Object Lesson: Egg Osmosis

OBJECT LESSON: EGG OSMOSIS

Osmosis is the process by which water enters our tissues. All of our cells are surrounded by a membrane that selectively allows in anything the cell needs but prevents unwanted molecules from entering.

Weigh a couple of uncooked eggs and carefully place them into a large glass of vinegar, cover, and leave for two days. It might start to look a bit like beer, but please don't drink the liquid, it's not nice!

Remove the eggs and rinse gently under the tap. All of the shell should be gone by now (you can wipe off little bits still left over). Weigh the egg again. You need to be really careful with the egg now, as it is still raw, and if you burst the outer skin, it will make a big mess.

Put some of the eggs in corn syrup and some in water. Leave overnight, rinse and weigh again. (If you have no scales, you can look at the egg and record any differences that way!) Try adding some food coloring to the water and see what happens.

If you now put the egg in water, it will grow in size a lot more due to the much larger water concentration gradient across the membrane. If you add food coloring to the water, you can see the process of osmosis in action as the colored water passes into the egg. Water is known as hypotonic, ie. very dilute and contains more water than the egg.

If, instead, you place the vinegar soaked egg in corn syrup you will see the opposite. There is a much higher water concentration in the egg than in the syrup so water will pass in the opposite direction. This means that the egg will shrink in size. The corn syrup is a hypertonic liquid, ie. very concentrated with not much water compared to the egg.

Spiritual Application

1 Corinthians 15:33 (God’s Word Translation)"Don't let anyone deceive you. Associating with bad people will ruin decent people."

The Bible gives us a good indication about the effects of associating with what is called "bad people." Some kind of Osmosis happens. You know, reverse osmosis can be used as a scam to sell you water filtration systems. Sales people from various water purifier companies of late are making use of a so called "precipitator" or Jam Jar Purity Test to supposedly prove that all water except for the water produced via their purification equipment, is impure and subsequently unsafe for human consumption. The fact is that is possible to purify water using a reverse osmosis system (RO) has very little or no minerals present in the water, thus the water will not conduct electricity and the precipitation will not result. So normal tap water with minerals in it seems to be dirty, and water "purified" by reverse osmosis looks crystal clear.

Well, let me tell you, coming to Church will produce spiritual purification in your life in the measure that you associate with Jesus Christ and with men and women of God.

Acts 4:13 (ISV): "Now when the Jewish leaders saw the boldness of Peter and John and found out that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and realized that they had been with Jesus."