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The decision happened somewhere ordinary. In a parked car, maybe. At a kitchen table close to midnight. On a walk where nobody could hear you. You told Jesus yes, you meant it, and the sky did not crack open.
Then the second thought arrived, the one that takes the shine off: I suppose I have to become a religious person now. Learn which book comes after Galatians. Pray out loud without sounding ridiculous. Know the words, the songs, the right way to sit. It starts to feel like a club with an entrance exam. So before you spend another day on that, line this up for yourself: in the Gospels, every person Jesus called by name was called at work or on a road. Not one was recruited out of a temple.
Where Jesus Was Standing When He Said “Follow Me”
Put the scenes side by side. They are all stubbornly ordinary.
The first four were fishermen, mid-shift. Simon and Andrew were “casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers” (Matthew 4:18) when Jesus said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). Farther along the shore, James and John were “in the ship mending their nets” (Mark 1:19), and Mark adds a detail almost nobody slows down for: “they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him” (Mark 1:20). The hired servants. Zebedee was not left stranded. Even the leaving was ordinary enough to have logistics.
Then there is Levi, better known as Matthew, who collected taxes for Rome — close to the worst job a man could hold in his town. Jesus “saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the receipt of custom, and said unto him, Follow me” (Mark 2:14). At the desk. Not after he resigned, not after he made it right, not after a probation period. Holding the job that made him a problem.
Philip got his call on a travel day: Jesus “findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me” (John 1:43). The rich man who came asking about eternal life met him “when he was gone forth into the way” (Mark 10:17). Peter, after everything he had done and failed to do, got his second call on a beach after breakfast (John 21:19).
Six men by name: two fishing boats, a tax booth, a road into Galilee, a road out of town, a lakeside fire. The ones left unnamed fit the same shape — one is spoken to “as they went in the way” (Luke 9:57).
The Religious Professional Who Volunteered
Here is the part that turns the whole thing around. In the one scene where a religious expert steps forward on his own, Jesus never says “follow me” to him at all.
“And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.” (Matthew 8:19)
A scribe handled scripture professionally. He could have told you which book came after which. Jesus answers with a fact about having nowhere to sleep: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). The text never says what the scribe decided. Religious credentials are not the entry ticket here, and they are not a disqualification either. They are simply not the thing being asked about.
The Scene That Almost Breaks the Pattern
Being straight about the evidence matters more than a tidy claim, so here is the closest exception. Two of John the Baptist’s own disciples were standing with him at a baptizing site, “Bethabara beyond Jordan” (John 1:28), when they left and followed Jesus. That is about as religious a setting as these moments get.
But notice what Jesus says to them. Not “follow me.” They ask where he is staying, and he answers:
“Come and see.” (John 1:39)
They spent the rest of the day at the house. Even the religious ones got an invitation to come and look around, not an exam. One more piece of precision: there is a “follow me” spoken in the temple, where Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27) — but that describes what sheep do rather than calling a named person standing there. The pattern inside the calls holds up.
How to Follow Jesus Without Being Religious: Four Plain Steps
If following Jesus had required religious fluency, the Gospels had every chance to say so and never did. The first followers had a person in front of them and permission to walk behind him. That is all the word means: staying close enough to someone to keep watching them.
1. Get to know the person, not the system
Read about the life of Jesus — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Not the whole Bible, and not in order. Just his life, a bit at a time, until you know how he talks, what makes him angry, and who he goes out of his way to notice.
2. Follow from exactly where you stand
Your job is the location. Your street, your commute, the shift you are dreading on Thursday. Nobody in the Gospels was relocated to a holy building first, and what it means to be a Christian in everyday life follows that out into the eighteen years of Jesus’ own life the Gospels sum up with one job title.
3. Talk to God in the words you already own
There is no password. “Help,” “thank you,” and “I have no idea what I am doing” are all real prayers, and none of them need translating into church language first.
4. Do the one thing you just saw him do
If today’s chapter shows Jesus stopping for someone everybody else walked past, stop for one person today. Small, real, and yours. And if what slows you down is the sense that everyone at church is miles ahead, how to follow Jesus without watching everyone else takes that apart using the last “follow me” in the Gospels.
What Changes When You Stop Trying to Qualify
Picture a Tuesday a few weeks from now. You are up a little before the house is, reading a page about something Jesus did. It takes less time than scrolling took yesterday. You are not auditing yourself or rehearsing religious words. You are finding out what he was like.
Then you go to work, and somewhere before lunch the thing you read actually comes up — a difficult person, a chance to be quietly decent when nobody would notice either way — and you recognise it. That recognition is the whole difference. Following stops being a performance you might fail and becomes a friendship you are keeping up with. The tax booth stays a tax booth. You are just not sitting at it alone.
A Thirty-Day Walk Through His Life
The hard part is almost never wanting to follow Jesus. It is knowing what to read tomorrow morning, and the morning after, without getting lost in the middle of Leviticus or quietly quitting on day four.
That is why we built 30 Days Walking with Jesus. It walks you through the life of Jesus one day at a time, a beginner-friendly reading plan through the Gospels, so the month is spent getting to know a person rather than learning a system. Our 30 days with Jesus Bible reading plan, day by day lays out every chapter if you want to see the shape of it first.
Each day takes under 10 minutes. You get 30 short devotional videos, each under 60 seconds, 30 full-chapter audio readings, a complete PDF study guide with journal prompts, and 5 quick-reference scripture guides. And it is free. No payment, no card, no upsell, instant access on any device, yours forever. The words of Jesus should not sit behind a paywall.
Questions People Are Asking
Q: Can you follow Jesus without being religious?
A: In the Gospels Jesus calls people in the middle of ordinary working days rather than out of religious settings. Simon and Andrew were casting a net (Matthew 4:18-19), Levi was “sitting at the receipt of custom” collecting taxes for Rome (Mark 2:14), and Philip was met on a travel day into Galilee (John 1:43). None of them had religious training when they were called. Following Jesus starts with getting to know him, usually by reading about his life in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John a little at a time.
Q: Do I have to go to church to follow Jesus?
A: The first followers were called at their nets, at a tax desk and on roads, not inside a temple or synagogue, so church attendance is not where following begins. Plenty of people do find real friendship and help in a church later, and none of this is an argument against that. But if a building feels out of reach today, you can start by reading about the life of Jesus and doing the next thing you see him do.
Q: What does “follow” actually mean in the Gospels?
A: It means walking behind someone and keeping them in sight, which is why it was a reasonable thing to say to fishermen and a tax collector who knew no theology. They did not need to understand a system; they needed to stay close enough to watch a person. Jesus later used the word for a daily habit rather than a single leap, saying anyone who would come after him should “take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23).
Q: Did Jesus ever answer a religious expert differently?
A: In Matthew 8:19 a scribe, a professional handler of scripture, volunteers: “Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.” Jesus does not say “follow me” to him. He replies with a plain fact about his own life, that “the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20), and the text never records what the scribe did next. Religious training is not a disqualification in the Gospels, but it is clearly not the entry requirement either.
