Sent by the Father: Jesus as Follower in the Gospel of John

Sent by the Father: Jesus as Follower in the Gospel of John

Andrew Oates | 2022

Abstract

A follower-centered perspective on the followership of Jesus is missing in leadership literature. This gap is unfortunate because, by understanding only the leadership of Jesus, researchers and practitioners cannot fully address the leader–follower relationship between God the Father and Jesus Christ. The purpose in this study was to link the Trinitarian relationship of Jesus Christ with the Father to clear followership characteristics between leaders and followers. The emphasis on the follower of Jesus provided clear handles of what an empowered follower with the same goal and purpose represents to other followers. This addressed, from a content analysis, what it meant to be a sent follower with a clear purpose from the Gospel of John and how an exegetical analysis from John 6 followed a spiral of representative, submissive, servant, and revelatory followership and what that communicated about the follower and the leader. Followership is forever linked to the field of leadership through an interdependent relationship. The relationship between God the Father and Jesus completed the followership concept of Jesus when Jesus sent out the disciples, His own followers. This study offered a unique perspective of followership through portraying the relationship of Jesus with God the Father, the characteristics that He lived out, and how Jesus empowered His disciples when He sent them, in the same manner that He was empowered by God.