Q:  Which weighs more: a ton of feathers or a ton of bricks?

A:  They each weigh one ton.

Why do questions like this trick us? We know intuitively that bricks are heavier than feathers, but a ton is still a ton. Granted, it would take a whole lot more feathers than bricks to make up a ton, but the unit of weight is the standard measurement.

Side note: I couldn’t remember exactly how many pounds equal a ton, so I Googled it. Would you believe that I found three different answers? It could be 2000, 2240 or 2204, depending on whether you are counting short/net tons, long/gross tons or metric tons. There goes my illustration about consistency!

Come to think of it, though, this is a good segue to what the Bible has to say about consistency versus bias. Here are a couple of passages that stood out to me:

“Who can say, ‘I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin’? Differing weights and differing measures—the LORD detests them both.” (Proverbs 20:9-10)

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:1-3)

You might say that God isn’t a big fan of preferential treatment. His standard of measurement is holiness, and none of us can measure up. You may feel like your mistakes add up to a ton of bricks and someone else’s screw-ups are only feathers (or vice versa), yet both are still sin. The good news, though, is that we don’t have to carry around the burden of our past … Jesus calibrates the scale back to zero!