The Twelve Elements in Jesus’s Call to Discipleship
The Greek verb ζητέω | zēteō held a centuries-old spiritual significance sourced in the Hebrew scriptures and was well-known to Jewish students of sacred writings. It means to seek God, in the hope that God may be found. Within a hundred years before Jesus’s ministry, it came to mean seeking the scriptures in order that God, and wisdom from God, intimacy with God, even salvation in God, might be found. This question, appearing as the first words of the Word of God in John’s Gospel, becomes one of the theological keys to the gospel itself. John points to Jesus as the true Word of God, replacing Torah with Christ.
What is the reader seeking in the word of God, this Gospel, and in the Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ?
Throughout John’s Gospel, some seek to become disciples of Jesus and are transformed into apostles of the gospel, and others seek to kill Jesus. John does not provide a middle ground.
Understanding the significance of this Greek verb requires a serious analysis of the stories where this question is found within John’s Gospel, and particularly in those conversations resulting in disciples of Jesus.
The Gospel of John, unlike the Synoptic Gospels, does not concentrate on the calling of The Twelve, who eventually became the Apostles. In fact, The Twelve are not mentioned until chapter 6, and only eight of twelve disciples are ever named. But John does portray in careful detail the calling of disciples, and the apostolic nature of their call.
In comparing the three calling narratives featured in this series, twelve calling elements emerge in each passage, beginning with the Greek verb zēteō. These twelve elements are not arranged in the same sequence in each story; however, they are clearly identifiable, and carry important implications for the life of the church today.
| Calling Element | John 1:38-51, Five Men | John 4:1-42, Samaritan Woman | John 20:1-18, Mary of Magdala | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | “Whom/What are you seeking?” | John 1:38 | John 4:27 | John 20:15 |
| 2 | Response with honorific | John 1:38, “Rabbi” | John 4:19, “Prophet” | John 20:16: “Rabbouni” |
| 3 | “Come and see” | John 1:39, Jesus to the Baptist’s two disciples; 1:46, Philip to Nathanael | John 4:29, woman to her village | John 20:2, Mary to Peter and John |
| 4 | Follow Jesus / Follow to Jesus | John 1:37, 39-40, The Baptist’s two disciples; 1:43, Philip | John 4:30, villagers follow woman to Jesus | John 20:3, Peter and John follow to Jesus’s tomb |
| 5 | Stay with Jesus | John 1:39, the Baptist’s two disciples | John 4:39, Jesus stays three days | John 20:11, Mary remains alone at the tomb |
| 6 | Bear witness about Jesus | John 1:41, Andrew to Peter; 1:45, Nathanael to Philip | John 4:29, woman to villagers, “Could this be Messiah?” | John 20:18, Mary tells the others everything |
| 7 | Jesus’s initiative in call | John 1:43, Jesus to Galilee for Philip | John 4:4-6, Jesus went to Jacob’s well for the woman | John 20:14, Jesus reveals himself first to Mary |
| 8 | The witness of Moses | John 1:45, Philip’s testimony, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote.” | John 4:20-25, the woman asks about Mt. Gerizim versus Jerusalem, and John 4:25, paraphrasing Moses’ prophecy | John 20:12, two angels at the foot and head where Jesus had lain / Ark of Covenant |
| 9 | Skepticism and/or confusion | John 1:46, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth” | John 4:9-12, the woman wonders about Jesus’s offer | John 20:15, Mary does not recognize Jesus |
| 10 | Jesus’s prophetic insight | John 1:47-49, Jesus saw Nathanael under the fig tree | John 4:16-18, Jesus knows the woman’s marital history | John 20:16, calls Mary by name |
| 11 | Recognition of Jesus’s glory | John 1:49, Nathanael’s testimony, “You are the Son of God!” | John 4:42, villagers recognize Jesus “is truly the Savior of the World” | John 20:18, Mary’s testimony, “I have seen the Lord” |
| 12 | Further revelation | John 1:50-51, Jesus depicted as Jacob’s Ladder | John 4:26. Jesus reveals his true nature to the woman | John 20:17, Jesus speaks of presenting himself to the Father in heaven |
Did Jesus Call Women to be Disciples?
If he did, where is the proof?
Matthew, Mark, and Luke acknowledge the women who traveled with Jesus. Matthew and Mark do not mention these female disciples until they are found at Jesus’s cross. Luke gives more details about them, describing them as ministering to Jesus, and along with Jesus, from their own resources and ability. These women received teaching and revelation from Jesus along with his other disciples and were given Jesus’s call to proclaim the truth they received.
The Gospel of John’s less formal and more detailed portrayal provides an organic view of Jesus’s call to discipleship and apostleship, supplementing rather than duplicating the Synoptic Gospels’ accounts. John took great care in showing a direct corollary between Jesus’s calling of two different women, and the calling of Jesus’s first disciples.
Jesus did call women to be disciples, and Jesus gave women apostolic missions.
There are twelve specific calling elements which appear in all three stories, involving all the marks of disciples and apostles. Further exploration of John’s Gospel brings out the apostolic leadership of Mary of Bethany in prophetically anointing Jesus’s feet, of Martha of Bethany prophetically moving aside the stone of her brother’s grave, and of Mary the mother of Jesus both urging the inauguration of his hour and acting at the foot of the cross as a bridge between Jesus’s ministry and John’s ministry to come.
What Are the Implications of Women Disciples Called by Jesus?
Jesus Sets the Precedent
At the end of his ministry, Jesus told his students and followers,
“No longer am I calling you all bondservants, because the bondservant does not know what his lord is doing: but I have called you friends.”
John 15:15
Jesus removes the barriers of status, the oppression of hierarchy, and the error of patriarchy from his school, and from his movement.
Yet Jesus’s male disciples were slow to accept this precedent.
Even after Jesus’s ascension, the Acts account of the early years of the church portrays Peter choosing a man to replace Judas Iscariot’s position among The Twelve, even though Mary of Magdala was the only named witness who was constantly with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry until his death on the cross and who was the first to witness Jesus’s bodily resurrection.
True Heritage of the Church
Early church leaders and particularly Paul understood the significance of women as disciples. Throughout the Christian Testament, women are noted for their leadership in the cause of Christ—from Mary the mother of Jesus, to the other women among the one hundred and twenty in the upper room who were filled with the Holy Spirit and preached the Gospel in all the languages represented in Jerusalem, to Anna the prophet, Dorcas the disciple, Phoebe the deacon and benefactor of Paul, Junia the apostle, Lydia and the several other women who hosted churches in their homes, and Prisca the teacher and evangelist who risked her life for Paul.
Unlike the hierarchies represented in other political and religious systems around them, Christians presented a kingdom in which all the citizens were equally valued and equally involved, and male and female leaders led side-by-side with those whom they led. This is the true heritage of the church.
The Church Struggles with Jesus’s Precedent
It seems in the church’s beginnings, questions of equality were not restricted to issues of ethnicity (gentile and Jew), status (enslaved or free), or wealth, but also of gender. Yet, if Jesus called women to be disciples, why is the topic of women in church leadership controversial for the church today?
The first four centuries of the church record evidence of women in every area of leadership in the church (perhaps more women than men, for a time), although an ultimately successful program to downsize and eliminate women’s visibility and leadership roles was already underway. John’s Gospel appears to address this tension between male discomfort with female disciples and Jesus’s departure from the traditional model for discipleship—even though
Women philosophers and disciples are attested among first-century Greeks and Romans, as well as within the Jewish community.
This perspective is further strengthened even in the Synoptic Gospels, which remember Jesus’s instruction not to lord it over each other, but rather seek to serve each other. The theme of equality with Jesus is portrayed in Jesus washing the feet of his disciples saying,
“Do you all perceive what I have done for you?
“You all call me “the Teacher” and “the Lord,” and rightly you speak, for I am. So, if I myself washed the feet of all of you—the Lord and the teacher—then you all are under obligation to cleanse the feet of one another.
“Because I set an example for you all, so that just as I myself did for you, now you all would do.
“Amen, amen, I tell you all, a bondservant is not greater than their master, nor is an apostle greater than the one who sent him or her.
“If you all have perceived these things, you are blessed whenever you all do them.”
John 13:12-17
Today, John’s Gospel reminds us of Jesus’s call to the liminal as well as respectable, to every ethnic background, to those of every economic tier, and to women as well as men, for neither Mount Zion in Jerusalem, nor Mount Gerizim now matter. Jesus’s call is for those who are seeking the Word, for the Father is seeking those who will worship in Spirit and in truth.
It is time for us to accept Jesus’s precedent.
The high view of Christ and of the Scriptures will lead Christians today to hearken to John’s portrayal of women and men in Jesus’s apostolic mission, and therefore support Christ’s work in calling women and men to every area of ministry and leadership within the church.
