Devotion
Serve the Lord your God and be blessed
David Jacobs
I enjoy reading about psychology, especially social psychology, in my free time. One subject that has been studied closely is obedience. How can people follow along when a group is telling them to do something they know is not right? The answer is simple: people generally do what they are told. The more people or higher the authority, the more likely it is that they will obey.
Perhaps the most famous study on obedience was conducted by Stanley Milgram. In his study, subjects are told that they are the "teacher" and another group is the "learner." Learners are asked a series of questions and teachers are told to punish them by administering an electric shock if the answer is wrong. The learners are part of the experiment group and are not actually being shocked, nor can the teachers see them. The learners intentionally answer many questions wrong, and the teachers are told to increase the power of the electric shock to 450 volts, a potentially lethal amount. Surely people would not kill a person that they do not know simply for the sake of an experiment, right? Wrong. More than 65% of subjects were willing to go that high, and all of them were willing to go to 300 volts (a dangerous shock level). What does this tell us about people and how does it relate to God?
People will generally do what they are told. If they are told to do bad things, like in the Holocaust, they will commit atrocities. If they are told to do good things, like in the verses above, they will do good things. They will fight to not bear false witness, to uphold justice, and not follow a multitude to do evil. Humans are obedient in general, so these commandments from God are necessary and important.
Prayer
If He had told us to do evil things, we would probably do them! Conforming and being obedient is often viewed as a bad thing by society, but conforming and being obedient to God and Christianity is certainly not. Follow God's word closely and you will make the world a better place and enjoy your just reward in Heaven.
