Obedience is a form of social influence that involves acting on the orders of an authority figure. It often involves actions a person would not have taken unless directed to do so by someone of authority or influence.
To understand obedience, it is important also to understand how it differs from compliance and conformity. Compliance involves changing your behaviour at another person’s request, while conformity involves altering your behaviour to go along with the rest of the group.
Obedience involves altering your behaviour because an authority figure has told you to do so. Here are some Bible verses about obedience.
John 14:15 – “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
1 Peter 1:14 – As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,
Acts 5:29 – But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.
1 John 5:3 – For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
Isaiah 1:19 – If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;
Luke 6:46 – “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?
Deuteronomy 11:1
1 Love the LORD your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.
John 15:9
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
2 Corinthians 10:5
5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Ephesians 6:1-3
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise—
3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”
Revelation 14:12
12 This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus.
Romans 1:5
5 Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake.
Hebrews 13:17
17 Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you.
John 14:15
15 “If you love me, keep my commands.
2 John 1:6
6 And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.
Joshua 5:6
6 The Israelites had moved about in the wilderness forty years until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the LORD. For the LORD had sworn to them that they would not see the land he had solemnly promised their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.
Romans 2:6-8
6 God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”
7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.
8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.
Luke 11:28
28 He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”
Colossians 3:22
22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.
Romans 5:19
19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
1 Peter 1:14
14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.
James 1:25
25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.