Lausanne World Pulse – Research Articles – Personal Bible Reading

By Peter Brierley

How essential is regular reading of the Bible for one’s personal spiritual life? If we go to church each week, or attend a regular Bible study group, and hear the Bible being explained, do we need to read it ourselves as well? Most Christian people would answer with a very affirmative YES! While it is possible to become a Christian and to live as a Christian without access to a personal copy of the Bible in one’s own tongue (as the experience of tens of thousands of people in countries like China testifies!), the norm in Western society is for Christians to have at least one copy of the Bible themselves with the expectation of reading it personally outside church services.

A large study in the UK in 2005 asked ministers how many people read the Bible in their church personally outside of church attendance. The overall answer, across all denominations, was that some twenty-seven percent of churchgoers in England claimed to read the Bible personally at least once a week. This percentage is between the forty-five percent of adults reading the Bible weekly in the United States¹ and the twelve percent of Finns who read it at least once a month.²

Variation by Denomination
Regular Bible reading varied considerably by denomination as Figure 1 below shows, with those attending the New Churches reading it most (sixty-six percent), followed by the Independent churches (sixty-four percent) and the Pentecostals (sixty-two percent). Roman Catholics read it least (four percent), and most other denominations were fairly close to the national average. For UK church leaders, these figures come as no surprise.

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Dr. Peter Brierley, a church consultant, is the Senior Lausanne Associate for Church Research. He attended Lausanne I in 1974 and has been involved with the Lausanne movement since 1984. He is former executive director of Christian Research, a UK charity which produces resource volumes like Religious Trends and the UK Christian Handbook. Brierley can be reached at [email protected].