YouVersion has revealed the most popular Bible verse on its Bible app this year.
The Bible verse shared, bookmarked, and highlighted most often by the global YouVersion community this year is Isaiah 41:10: “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
YouVersion founder Bobby Gruenewald said the popularity of the verse goes to show how much people were looking for hope during a year marked with uncertainty and fear.
“This has been a challenging year with many people facing devastating loss, loneliness, and fear,” he said in statement.
“While 2020 is a year so many say they’d like to forget, we see it as a year to remember how God used the Bible App to help so many people who are searching for answers. Through every hardship, people continue to seek God and turn to the Bible for strength, peace, and hope.”
New statistics also show it was a record-breaking year for the app. There were 43.6 billion Bible chapters read, 7.5 billion audio chapters played, and 1.4 billion Bible Plan days completed, making it the highest levels of global Bible engagement in the app’s history.
Meanwhile, new figures also show that phrases like “new year,” “bible in a year,” “faith,” and “fasting” were the most popular searches in the beginning of the year.
Then during the middle of March, when the Covid-19 began to run rampant, the number one search term was “fear.”
As the pandemic continued, the fastest growing search words were words like “peace,” “hope,” and “faith”.
Trending searches also included “justice,” which rose to the top in late May, and again in late August and late September.
Statistics show “healing,” “peace,” and “love” were consistently among the top results throughout the year.
“These top search terms really show what’s been weighing on the hearts and minds of people around the world at key points throughout the year,” Gruenewald added.
“They reveal how people are seeking God as they wrestle with the difficult circumstances they’ve faced in 2020, and that’s something we can celebrate.”
The Bible App for Kids also saw record-breaking success this year. The app was installed on more than 22 million unique devices, totalling more than 60 million devices worldwide. Children completed more than 170 million stories, which is a 90 per cent increase over the previous record set in 2019.
