World's Best Barista

"To Make Perfect Coffee ..."

Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood has reason to boast. The co-owner of a coffee shop in Bath, England recently won a contest to be named "World's Best Barista". To win that title he called upon the services of Chris Hendon, a chemist with the University of Bath.

Why a chemist? According to Hendon, "brewing coffee might be the most practiced chemical extraction in the world." And making the perfect cup of coffee came down to using the perfect water.

Colonna-Dashwood won a title he'll wear proudly for the rest of his life. What did Hendon get out of his painstaking research? He is the lead author of an article published in the current edition of "Journal Of Agriculture and Food Chemistry". The article, entitled "The Role of Dissolved Cations in Coffee Extraction", is beyond my ability to comprehend. The National Coffee Association puts it more simply: "The water you use is very important to the quality of your coffee."

Some may find it hard to believe, but there are issues more important than coffee. Here's one that I propose: How can we arrive at the perfect life?

For a question like that, it's always best to turn to God. In this case we find water is again an important ingredient. Hebrews 10:22 makes that point: "Let us draw near [to God] with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." Pure water, we learn, is key.

Readers from a Jewish background in that first century may have immediately thought of the large basin of water placed outside of the temple. This was a place for the priests to wash themselves before entering into the presence of God (see 2 Chronicles 4:6). God often demanded cleansing before people approached Him (Exodus 19:10,11; 29:4; Numbers 8:20-22; etc.).

There is no temple or bronze basin today to cleanse those who wish to approach God, but water is still provided. Peter wrote about it: "There is also an antitype which now saves us - baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 3:21).

Some argue that water has nothing to do with salvation, but the passages in Hebrews and in 1 Peter suggest otherwise. Consider also the command given to Saul of Tarsus by a messenger from Christ: "And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord" (Acts 22:16).

This is God's formula. To have a perfect life, we have to begin with pure water.

Timothy D. Hall.