If we’re all fools, what’s it matter if one fool hurts another? Does anything matter? To God, the answer is it does — and not all fools are alike because of Him.

We see lots of details but miss the main point when we come to Jesus mainly to eliminate problems here and now. In Matthew 9:18–26, two people reach out to Jesus with needs very much like the ones we have and must wrestle with the deeper point of Jesus’s ministry — just like we do.

We’ve all known someone’s birthday was coming, kept it in the back of our minds, and then realized two weeks too late that we never said a word—recognized it, but never responded. In Matthew 8, the demons who meet Jesus call him “Son of God” with more clarity than almost anyone else in the Gospel, yet that recognition leads somewhere unexpected and deeply unsettling.

Can we choose our own adventure wisdom? The Bible says “no” for a very important reason.

We think status, heritage, and credentials make us a somebody or a nobody, yet those are not what God values. In Matthew 8 a Gentile centurion—nobody by race—approaches Jesus with a suffering servant, forcing the question of what actually makes anyone able to approach God’s kingdom.

We have a lot of things we think are signs of the “blessed life”? Proverbs has a clear answer that challenges our assumptions.

God’s discipline isn’t a topic we like talking about or facing in any way. It feels intimidating and leaves us wondering if God is angry at us. But Proverbs gives us a different story.

We can say things like “In God We Trust,” but what do we mean? Do we really trust?

God’s way doesn’t always look the most successful in the moment, but it is the path to true success.

When it feels dark, we need the well trod paths of God’s Word to strengthen us so we don’t lose hope.