100 Bible Verses about Leaving Church

Romans 16:17 ESV / 37 helpful votes

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.

Matthew 16:18 ESV / 30 helpful votes

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

2 Timothy 3:5 ESV / 29 helpful votes

Having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

Galatians 1:7-9 ESV / 29 helpful votes

Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

John 20:31 ESV / 26 helpful votes

But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Matthew 18:15-17 ESV / 26 helpful votes

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Romans 8:28 ESV / 25 helpful votes

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Ezekiel 28:19 ESV / 25 helpful votes

All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you; you have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever.”

Matthew 10:23 ESV / 23 helpful votes

When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

John 7:38 ESV / 21 helpful votes

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

John 14:14 ESV / 20 helpful votes

If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

Hebrews 8:6-8 ESV / 19 helpful votes

But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,

1 Corinthians 11:3 ESV / 19 helpful votes

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

1 Corinthians 5:9-11 ESV / 19 helpful votes

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.

Hebrews 13:17 ESV / 18 helpful votes

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Hebrews 10:25 ESV / 18 helpful votes

Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Acts 20:28 ESV / 18 helpful votes

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

Titus 2:9 ESV / 16 helpful votes

Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative,

Ephesians 5:11 ESV / 16 helpful votes

Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

Luke 21:31-32 ESV / 16 helpful votes

So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place.

Genesis 6:1-22 ESV / 16 helpful votes

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ...

2 Timothy 4:3-4 ESV / 15 helpful votes

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV / 15 helpful votes

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

Romans 3:4 ESV / 15 helpful votes

By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.”

Proverbs 18:13 ESV / 14 helpful votes

If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.

Deuteronomy 24:16 ESV / 14 helpful votes

“Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.

Hebrews 12:6 ESV / 13 helpful votes

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

Titus 3:10 ESV / 13 helpful votes

As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him,

John 14:12 ESV / 13 helpful votes

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

Matthew 18:17 ESV / 12 helpful votes

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Psalm 19:7 ESV / 12 helpful votes

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;

Exodus 4:11 ESV / 12 helpful votes

Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?

Hebrews 10:24-25 ESV / 11 helpful votes

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

1 Timothy 6:3-5 ESV / 11 helpful votes

If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.

Ephesians 5:25 ESV / 11 helpful votes

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

1 Corinthians 5:13 ESV / 11 helpful votes

God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

Romans 12:5 ESV / 11 helpful votes

So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

Acts 2:47 ESV / 11 helpful votes

Praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Exodus 20:1-26 ESV / 11 helpful votes

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, ...

Jude 1:14-15 ESV / 10 helpful votes

It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

2 John 1:9-11 ESV / 10 helpful votes

Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

1 Timothy 3:15 ESV / 10 helpful votes

If I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.

Ezekiel 26:14 ESV / 10 helpful votes

I will make you a bare rock. You shall be a place for the spreading of nets. You shall never be rebuilt, for I am the Lord; I have spoken, declares the Lord God.

1 Peter 5:13 ESV / 9 helpful votes

She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son.

1 Peter 1:22 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,

2 Thessalonians 3:6 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.

Ephesians 2:20-22 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Ephesians 1:22 ESV / 9 helpful votes

And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church,

Mark 12:26 ESV / 9 helpful votes

And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?

Mark 9:1 ESV / 9 helpful votes

And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”

Matthew 23:1-39 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, ...

Exodus 6:3 ESV / 9 helpful votes

I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them.

Colossians 3:16 ESV / 8 helpful votes

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Galatians 2:11-14 ESV / 8 helpful votes

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

1 Corinthians 5:9 ESV / 8 helpful votes

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—

Luke 14:33 ESV / 8 helpful votes

So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Matthew 27:63 ESV / 8 helpful votes

And said, “Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’

Zechariah 11:12 ESV / 8 helpful votes

Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver.

Amos 3:6 ESV / 8 helpful votes

Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?

Ezekiel 27:36 ESV / 8 helpful votes

The merchants among the peoples hiss at you; you have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever.’”

Proverbs 18:17 ESV / 8 helpful votes

The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.

Proverbs 6:19 ESV / 8 helpful votes

A false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.

1 Chronicles 16:11 ESV / 8 helpful votes

Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!

Genesis 28:20-21 ESV / 8 helpful votes

Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God,

Revelation 1:1 ESV / 7 helpful votes

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,

1 Peter 2:5 ESV / 7 helpful votes

You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 5:11 ESV / 7 helpful votes

But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.

1 Corinthians 5:1-7 ESV / 7 helpful votes

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. ...

1 Corinthians 1:10 ESV / 7 helpful votes

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

Luke 24:6-7 ESV / 7 helpful votes

He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”

Luke 8:41-56 ESV / 7 helpful votes

And there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue. And falling at Jesus' feet, he implored him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying. As Jesus went, the people pressed around him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. And Jesus said, “Who was it that touched me?” When all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!” ...

Matthew 27:9-10 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord directed me.”

Matthew 2:23 ESV / 7 helpful votes

And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.

Daniel 12:9 ESV / 7 helpful votes

He said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.

Ezekiel 29:11-12 ESV / 7 helpful votes

No foot of man shall pass through it, and no foot of beast shall pass through it; it shall be uninhabited forty years. And I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the midst of desolated countries, and her cities shall be a desolation forty years among cities that are laid waste. I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them through the countries.

Lamentations 3:38 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?

Isaiah 23:13-18 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Behold the land of the Chaldeans! This is the people that was not; Assyria destined it for wild beasts. They erected their siege towers, they stripped her palaces bare, they made her a ruin. Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for your stronghold is laid waste. In that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute: “Take a harp; go about the city, O forgotten prostitute! Make sweet melody; sing many songs, that you may be remembered.” At the end of seventy years, the Lord will visit Tyre, and she will return to her wages and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth. ...

Ecclesiastes 9:5-6 ESV / 7 helpful votes

For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun.

Proverbs 31:6-7 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.

Psalm 104:14-15 ESV / 7 helpful votes

You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart.

Psalm 16:1-11 ESV / 7 helpful votes

A Miktam of David. Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. ...

Deuteronomy 13:6-10 ESV / 7 helpful votes

“If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

Exodus 34:1-35 ESV / 7 helpful votes

The Lord said to Moses, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain.” So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. ...

Genesis 9:24 ESV / 7 helpful votes

When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him,

Revelation 22:10 ESV / 6 helpful votes

And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.

James 5:16 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Mark 2:25-26 ESV / 6 helpful votes

And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?”

Mark 1:2 ESV / 6 helpful votes

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way,

Matthew 12:40 ESV / 6 helpful votes

For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Isaiah 45:7 ESV / 6 helpful votes

I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.

1 Samuel 21:1-22:23 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David, trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread—if the young men have kept themselves from women.” And David answered the priest, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?” ...

Deuteronomy 20:16-17 ESV / 6 helpful votes

But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded,

Deuteronomy 18:20-22 ESV / 6 helpful votes

But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

Numbers 31:14-18 ESV / 6 helpful votes

And Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had come from service in the war. Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live? Behold, these, on Balaam's advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the Lord. Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.

Exodus 5:1-23 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.” Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.” But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.” And Pharaoh said, “Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens!” ...

Exodus 4:18-31 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Please let me go back to my brothers in Egypt to see whether they are still alive.” And Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.” And the Lord said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.” So Moses took his wife and his sons and had them ride on a donkey, and went back to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the staff of God in his hand. And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, ...

Genesis 27:27 ESV / 6 helpful votes

So he came near and kissed him. And Isaac smelled the smell of his garments and blessed him and said, “See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed!

Genesis 22:14 ESV / 6 helpful votes

So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Genesis 19:8 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”

Genesis 5:29 ESV / 6 helpful votes

And called his name Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.”

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