At the end of the Book of Genesis, which we concluded last week, the Israelites had been invited to relocate from Canaan to Egypt to wait out the 7 year famine. After the 7 years, they remained in Egypt and, as we begin the Book of Exodus this week, our story picks up 400 years later. As you might imagine, by this time, the Israelites have become numerous, leading the Pharaoh to view them as a threat. He enslaves them and also issues a decree that all male Israelite newborns are to be drowned in the Nile. Two midwives, Shifra and Puah, at great personal risk, decide that they will not kill the babies.
During World War II, righteous gentiles, like our two midwives, rescued Jews knowing that if caught, they and their families might pay the ultimate price. And yet, they chose to do so anyway.
A high school student who helped tackle an accused gunman at his Colorado high school said his feeling of “absolute and complete fear” evaporated as he watched his friend, Kendrick Castillo, charge forward without hesitation. Along with Castillo and one other student, the three were able to disarm one of the alleged shooters and pin him to the ground. Castillo, 18, was killed as he charged at the accused gunman and threw him up against the wall.
We saw that same instinct for courage just recently on a beach in Bondi, Australia. When an attacker began stabbing people, a Muslim man named Toufik rushed forward—not with a weapon, but with a bollard he grabbed from the ground—to help stop the assault and protect strangers he had never met. Later, he said simply that he did what anyone should do when they see others in danger. Different country. Different faith. Same moral courage.
What is it about a person that causes them to act? Rohit Deshpande, a professor at Harvard Business School, has delved into the science of heroism to find out what causes someone to spring into action despite the personal danger they face in helping or saving someone else.
He found heroism had nothing to do with age, gender or religion. It starts with personality. “It seems that those who become heroes have a much more highly developed moral compass,” he said. “They have this instinct for doing something good for other people. We find this across a whole series of situations. We find people who risk their own lives to protect people from harm.”
Research shows that some of us have a selfless reflex to sacrifice ourselves for others, but also indicates the majority of people will just stand by and not help,” Deshpande said. “They don’t want to get involved to the point where they will not only walk by, they also don’t call for help.
AND, here’s something that to me is really disheartening, something we see over and over again in our world. When instructed to perform acts conflicting with their personal consciences, the majority of people will choose to obey an authority figure.
In 1961, just months after Adolf Eichmann’s trial began, Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram set out to answer a chilling question: Were Eichmann and so many others simply “following orders”?
Milgram designed an experiment with a fake—but terrifying—shock machine, labeled from mild to “danger: severe,” ending with three ominous X’s. Volunteers played the role of “teachers,” told to shock a “student” in another room whenever an answer was wrong. The key detail: the students were actors. The shocks weren’t real—but the teachers believed they were.
As the experiment went on, the actor playing the student pleaded to stop, complained of heart trouble, banged on the wall, and eventually fell silent. Still, the experimenter calmly insisted: “Please continue.” “The experiment requires that you continue.” “You have no choice—you must go on.”
Many participants were visibly distressed—angry, shaken, even in tears—yet most still obeyed. In the end, 65% delivered what they thought were the highest shocks.
But here’s the hopeful part. In later versions of the study, when just one or two people refused to go along, obedience dropped dramatically. With a few courageous peers modeling resistance, most participants found the strength to say no.
I thank God for people like Shifra and Puah, the Righteous Among the Nations, Kendrick Castillo and his friends at the STEM School in Colorado, and the Muslim man who stood up to protect strangers during the attack at Bondi Beach in Australia. Not all of us are wired for that kind of courage—and that’s okay. But their stories remind us that courage isn’t an all-or-nothing trait. It’s something we grow into, one choice at a time. We may not all be heroes, but every one of us can take a step in that direction. And sometimes, that step is enough to change everything.