The image is mind-blowing: 250 million people reading the Bible in their mobile phones.
The YouVersion Bible App for phones has attracted that humongous number of readers in less than 10 years after it was launched in 2007 and became one of the 200 apps available in the iPhone app store in 2008.
"I never could have imagined how many people would come to rely on it every day, all around the world," said Bobby Gruenewald, Life.Church Innovation Pastor and YouVersion founder, in comments emailed to The Christian Post.
The YouVersion Bible App passed the quarter of a billion download mark on Monday.
"God has done far more through the Bible App than we could have asked or imagined, especially in bringing forth a diverse group of people and organizations to rally around a common mission," said Gruenewald.
"Translators, publishers, Bible societies, churches, authors, and hundreds of volunteers have come together as a massive coalition all with one purpose: to help people fully engage in the Bible," he pointed out.
The YouVersion Bible App includes over 1,200 versions of the Bible in about 900 languages. It was originally launched in 2007 as part of the Life.Church website.
Five years after it was launched, the YouVersion app was downloaded 100 million times. Last December, it hit the 200 million download mark.
"We never anticipated when we started that we'd ever, ever be talking about 200 million devices that have installed the Bible app," Gruenewald told The Christian Post in December 2015.
"Obviously God had different plans and our faith has really grown over time to now where we think much, much more is possible."
Gruenewald expects that more people would be drawn to read God's Word in their mobile phones in the years ahead, especially with the new features they have included in the app to make it more attractive.
One of the new features is "an iMessage extension and Bible keyboard that allows people to search for and share Bible verses and verse images from a wide array of apps," Gruenewald said.
"We've also added the ability to compare different Bible versions of the same verse at a glance. Another new feature is a Netflix-like display format for Bible Plans, which makes them easier to search and discover," he shared.
"All of these additions have contributed to an increase in engagement, including verses shared, chapters read, and Bible Plans completed. We also added regional language lists, which allow us to more intelligently suggest a list of Bible languages to people based on where they are located," Gruenewald said.
