At the NRB Research Symposium in June, Dr. Arnold Cole presented some research that had been conducted by Back to the Bible’s Center for Bible Engagement. Brian Proffit spoke with him about his research and its implications. This article is based on that conversation and the detailed papers Dr. Cole sent us.

Arnie, first please tell us a little about the Center for Bible Engagement and an overview of the research.

Studies examining issues of religion and spiritually typically focus on individual beliefs and behaviors such as attendance at religious services and prayer. The Center for Bible Engagement has adopted a different approach. Our research focuses on why so many people own Bibles, but never read them—and then, to find a solution. In our four years of research, including several surveys with over 40,000 respondents, we’ve discovered a complex relationship: familiarity and contact with the Bible provides a level of protection against temptation, but temptation sometimes acts as a barrier to Bible reading.

It would seem hard to measure temptation itself, rather than the behaviors that temptation leads to.

You are reliant on self-reporting, but that’s really the core of all surveys. We looked at both the reported temptations and the behaviors.

It’s probably not surprising that there were significant gender differences. For men, temptations related to sexuality were most common, accounting for 38% of all responses which was ten times more common than the second most frequent temptation of laziness. For women, gossip at 13% and overeating at 12% topped the list of most difficult temptations. On average, men reported significantly higher frequency of temptations than women.

Of course we’re all tempted. Perhaps more significantly, 80% of all believers when asked if they yielded to the temptation said either “yes” or “sometimes yes.”

What sorts of things are truly helpful to people in avoiding temptation?

It’s noteworthy that many of the strategies emphasized in local churches were named only infrequently in terms of helping believers resist temptation. Very few respondents said that other people (at 5.5%), accountability relationships (at 2.1%) or church (at just 0.5%) helped them to stand firm against temptation. Three out of four had shared their temptation with another person, but only a tiny percentage named Christian friends as helping them resist temptation.

When asked, “What currently helps you win the day spiritually” Christ-followers named reading the Bible as number one, followed closely by prayer.

“Reading the Bible” can be a little vague; meaning anything from following along with three or four verses during church to daily time.

Yes, and we discovered a significant factor we called “The Power of 4.” For several of the behaviors we examined there is no statistical difference between Christians who read or listen to the Bible two to three days a week and those who do not engage Scripture at all or only once a week! And for those where there is an effect for engaging Scripture two to three days a week, the effect is much smaller than for four or more days a week. So there is a clear crossover point at four days. Those who read or listen to the Bible at least four days a week are 36% less likely to smoke, 57% less likely to get drunk, 61% less likely to use pornography, and 68% less likely to have sex outside marriage.

Scripture engagement more reliably predicts moral behavior than traditional measures of spirituality, such as church attendance and prayer. How often one reads or listens to the Bible seems a particularly protective factor for teens. Among teens, we find no effects for church attendance and prayer in alleviating risky behaviors.

In sum, reading or listening to the Bible at least four days a week provides a measure of protection against the temptation of risky behaviors, beyond church attendance, prayer or other spiritual disciplines.

Dr. Arnold Cole is the CEO and Director of Bible Engagement Research for Back to the Bible.

Brian Proffit (e-mail him here) brings experience as pastor, writer, and publisher to his role as chief visioneer of BP Resources and author of the Insights on the Journey Blog.