At 6:15 a. m. on June 15, 2015, Elisabeth Elliot died, a direct sentence for a direct woman. It’s as close as I can to understand why I had affection and admiration for her.
Cru? Not unsleek, neither impetuous, nor moody nor hard. But direct, not sentimental, no nonsense, he said what had to be said, without whining. Take off your pants and die for Jesus? Like Maria Slessor, Gladys. Aylward, Amy Carmichael, Gertrude Ras Egede, Eleanor Macomber, Lottie Moon, Roslind Goforth and Malla Moe, to name a few she admired.
- Her first husband.
- Jim Elliot.
- Was one of five missionaries killed by the Huaorani Indians in Ecuador in 1956.
- Did Elisabeth immortalize this moment in the history of the mission with three books?Through the gates of splendor.
- The shadow of the almighty and the savage of my relative?and raised his voice in the cause of Christian missions.
- Christian femininity and Christian purity in more than twenty books and forty years of speaking.
She was not only brave in her words. Her daughter was ten months old when Jim was killed, but Elizabeth continued to work first with the Quichua and then, surprisingly, for another two years with the same tribe that had beaten her husband.
In July 1997, I wrote this in my journal
This morning, as I ran and listened to a message Elizabeth Elliot had given Kansas City, I was deeply moved by my own inability to suffer magnanimity and without enraging myself. She was elliot mature, but the message was the same as usual. : don’t stay in touch with your feelings, get radically soothe God and do the right thing, no matter what. Put your sentimental life on the altar and keep it there until God takes it away from you. Suffering is normal. Do you have no scars or scars, wounds with Jesus on the way to Calvary ??
Like Jesus and Jim Elliot, he called on the youth to come and die. Sacrifice and suffering were weaved through his writing and his discourse as a scarlet thread. She wasn’t a romantic on a mission. He didn’t like the sentimentality of discipleship very much.
“We all know that missionaries don’t leave,” they go out, “they don’t walk,” they walk on the burning sand, “they don’t die,” they give their lives. “But is the work done even involving the feeling?! (The doorman)
The thread of suffering was woven not only through his words, but through his relationships. Not only did she lose her first husband in a violent death three years after their marriage; she also lost her second husband, Addison Leitch, four years after their new marriage.
Now it’s time to reveal a little secret. For the past seventeen years, I’ve been talking occasionally about a certain woman on a panel on the subject of global missions. This woman had heard me talk about Christian hedonism. Then, on the sign, he said, “I don’t think you should say, “Continue with joy with all your might. “I think you should say, “Continue the obedience of all your strength. “So I said, “But it would be like saying, “Don’t hunt peaches with all your might, fruit hunts. “
Well, it was Elisabeth Elliot and the panel was at Caister (EFIC’s summer meeting) on the east coast of England. She was allergic to anything that smelled of emotion and sentimentality. Amen, Elizabeth! Oh, how did I like arguing? With someone with whom I could not be more in tune.
And then there was his severe approach to feminism and his magnificent vision of sexual complementarity. When Wayne Grudem and I analyzed the complementary, articulated, strong, and feminine voices thirty years ago to include them in our book Recover biblical masculinity and femininity, she was at the top of the list. And the list wasn’t long.
Partly because of his voice, that list today would be so long that we wouldn’t know where to stop. I love you for this influence. His chapter in our book is called “The Essence of Femininity: A Personal Perspective. “The title is intentionally (and typically) provocative. She was already looking through the eyes of a prophetess.
“Christian higher education, which trottes cheerfully along the feminist crusade, is willing and willing to address the issue of feminism, but clings to the word femininity. You may find the question insignificant or unworthy of an academic survey. Perhaps the real reason is that its basic premise is feminism, so you can’t handle femininity?(395?96)
He spoke, on the one hand, from the point of view of the “peasants”. In the Stone Age culture where I lived?(395) and, on the other hand, a sophisticated vision of the constitution of the universe:
“What I have to say is not validated because I have a postgraduate degree or a position in the faculty or administration of a higher education institution . . . On the other hand, this is what I see as understanding the universe, harmony and tone This arrangement is a glorious hierarchical order of gradual splendor, beginning with the Trinity descending through seraphim, cherubs, archangels, angels, men and all minor creatures, a powerful universal dance, choreographed for the perfection and achievement of each participant. . (394)
When it comes to masculinity and femininity, we are dealing with the “terrible, living shadows of realities totally out of our control and far beyond our direct knowledge,” as Lewis says. (397)
Is there the true freedom of a Christian woman [and, of course, would the true freedom of the Christian man also say] on the other side of a very small door?Humble obedience? But this door leads to a greatness of life never dreamed of. by the liberators of the world, to a place where God’s gender differentiation is not darkened, but is celebrated, where our inequalities are seen as essential in the image of God, because it is male and feminine, male as male and female, not as two identical and interchangeable halves, which the image manifests?. (399)
Finally, I loved her because she never repaired her teeth, she would always love her if she had a treatment to bring the two front teeth closer together, but she didn’t. Am I concluding with a silly note? You’re judging.
She was captured by Christ, she wasn’t hers. He was supremely dominated, not by an ordinary man, but by the king of the universe. He said to her,
“It is not the ornament of the woman that is exterior, like beaded hair, gold ornaments, clothes; I know, however, the inner man of the heart, united with the incorruptible garment of a still and gentle spirit, which is of great value before God. And you’re not afraid of any disturbance?. (1P 3. 3?4, 6)
Whether it’s the spears of the Ecuadorian jungle or the standards of American glamour, she wouldn’t be intimidated. “Fear nothing that is scary. It was the mark of Sarah’s daughter. And in our culture, one of the scariest things women face. “Isn’t it having the right picture, the right hair, the right clothes?or the right teeth. Elizabeth Elliot was freed from this slavery.
Finally, she wrote
“We are women, and my request is: “Let me be a holy woman, asking nothing more than what God wants to give me, receiving with both hands and with all my heart what it is”(398).
This prayer was answered spectacularly on the morning of June 15. For her, now all the fruits are peaches. I can’t wait to get to her.