77 Bible Verses about Pastorial Authority

1 Peter 5:3 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.

Hebrews 13:17 ESV / 6 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.

1 Corinthians 14:1-40 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up. ...

1 Corinthians 11:1 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

Revelation 22:17 ESV / 5 helpful votes

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

Revelation 3:20 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

Revelation 2:1-6 ESV / 5 helpful votes

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. “‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. ...

3 John 1:11 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.

3 John 1:9-11 ESV / 5 helpful votes

I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church. Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.

1 John 2:27 ESV / 5 helpful votes

But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.

1 John 2:18 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.

1 John 2:18-23 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. ...

1 Peter 5:4 ESV / 5 helpful votes

And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

1 Peter 5:1-14 ESV / 5 helpful votes

So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” ...

1 Peter 5:1-3 ESV / 5 helpful votes

So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.

1 Peter 2:25 ESV / 5 helpful votes

For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

1 Peter 2:9 ESV / 5 helpful votes

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

1 Peter 2:5 ESV / 5 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.

James 5:14 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

Titus 2:2-6 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.

Titus 1:5 ESV / 5 helpful votes

This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you—

2 Timothy 4:3-4 ESV / 5 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.

1 Timothy 5:19-21 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality.

1 Timothy 5:1-2 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.

1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 ESV / 5 helpful votes

We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.

Colossians 1:18 ESV / 5 helpful votes

And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

Philippians 1:1 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons:

Ephesians 5:30-32 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

Ephesians 5:23 ESV / 5 helpful votes

For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.

Ephesians 5:1-33 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. ...

Ephesians 1:22 ESV / 5 helpful votes

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

2 Corinthians 1:23 ESV / 5 helpful votes

But I call God to witness against me—it was to spare you that I refrained from coming again to Corinth.

1 Corinthians 14:29 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said.

1 Corinthians 9:1 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord?

1 Corinthians 2:10 ESV / 5 helpful votes

These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

Acts 20:28 ESV / 5 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.

Acts 20:17-28 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. And when they came to him, he said to them: “You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. ...

Acts 20:17 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him.

Acts 20:1-38 ESV / 5 helpful votes

After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia. When he had gone through those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece. There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia. Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy; and the Asians, Tychicus and Trophimus. These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas, ...

Acts 15:4 ESV / 5 helpful votes

When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them.

Acts 14:23 ESV / 5 helpful votes

And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

Acts 1:19 ESV / 5 helpful votes

And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

John 16:14 ESV / 5 helpful votes

He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

John 16:13 ESV / 5 helpful votes

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

John 14:15 ESV / 5 helpful votes

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Luke 16:13 ESV / 5 helpful votes

No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

Mark 10:42-44 ESV / 5 helpful votes

And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But 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 slave of all.

Matthew 24:3-5 ESV / 5 helpful votes

As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.

Matthew 23:8 ESV / 5 helpful votes

But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.

Matthew 23:1-39 ESV / 5 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, ...

Amos 3:7 ESV / 5 helpful votes

“For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.

Jeremiah 3:8 ESV / 5 helpful votes

She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore.

Psalm 118:8 ESV / 5 helpful votes

It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.

Psalm 109:8 ESV / 5 helpful votes

May his days be few; may another take his office!

Psalm 105:15 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Saying, “Touch not my anointed ones, do my prophets no harm!”

2 Samuel 5:4 ESV / 5 helpful votes

David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years.

Judges 2:13 ESV / 5 helpful votes

They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.

Judges 2:12 ESV / 5 helpful votes

And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger.

Numbers 4:47 ESV / 5 helpful votes

From thirty years old up to fifty years old, everyone who could come to do the service of ministry and the service of bearing burdens in the tent of meeting,

Numbers 4:43 ESV / 5 helpful votes

From thirty years old up to fifty years old, everyone who could come on duty, for service in the tent of meeting—

Numbers 4:39 ESV / 5 helpful votes

From thirty years old up to fifty years old, everyone who could come on duty for service in the tent of meeting—

Numbers 4:35 ESV / 5 helpful votes

From thirty years old up to fifty years old, everyone who could come on duty, for service in the tent of meeting;

Numbers 4:30 ESV / 5 helpful votes

From thirty years old up to fifty years old, you shall list them, everyone who can come on duty, to do the service of the tent of meeting.

Numbers 4:23 ESV / 5 helpful votes

From thirty years old up to fifty years old, you shall list them, all who can come to do duty, to do service in the tent of meeting.

Numbers 4:3 ESV / 5 helpful votes

From thirty years old up to fifty years old, all who can come on duty, to do the work in the tent of meeting.

Genesis 41:46 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Joseph was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went through all the land of Egypt.

Revelation 21:9 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.”

Revelation 3:15 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot!

Revelation 2:6 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

1 Timothy 3:1 ESV / 3 helpful votes

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.

1 Thessalonians 5:12 ESV / 3 helpful votes

We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you,

Ephesians 4:11 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,

Ephesians 4:1-32 ESV / 3 helpful votes

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ...

1 Corinthians 12:27-31 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

Romans 12:1-21 ESV / 3 helpful votes

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. ...

1 Corinthians 2:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

Isaiah 8:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.

Suggest a Verse


Visit the Bible online to search for words if you don’t know the specific passage your’re looking for.