How about “From a Distance” as performed by Bette Midler, which peaked at #2 on the US Hot 100 and #1 on the US Adult Contemporary charts. (Written by Julie Gold; first recorded by Nancy Griffith.)
Not just Top #40, but a strong #1 on the Hot 100 Singles Chart in the U.S.
The Doobie Brothers’ cover of “Jesus is Just All Right” hit #35.
The Byrds’ 1965 #1 hit “Turn! Turn! Turn!” is essentially Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 set to music excepting the repeated title refrain.
He - The McGuire Sisters
I Believe - Pat Boone
Yeah, I’m old.
Elvis’ “How Great Thou Art” album hit #18 on the Top Pop chart in 1966.
What about “Turn! Turn! Turn!” as made popular by The Byrds? It hit #1 and it’s basically a recitation of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.
For what it’s worth, the Wikipedia article on this song says:
Edit: ninja’d by damn near everyone as I looked up the song and answered an email
“One Toke Over The Line(Sweet Jesus)”-A modern spiritual.
Devil Went Down to Georgia - Charlie Daniels Band
There are some churches where this wouldn’t be out of place.
Yeah, Right. Alone With Murray Head’s Superstar.
I got beat by pretty much everyone on my two faves (Turn! Turn! Turn! and Rivers of Babylon) so I’ll go with Amazing Grace by Judy Collins.
As a bonus, Gaudete was a UK hit by Steeleye Span - religious and sung in Latin - how 'bout that?
j
Lauren Daigle’s You Say hit #29 on the Billboard Hot 100 after being on the Christian charts for over a year. If you listen casually and are unaware of her career as a Christian artist, it can sound like a love song. The chorus is that way.
The final short verse makes it explicit that it’s addressed to God, but it would be easy to miss.
So it’s a “no doubt about, this song is about God” song IF the listener hears every word, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of listeners on secular radio just hear it as a love song.
I came in to mention this. Although not from a Bible verse, it is apparently based on a 13th century prayer by the bishop St. Richard of Chichester, and included in more recent hymnals. The Wikipedia article says it hit #13 on the Billboard Hot 100.
My complaint about the song, which I’ve heard sung in church countless times since Godspell unleashed it on the world, is that unrehearsed amateurs don’t know how or when to end the thing, so it sort of peters out as people drop out of singing the endless refrain.
No wonder this song never scanned right. It always sounded to me as if they were trying to cram more words than fit into the melody.
I’ve always considered Toy Matinee’s “Last Plane Out” to be borderline in this regard:
Greetings from Sodom, how we wish you were here
The weather’s getting warmer now that the trees are all cleared
No time for a conscience, and we recognize no crime,
Yeah, we got dogs and Valvoline (!), it’s a pretty damn good time.
Although, in the third verse, it seems to reverse course a bit:
Someone said the Big Man may be joining us soon,
But I never was the type to hang with the Harbingers of Doom.
YMMV.
I think some of the songs from Jesus Christ Superstar hit the charts.
I thought Spirit in the Sky was mocking religion?
Is this Reverse Poe’s Law?
How about Superstar from the musical Jesus Christ, Superstar? It reached #14 on the Billboard singles chart in 1969.
I was going to mention their song 40, which is Psalm 40 set to music, but I saw that it only ever was once released as a single, in August of 1983 in Germany, the live version from “Under A Blood Red Sky” which was recorded at Rockpalastat the Loreley which was U2’s big breakthrough concert in Germany and elsewhere (Rockpalast used to be broadcast on TV in many parts of Europe).
There are probably a lot of Christmas songs that qualify. Can we just take them as read?
Stryper was/is definitely a Christian band, but is that particular song overtly, can’t-miss-it religious enough for the OP’s criteria?
There have been other Christian bands to break into the mainstream top 40 (Jars of Clay, Sixpence None the Richer). But are their biggest hits “overtly religious” enough?
Greenbaum wrote it mockingly but it has been embraced by Christians. Sorta like Blur’s Song 2 being a parody of radio friendly grunge and then. . . you know the rest.