Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot

On the heels of reading The Great Divorce by CS Lewis I came across a used copy of Passion and Purity which my friend Julie had told me about. The subtitle is Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control. I believe it could also be subtitled, Learning to bring your life under Christ's control and be content with His plans for you!









I have been married for many years now. I definitely see the benefit this book has for the unmarried adult or teen, however, I believe it would benefit anyone who wants to understand what a life sold out to being an ambassador for Christ looks like.

Elisabeth Elliot was married (by the end of the book) to Jim Elliot, the famous missionary martyred along with four other men in the jungles of Ecuador. The story of the sacrifice these men made all so that some how the Gospel could be told to this unreached tribe has overwhelmed me for quite some time. The men in fact had guns, but refused to use them for protection because it might have meant the tribe would never be reached with the gospel.

I will not give you much more about that part, but you can see it for yourself in Through Gates of Splendor or End of the Spear.

So, knowing the end of their lives as a married couple, it was beautiful to read of the leading up to that relationship. Jim and Elisabeth both felt called to ministry and especially missions before they met in college. They fell in love with each other, but Jim had felt clearly that the Lord did not want him to marry yet. He wasn't sure if it meant ever, or just until some point in his life was reached. So Passion and Purity deals with the years that they stayed apart waiting on the Lord and each other. Now, I know that this is very valuable for those who are awaiting the possibility of marriage, but I also was struck throughout the book with the fact that all of us as followers of Christ must be willing to lay aside all that we think we desire to following Him first and foremost. We are called to spread the Good News of Christ with everyone around us and to the uttermost parts of the Earth. How many things do we allow to come before that call?

I will not summarize their whole romance, but I will share a few quotes (my favorite part!)

If there is an Enemy of Souls (and I have not the slightest doubt that there is), one thing he cannot abide is the desire for purity. Hence a man or woman's passions become his battleground. The Lover of Souls does not prevent this. I was perplexed because it seemed to me He should prevent it, but He doesn't. He wants us to learn to use our weapons.


What kind of a God is it who asks everything of us? The same God who "...did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all; and with this gift how can he fail to lavish upon us all he has to give?" He gives all. He asks all.


I knew, and I realized that the deepest spiritual lessons are not learned by His letting us have our way in the end, but by His making us wait, bearing with us in love and patience until we are able honestly to pray what He taught His disciples to pray: Thy will be done. Acceptance of whatever that means is the great victory of faith that overcomes the world.

This book left me really wanting to read Jim Elliot's journals, which Elisabeth also published!

Finally back....and CS Lewis "The Great Divorce"

I have missed sharing for the last several months. November was apparently the last time I both had time and could sit in my chair to write. December found me mostly in the bed with back problems. I am thankful to be able to sit and share once again!

I have had CS Lewis' The Great Divorce on my shelf for sometime in line to read. Recently, I felt led to pick it up. I am so very glad I was blessed with the chance to read it.

The story is a dream. Only a dream. Lewis makes clear that He is not "claiming knowledge of what no mortal man knows." (chapter 14)

Having understood that, the story begins as a young man from the Grey City enters the line for the bus. The bus takes air and carries them to "another" place. After disembarking from the bus, they are each met by "bright people". The man observes encounter after encounter of the passengers as they are offered the chance to climb the mountains and press on (to heaven). I see myself and/or others (saved and lost unfortunately) in each encounter.

The first encounter is of a "moral man" (in his own estimation) who's "bright person" was a murderer on earth. He cannot imagine how the murderer could possibly be there. Says the "bright" man to the moral,

"That is a little hard to understand at first. But it is all over now. You will be pleased about it presently. Till then there is no need to bother about it."

"No need to bother about it? Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"No, Not as you mean. I do not look at myself, I have given up myself. I had to, you know, after the murder. That was what it did for me. And that was how everything began."

The "moral man" goes on and on about how good he was and how he deserves his rights because of it. The bright man responds:

"Oh no. It's not so bad as that. I haven't got my rights, or I should not be here. You will not get yours either. You'll get something far better. Never fear."

Another encounter deals with our thinking that as long as we live by our "honest opinions" all will be well in the end. Yet another just wants to "have a look around", our modern version of "try God" I suppose, expecting God to entertain him.

Our main character finally meets with his bright person (a rather famous one who had quite a mark on the salvation of CS Lewis). He explains that the visitor cannot understand heavenly things until he arrives there,

"That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say 'Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences': little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness..."

"There is always something they insist on keeping even at the price of misery. There is always something they prefer to joy-that is, to reality."

Several quotes I love sum up so much of what I took away from this reading.

Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the things he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him.


'But of course!' said the Spirit, shining with love and mirth so that my eyes were dazzled. 'That's what we all find when we reach this country. We've all been wrong! That's the great joke. There's no need to go on pretending one was right! After that we begin to live.'


There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks at Him and bad when it turns from Him.


How very many ways we find to reject God as He is, not as we want to make Him out to be. When all along, He stands, with loving arms, ready to be all He is in us every hour of every day. I guess that is what I take away from this book. Lord, open my eyes. You are God alone!