Dogs do some things better than humans. For one thing, most dogs have a far better sense of smell than we do, and there is a physical reason for that. The sinuses of humans have about 6 million receptor cells that can sense the chemical odors afloat in the air. By contrast, the average beagle has more than 300 million receptor cells in its snout—that's 50 times more cells for smells. The dominant sense through which most humans perceive their world is their eyesight, but the dominant sense through which dogs perceive their world is through their nose. A human can walk down the sidewalk and perhaps perceive a faint aroma of flowers upwind a few feet ahead. A dog walking the same sidewalk perceives as well the traces of every dog or animal that has been in the area.

Just as dogs and humans have different levels of ability to perceive smells, people have differences in their ability to perceive other things. Some people hear much better than others. Some people have greater ability to perceive emotions in others. Some have greater ability intellectually to perceive ideas as they read.

Most important of all, some people have greater ability to perceive things spiritually and morally because they have devoted themselves to prayer and to learning from the Bible and applying it to their lives and their world. Others have greater spiritual discernment because of the spiritual gifts and callings that God has placed on them. For many reasons, all people do not have the same ability to perceive.