8 Bible Verses about Backsliders

After this many of his disciples drew back, and did not go about with him any longer.

It is the Spirit that gives Life; mere flesh is of no avail. In the teaching that I have been giving you there is Spirit and there is Life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe in me." For Jesus knew from the first who they were that did not believe in him, and who it was that would betray him;

There are some who have already left us, to follow Satan.

Yet I have this against you--You tolerate the woman Jezebel, who declares that she is a Prophetess, and misleads my servants by her teaching, till they commit licentious acts and eat idol-offerings.

But this I have against you--You have abandoned your first love.

There are some who have already left us, to follow Satan.

Yet I have a few things against you--You have among you those who hold to the Teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put temptations in the way of the Israelites, so that they should eat idol-offerings and commit licentious acts. Again you have among you those who hold in the same way to the Teaching of the Nikolaitans.

Be on the watch, and strengthen what still survives, though once it was all but dead; for I have not found your life perfect in the eyes of my God. Therefore remember what you have received and heard, and lay it to heart and repent. Unless you are on the watch, I shall come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I am coming to you.

and Peter remembered the words which Jesus had said-- 'Before a cock has crowed, you will disown me three times'; and he went outside, and wept bitterly.

At that moment, for the second time, a cock crowed; and Peter remembered the words that Jesus had said to him-- 'Before a cock has crowed twice, you will disown me three times'; and, as he thought of it, he began to weep.

And he went outside and wept bitterly.

Peter, meanwhile, was sitting outside in the courtyard; and a maidservant came up to him, and exclaimed: "Why, you were with Jesus the Galilean!" But Peter denied it before them all. "I do not know what you mean," he replied. When he had gone out into the gateway, another maid saw him, and said to those who were there: "This man was with Jesus of Nazareth!" read more.
Again he denied it with an oath: "I do not know the man!" But soon afterwards those who were standing by came up and said to Peter: "You also are certainly one of them; why, your very way of speaking proves it!" Then Peter began to swear, with most solemn imprecations: "I do not know the man." At that moment a cock crowed; and Peter remembered the words which Jesus had said-- 'Before a cock has crowed, you will disown me three times'; and he went outside, and wept bitterly.

I am astonished at your so soon deserting him, who called you through the love of Christ, for a different 'Good News,'

Foolish Galatians! Who has been fascinating you--you before whose very eyes Jesus Christ was depicted upon the cross?

But now that you have found God--or, rather, have been found by him--how is it that you are turning back to that poor and feeble puerile teaching, to which yet once again you are wanting to become slaves? You are scrupulous in keeping Days and Months and Seasons and Years! You make me fear that the labor which I have spent on you may have been wasted.

If a man is in union with Christ Jesus, neither is circumcision nor the omission of it anything, but faith, working through love, is everything. You were once making good progress! Who has hindered you from obeying the Truth?

No sooner does a foul spirit leave a man, than it passes through places where there is no water, in search of rest; and finding none, it says 'I will go back to the home which I left'; But, on coming there, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order.

Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in, and make their home there; and the last state of that man proves to be worse than the first."

There is a wide-spread report respecting a case of immorality among you, and that, too, of a kind that does not occur even among the Gentiles-a man, I hear, is living with his father's wife! Instead of grieving over it and taking steps for the expulsion of the man who has done this thing, is it possible that you are still puffed up? 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. read more.
I have decided-having been present in spirit at your meetings, when the power of the Lord Jesus was with us- To deliver such a man as this over to Satan, that what is sensual in him may be destroyed, so that his spirit may be saved at the Day of the Lord. Your boasting is unseemly. Do not you know that even a little leaven leavens all the dough? Get rid entirely of the old leaven, so that you may be like new dough-free from leaven, as in truth you are. For our Passover Lamb is already sacrificed-Christ himself; Therefore let us keep our festival, not with the leaven of former days, nor with the leaven of vice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

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. I am afraid lest, on my next visit, my God may humble me in regard to you, and that I may have to mourn over many who have long been sinning, and have not repented of the impurity, immorality, and sensuality, in which they have indulged.

After this many of his disciples drew back, and did not go about with him any longer.

The whole of this occurred in fulfillment of the Prophetic Scriptures. Then the disciples all forsook him and fled.

for Demas, in his love for the world, has deserted me. He has gone to Thessalonica, Crescens to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia.

Then he said to Thomas: "Place your finger here, and look at my hands; and place your hand here, and put it into my side; and do not refuse to believe, but believe." And Thomas exclaimed: "My Master, and my God!" "Is it because you have seen me that you have believed?" said Jesus. "Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed!"

with faith, and with a clear conscience; and it is because they have thrust this aside, that, as regards the Faith, some have wrecked their lives. Hymenaeus and Alexander are instances--the men whom I delivered over to Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme.

By the seed which fell upon the rock are meant those who, as soon as they hear the Message, welcome it joyfully; but they have no root, and believe it only for a time, and, when the time of temptation comes, they draw back.

You know, of course, that all our friends in Roman Asia turned their backs on me, and among them Phygellus and Hermogenes.

for Demas, in his love for the world, has deserted me. He has gone to Thessalonica, Crescens to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia.