportion of Bible disengaged individuals, making up 55% of Americans, was statistically unchanged from 2025.

But the Movable Middle saw the biggest shift since 2024, moving from 25% to now 28%. Those in the Movable Middle reach for the Bible on occasion but don’t shape their lives on it, Plake said. Instead, they turn to the Bible when they have big life questions to answer, and they often find the book difficult to navigate.

No single demographic or geographic location defines the Movable Middle, he noted. But about half of the people who attend church weekly are in this Movable Middle. The people in this category are most often those who are in the midst of major life changes, when they are more likely to be open to Scripture’s lessons and wisdom, Plake suggested.

“There’s grief, and loss, and change, but they’re also positive things, like marriage, and having children, and getting a new job,” Plake said. “When they’re going through those changes, suddenly they’re open to learning more. And I think that as a former pastor, I would want to be ready to say, ‘Hey, when you’re going through change, here’s what the Bible says about doing that.’”

People in the Movable Middle need to be equipped with a few tools to stay engaged with the Bible, he said. American Bible Society’s survey found that the people who stick with the Bible are more likely to also follow a reading guide or schedule or read longer passages of Scripture to take in an entire story. They also tend to read the Bible at the same time each day.

According to the study, 40% of the Scripture-engaged participate in Bible studies while only 14% of Movable Middle are involved in such groups, Plake said.

These numbers are merely correlational, said Phil Collins, the executive director of Taylor University’s Center for Scripture Engagement. It’s unclear whether a person is more likely to join a Bible study because he reads Scripture regularly or whether frequent Scripture reading is influenced by being in a Bible study. Regardless, the two build off each other, and community is needed to bolster Bible engagement, he said.

Collins pointed to multiple techniques of effective Bible engagement: journaling about Scripture, memorizing it, creating artwork inspired by it, handcopying verses, and singing Bible passages. “What works for you might not work for me,” Collins said. “They need to experiment and not give up and have hope that they can learn how to do this well.”

What truly keeps people engaged with the Scripture is their underlying motive for reading it, he said.

“If you’re coming to the Bible to be a good Christian, to kind of manipulate God because I want God to like me, so I read my Bible, or I did something bad, so I better read my Bible to make up for it … 
I think those are not wrong reasons to read the Bible, but they’re not powerful reasons,” Collins said. “For me, what keeps me reading and changes me deeply, is that I read Scripture to meet Jesus. I use the written Word to meet the living Word, Jesus Christ.”

Churches wanting to reach the Movable Middle need to make Scripture accessible to all generations, said Stephen Estock, coordinator for the Presbyterian Church in America’s Committee on Discipleship Ministries. When the Bible is presented across multi-generational ministries, younger people can turn to their elder peers for help navigating Scripture.

This occurred at a PCA women’s conference where the thousands of attendees ranged from elementary schoolers to retirees, he said. He remembered one third grader saying how much she valued studying the Bible with women from an older generation.

Accessibility also comes from church leaders diagnosing their congregation to understand where it’s at with Bible engagement. Then, leaders can encourage and appropriately challenge congregants.

“You can’t just throw a slab of meat on the table and say, ‘No, gnaw on it, bite into it.’ You have to cut it up into bite-size pieces, so the person can eat it and digest it,” Estock said. “I tell leaders, find out what their [congregation is] able to handle and then persevere in giving it, knowing that the Holy Spirit is going to grow deeper and deeper hunger.”

Cultivating people’s curiosity in Scripture isn’t easy or quick, he added.

“It’s a marathon, it’s not a sprint,” Estock said. “My encouragement to leaders is that, don’t give up, even if you don’t see them engaging, keep encouraging them, and keep presenting the truth, because the Bible is the truth.”