Missions Resources - Bibliography
Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control
Authors: Elisabeth Elliot
ISBN: 978-0800758189
Publisher: Revell
Number of pages: 192
Type of cover: Soft Cover
Summary:
“Longing for someone to love.”
This line could be found in a number of places—a Hallmark film, a doo-wop chorus, a tabloid headline. Instead it is a journal entry dated February 2, 1947 in the diary of Elisabeth Elliot.
From the well-respected missionary, author and speaker comes Passion & Purity, a book that reveals the vulnerable side of a Christian heroine. Through her own journal entries and letters with Jim, Elisabeth Elliot carries readers through a true love story full of the ups and downs, longing and confusion that many will be able to both identify with and learn from.
The letters and memories retell the five years between Jim’s professed interest and Elliot’s “yes.” Elliot uses these five years as her model and sometimes object lesson for what it means to keep the reigns of purity tight on passion. With missions and the will of God at the forefront of their minds, the couple's relationship sheds light on the tougher questions of romance.
Rather than use her story as her only frame of reference, Elliot balances her writing with numerous samples of others' questions and stories on romantic relationship. The author admits to the variety of situations that make each story unique. Yet she is able to draw each example back to the same godly answers of patience and sacrifice to Christ.
Alongside the beautiful example of her careful relationship with Jim, Elliot offers warnings of what to avoid. In her chapter “What to Do With Loneliness,” Elliot reveals that even within a relationship (especially long-distance, as hers and Jim's was), loneliness makes it “quite possible to waste the present altogether.” In light of this, she expands on practical advice to “Refuse self-pity” and “Do something for someone else.”
Elliot writes from the delicate heart of romance, yet still maintains her forthright tongue. After admitting the truth in some women’s complaints about “playing” men, she adds, “Which is exactly why I beg women to wait. Wait on God. Keep your mouth shut…and to the men I say be careful with us, please.”
While Elliot does help readers to draw clear, biblical walls around the physical relationship, Passion & Purity should not be mistaken for a rulebook on intimacy. Neither should it be passed off as a Christian romance read. Though told from a woman’s point of view, the book is for men too. The book is also intended for a much larger crowd than inquisitive singles and dating couples. Elliot reserves a chapter near the end of her book to address purity boundaries within marriage. Even without this chapter, her pure approach to love is one that every reader would benefit from, whatever the relationship status.
With a rich wisdom that can only come from a life walked with God, Elliot writes to hearts—to strengthen those weakened with longing, and to challenge those resting in an earthly love. Passion & Purity will help God followers surrender yet another part of life to Christ until they can say "perhaps the Lord wants me only for himself."
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