18 Bible Verses about Absence

And in this confidence we would gladly leave our home in the body, and make our home with the Lord.

It is true that I am not with you in person, but I am with you in spirit, and am glad to see the good order and the unbroken front resulting from your faith in Christ.

You heard me say that I was going away and would return to you. Had you loved me, you would have been glad that I was going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.

For I am afraid that perhaps, when I come, I may find that you are not what I want you to be, and, on the other hand, that you may find that I am what you do not want me to be. I am afraid that I may find quarreling, jealousy, ill-feeling, rivalry, slandering, back-biting, self-assertion, and disorder.

Yes, I am confident that this is so, and therefore I am sure that I shall stay, and stay near you all, to promote your progress and joy in the Faith;

As for ourselves, Brothers, our having been bereaved of you even for a short time--though in body only, and not in spirit--made us all the more eager to see your faces again; and the longing to do so was strong upon us.

Yet I am only telling you the truth; it is for your good that I should go away. For otherwise the Helper will never come to you, but, if I leave you, I will send him to you.

For I myself, though absent in body, have been present with you in spirit, and in the name of our Lord Jesus I have already passed judgment, just as if I had been present, upon the man who has acted in this way.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always been obedient in the past, so now work out your own Salvation with anxious care, not only when I am with you, but all the more now that I am absent.

Therefore, whether in our home or absent from our home, our one ambition is to please him.

Under all circumstances let your lives be worthy of the Good News of the Christ: so that, whether I come and see you, or whether I hear of your affairs at a distance, I may know that you are standing firm, animated by one spirit, and joining with one heart in a common struggle for the Faith taught by the Good News,

Now, I, Paul, make a personal appeal to you by the meekness and gentleness of the Christ--I who, "in your presence, am humble in my bearing towards you, but, when absent, am bold in my language to you"--

Let such a man be assured of this--that our words in our letters show us to be, when absent, just what our deeds will show us to be, when present.