John 1:43-45

Obviously, I have gone to these verses because they contain Jesus' call to follow Him. We could call this phrase "follow Me," the first duty of Christ's disciples. And that is exactly how He presented it to Peter, Andrew, James, John, Matthew, and Philip. These were the first words that He said to them in His ministry—Follow Me—and that set the tone for their entire discipleship.

While the surface meaning, the physical meaning, the literal meaning is "walk behind me," the obvious spiritual, metaphorical meaning is "do what I do." Imitate Me, come after Me and do as I do. Matthew makes a point of saying that the four original disciples and himself immediately forsook their employment and their families and did as He did, and walked with Him. John brings out that in verse 45 of John 1 Philip immediately went and recruited his friend Nathanael. And said, "Let's follow this Jesus of Nazareth together."

So we have here seven disciples that were, we could say, explicitly given this command. He probably did it to all of them. That would be my guess, that He made this impression on every one of them. "Follow Me." His calling is a charge to follow or obey or emulate or conform to Him from the get-go, to the end. Like I said, the first duty of Christ's disciples is to follow Him.