With nearly 3 million searches per day—more than 2,000 per minute around the clock—being generated by tens of millions of people in more than 200 countries and territories in the last 12 months, search trends on Bible Gateway offer an impression of how people engaged with the Bible in 2021 on the world’s most visited Christian website.
[Read the Bible Gateway article, 2021 in Review]
The topics people search the Bible for on Bible Gateway are always interesting but this year may be the most intriguing. Searching Scripture using the words “sorceries” and “sorcery” increased from 2020 by 193%, followed by “slow to anger, abounding in love” by 169%, and “in my father’s house are many rooms” by 140%. Other search terms decreased from last year, such as “pestilence,” “plague”, and “disease” by 71%, “you have not because you ask not” by 70%, and “in this world you will have trouble” by 62%.
The increase in sorceries is related to heightened interest in the Greek word pharmakeia which, according to the Mounce Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament means “employment of drugs for any purpose; sorcery, magic, enchantment” as used in Galatians 5:20
The overall most-popular Bible verse searched for, read, and shared on Bible Gateway in 2021 was John 3:16, followed by Jeremiah 29:11, as they both have been for at least every year of the last decade. And the top two most-popular keyword searches in 2021—as they’ve been year after year—were love and peace.
[Read the Bible Gateway Blog post, Bible Gateway 2019 on Parade]
However, some changes to the top 10 Bible verses include Romans 12:2, rising to the #5 position this year from #16 last year; Philippians 4:6 at #7 from #11; Philippians 4:13 at #9 from #12; and Isaiah 41:10 at #10 from #13. The most dramatic increase is for Luke 10:18 (“He replied, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.'”) rising 2,695 positions to rank 84th in 2021.
As for the top Bible verses that gained and lost the most traffic compared to last year: Leviticus 13:45-46 increased by 626% and Isaiah 26:20-21 decreased by 92%.
While sorcery—listed by the apostle Paul as one of the “works of the flesh” in Galatians 5:20—may have been an exceptionally popular Bible search term in 2021, it’s important to remember Paul’s instruction also in that chapter that’s summed up in the #27 most popular verse this year (up from #44 last year): Galatians 5:22 — “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.”
[Read the Bible Gateway Blog post, Latest Bible-Related Research]
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