What Does the Bible Say About Leadership?

1 Timothy 4:12 ESV / 50 helpful votes

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

1 Timothy 3:1-4 ESV / 40 helpful votes

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive,

2 Chronicles 15:7 ESV / 36 helpful votes

But you, take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.”

2 Timothy 2:15 ESV / 29 helpful votes

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

Proverbs 11:14 ESV / 28 helpful votes

Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.

Isaiah 30:21 ESV / 27 helpful votes

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.

Acts 20:28 ESV / 25 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.

Numbers 27:17 ESV / 22 helpful votes

Who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord may not be as sheep that have no shepherd.”

Luke 14:28 ESV / 14 helpful votes

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?

Mark 10:45 ESV / 13 helpful votes

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Mark 10:44 ESV / 12 helpful votes

And whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.

Proverbs 20:28 ESV / 10 helpful votes

Steadfast love and faithfulness preserve the king, and by steadfast love his throne is upheld.

1 Timothy 6:1-2 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Let all who are under a yoke as slaves regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled. Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers; rather they must serve all the better since those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved. Teach and urge these things.

Romans 12:4 ESV / 8 helpful votes

For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function,

Mark 10:44-45 ESV / 8 helpful votes

And whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Ephesians 4:11-16 ESV / 7 helpful votes

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ...

Matthew 12:30 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

Mark 10:35 ESV / 6 helpful votes

And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”

Isaiah 42:16 ESV / 6 helpful votes

And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.

Ephesians 1:18 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,

Romans 7:19 ESV / 4 helpful votes

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Matthew 20:25-28 ESV / 4 helpful votes

But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Romans 1:26-27 ESV / 1 helpful vote

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Bible Verses about Leadership