17 Bible Verses About Being a Disciple

Mark 1:17-18

“And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed him.”

Reflection: Jesus speaks to Simon and Andrew as they cast a net into the Sea of Galilee. The promise uses their own trade: fishermen will become fishers of men. Simon and Andrew left their nets. James and John, called next, “left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants” (Mark 1:20).

Luke 5:27-28

“After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.”

Reflection: Levi is sitting at the tax booth when Jesus calls him with the same two words. Luke says he left everything, and the next verses show where he went: Levi gave a great feast for Jesus with “a large company of tax collectors and others,” and when the Pharisees complained, Jesus answered, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32).

Matthew 8:21-22

“Another of the disciples said to him, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.’”

Reflection: Two men speak to Jesus as he prepares to cross the lake. A scribe offers to follow him anywhere and is told the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head (Matthew 8:20). Then a man already counted among the disciples asks to bury his father first, and Jesus tells him to follow now. Luke’s account adds a task to the answer: “But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60).

John 15:16

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”

Reflection: Jesus tells his disciples that the choosing ran from him to them, not the other way. He appointed them to go and bear fruit that lasts. In the verse before, he has told them, “No longer do I call you servants… but I have called you friends” (John 15:15).

Luke 9:23

“And he said to all, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.’”

Reflection: Luke says Jesus spoke these words “to all,” not only to the twelve. They come straight after Peter confesses him as “the Christ of God” and Jesus foretells his own rejection, death and rising (Luke 9:20-22). The cross is to be taken up daily, and the next verse explains why: “whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

Luke 14:26

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”

Reflection: Jesus turns to the large crowds travelling with him and says this. Matthew’s version of the saying puts it as a comparison: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). In Luke the list goes further than family and ends with “even his own life.”

Luke 14:33

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

Reflection: This verse closes the two short parables in Luke 14:28-32: a man who does not count the cost of a tower before building, and a king who weighs whether his ten thousand can meet twenty thousand. Both sit down and reckon before they begin. Jesus draws the conclusion for anyone who would be his disciple: the cost is all that he has.

John 12:26

“If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.”

Reflection: Some Greeks who had come up to worship at the feast asked Philip, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” (John 12:21). Jesus answers by speaking of his death, a grain of wheat that must fall into the earth and die to bear fruit (John 12:24). Serving him means following him there, and the promise is that the servant will be where he is and the Father will honor him.

Philippians 3:7-8

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ”

Reflection: Paul lists what he once counted as gain: circumcised on the eighth day, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee, blameless as to righteousness under the law (Philippians 3:5-6). All of it he now counts as loss, and then as rubbish, beside knowing Christ Jesus his Lord. Verse 9 gives the aim: to “be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ.”

John 8:31-32

“So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’”

Reflection: Jesus speaks to people who had just believed in him (John 8:30) and sets a condition on the name: they are truly his disciples if they abide in his word. The freedom he promises comes through the truth known that way.

John 13:35

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Reflection: At the last supper, after washing the disciples’ feet and after Judas has gone out into the night, Jesus gives “a new commandment”: “just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34). The sign he gives others for recognising his disciples is their love for each other, measured against his love for them.

John 15:8

“By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.”

Reflection: The verse comes in the vine and branches passage. Earlier Jesus says, “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Bearing much fruit brings glory to the Father and shows who his disciples are.

Luke 6:40

“A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.”

Reflection: The saying follows a question in Luke 6:39: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?” A disciple, once fully trained, is like the teacher, so the disciple of a blind guide falls into the pit with him.

1 John 2:6

“whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”

Reflection: John writes to test a claim. Just before this he says, “Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar” (1 John 2:4). Anyone who says he abides in Christ ought to walk as Jesus walked, so the way he lived is the pattern for those who claim him.

Matthew 28:19-20

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Reflection: The risen Jesus speaks to the eleven on a mountain in Galilee, where Matthew notes that some of them still doubted (Matthew 28:17). He claims all authority in heaven and on earth and sends them to make disciples of all nations. Baptizing and teaching are the two ways named, and the teaching is to obey everything he commanded. The promise of his presence runs “to the end of the age.”

2 Timothy 2:2

“and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

Reflection: Paul writes to Timothy, whom he calls “my child” (2 Timothy 2:1). The verse names four links in one chain: Paul, Timothy, faithful men, and the others they will teach. What passes down the chain is what Timothy heard from Paul in front of many witnesses.

Acts 11:26

“and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.”

Reflection: The church in Antioch began when men of Cyprus and Cyrene preached the Lord Jesus to Hellenists there as well as to Jews (Acts 11:19-21). The church in Jerusalem sent Barnabas, who exhorted the new believers “to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose” (Acts 11:23) and then went to Tarsus to look for Saul (Acts 11:25). The name Christians was given to people who had been taught for a year as disciples.