Awhile back, I had the opportunity to go to the Publick House in Brookline with Dr. James; I think it was January 24th. The reason we went is because Beer Advocate was sponsoring a night with Jim Koch (=”cook”), the founder of Samuel Adams (Boston Beer Company) to present Four Beers, Four Courses. It was really a time for Jim to talk about how good beer should be paired with good food. So as we were served each beer with each course of the meal, he would exegete the beer and talk about its placement with the food. What struck me while watching him and listening to him was his spirit sounded eerily familiar too me; not just because I’ve seen him on TV. Then it struck me: Jim Koch is the John Piper of beer. Hear are two guys advocating the same thing (namely, depth/passion) for two different things (namely, Beer and God). How seldom it is to see two of the same type of person going parallel to each to different ends? You tell me what you think.Here’s a blurb from Tim Ellsworth’s article back in 1999 about Piper in “The Tie,” a magazine of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, entitled, “John Piper: God’s Glory His Passion“:While writing a book on Romans 9 during a sabbatical while professor at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minn., Piper heard a clear word from the Lord.”The God of Romans 9 seemed to be saying to me, ‘I will be heralded and not just analyzed. I will be proclaimed and not just explained,’” Piper said.The rest, as they say, is history. Piper left the academic field and became pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minn., where he’s been for almost 20 years. It’s in that position Piper has become one of the most popular and respected preachers and authors around. Books to his credit include such titles as Desiring God, God’s Passion for His Glory, The Supremacy of God in Preaching and many others. World magazine recently listed his The Pleasures of God as one of the century’s top 100 books.Just from reading the titles of his books, it’s easy to see how God-centered Piper’s ministry is. But where does that emphasis come from?”Theologically it comes from the insight that God is God-centered,” Piper said in an interview with The Tie during his recent visit to Southern Seminary. “God exists in order to display God, in order to make God known for the enjoyment of His people. So, the ultimate purpose of my existence and your existence and this seminary’s existence is to know God and delight in God and thus display God.
Here is a blurb of an article done back in 2001 by Jamie Allen of CNN, “Samuel Adams Brewer Jim Koch: Beer Career” under the heading, “A passion for beer”:
Koch took the roundabout way to entrepreneurial success. After graduating cum laude in 1971from Harvard College with a degree in government, he worked for Outward Bound for three years. He later went back to Harvard, earning a JD from the law school and an MBA from the business school.
After spending six years consulting business leaders on how to profit, Koch decided to start his own company.
He’s known for running Sam Adams with a laid-back, hands-on style, visiting face-to-face with employees out in the field. Though he holds a number of titles with his company, his business card reads the same as it did when he first started more than 16 years ago: Jim Koch, Brewer.
To be a successful brewer, Koch says, you need talents that aren’t taught at Harvard. You must have beer-making in your blood.
“You’ve got to have passion for beer, a good palette, you’ve got to be able to blend the science of beer with the art of what makes a great beer,” he says.
In those working hours, Koch’s love of beer is tested, or rather he tests it. He receives a bottle from every batch of Sam Adams, which he tastes.
All told, Koch says he sips from four to six beers a day, and he’ll drink “two or three more for pleasure.”
Just look at the parallels, I mean two guys have fathers in the “business” that they eventually take on, they set off to have “successful” careers and they both leave them behind to pursue their greater passion. Both of them are spoken of warmly by their peers, and although they are both very popular in their circles, both have very little of their respective “market shares” in a national perspective (Jim said that Sam Adams has about a .5 percent of the market in the US, while Piper didn’t even make Time’s top 25 most influential evangelicals). You can go into any restaurant chain in the country and get Sam Adams on tap, just like you can go into any Barnes & Noble in the country and find a few Piper books on the shelf. It is interesting that these two quality “works” are overlooked time and again for things “less heavy”! Oh that we would pursue depth in our beer and our God!
Above you see both of these guys doing what they do best: preaching their respective Gospels.
