Some Bible opposites are easy to couple. The opposite of night is day, of dark is light, of truth is lies. Some opposites are a bit more creative. For example, the opposite of evil is not always good. When it comes to the way of salvation, the opposite of evil is justification. The opposite of foolishness is not necessarily wisdom considered by itself. The opposite of foolishness is faith and the fear of the Lord, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

When Paul used Psalm 14–about fools who say “There is no God”–in Romans 3 he set the final bricks on the wall of bad news. All have sinned. None have done good. But his entire argument is to convict fools to believe, not to get fools to get smart or to do better in order to be saved.

The gospel of Jesus Christ addresses spiritual corruption with a crucifixion, not with a class or consultation. “Stop being a fool today by following these three simple steps.” No. The path out of foolishness is a burial and a resurrection, yours when you believe and are baptized in Jesus. “We were buried therefore with him in baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).

At the Lord’s Table, the opposite of unrighteousness is righteousness, but not our own. The opposite of death is life, but that life is life that someone else gave to us. The opposite of boasting is not silence, it is boasting in the Lord. He is our hope and our salvation. We’d be fools not to believe in Him.