Adult loneliness has reached epidemic proportions in America and other nations across the world. Much of this started during the pandemic when we were all forced to isolate ourselves for months on end. It’s only seemingly gotten worse from there. People are trying to avoid the risks of opening their hearts to others by building superficial relationships online, but not cultivating intimacy by being with one another in-person.
However, a new study has revealed the cure: Read the Bible more.
The study, according to The Christian Post, has revealed that Americans who have strong spiritual lives and who are following the Lord’s command and example to forgive others experience far less loneliness than those who don’t really engage with the Bible, church, or forgiveness of others. It’s almost like God created us, understands us, and wrote down what we need in a book so we can always look back and be reminded of how to be happy and healthy!
The American Bible Society released the eighth chapter of its “State of the Bible USA 2024” report Thursday, focusing on “Loneliness.” The research, based on 2,506 responses collected from American adults from Jan. 4-23, 2024, examined the relationship between a respondent’s levels of religiosity and how frequently they experience loneliness. The margin of error for the sample is ±2.73 percentage points. The data suggests that nearly three out of four Americans report moderate to high levels of loneliness, with over one-third of Generation Z women ages 18-27 experiencing high levels of loneliness.
“In our surveys, we’ve seen many ways that Americans benefit from Bible engagement, and we suspect that it might also help them feel less lonely. So we’re testing a hypothesis,” the report goes on to say. “If the nation is indeed experiencing an ‘epidemic of loneliness,’ what happens when people form a meaningful relationship with the God they meet in Scripture?”
Among the “Bible disengaged” — defined as those who score less than 70 on the Scripture Engagement Scale that measures the impact and centrality of the Bible on people’s lives based on their responses to a series of questions — 22% reported high levels of loneliness while 52% experienced moderate loneliness.
God states pretty clearly in Scripture that it is not good for man to be alone. We need to be in a right relationship with Him and with other image bearers, especially those who also call God their Father. The Bible lays out how we can have healthy relationships with other people, and part of that is learning to forgive one another of our sins toward each other, just as God forgives us. Learning to love each other even in the midst of our imperfections is to truly function in the image of Jesus.
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Among the “movable middle” — those who score between 70 and 99 on the Scripture Engagement Scale — 59% reported high levels of loneliness and 17% experienced moderate loneliness. By contrast, a significantly smaller share of “scripture engaged” respondents with Scripture Engagement scores of 100 or higher reported high (11%) and moderate (50%) levels of loneliness. The percentage of “scripture engaged” respondents experiencing low loneliness (38%) was much higher than the 25% of both the “movable middle” and “Bible disengaged” who said the same.
Looking at levels of loneliness based on church attendance, the data suggests those who “never” attend church had the highest incidence of high loneliness (25%), followed by those who had not been to church in at least a month but had gone within the past year (20%), those who last went to church over a year ago (16%), respondents who last went to church within the past month (15%) and those who attend weekly (12%).
The bottom line here is that you, me, and everyone needs Jesus and the Church in our lives. No more making excuses. Get to Church. Open your Bible every day. Pray and learn to forgive those who do you wrong. Your life will be all the better for it.