Passion and Purity

I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please. SONG OF SOLOMON 2:7

Of all Elisabeth Elliot’s books, the one most often pressed into the hands of young Christians is Passion and Purity, published in 1984. It is part memoir and part counsel. Its subtitle speaks of learning to bring one’s love life under Christ’s control, and it does so by telling the story of her own long, uncertain and restrained courtship with Jim Elliot. For many thousands of young people it has been the first book to take seriously both the strength of their desires and the claim of Christ upon them.

The story she told

She told it frankly. She described meeting Jim at Wheaton, the growing attraction between them, and the years of uncertainty that followed. He was unsure whether God was calling him to remain single, and he would not commit himself to her until he was sure. She, for her part, would not pursue him. They wrote letters, often long ones, across great distances; they saw each other seldom; and for about five years they did not know whether they would ever marry. She drew on her journals and on their correspondence to show what that waiting felt like from the inside — the hope, the frustration, the temptation to take matters into their own hands, and the repeated laying of the whole thing on the altar.

It is important to say that she did not hold up their story as a pattern to be copied exactly. Few couples will wait as long, and few should. What she held up was the principle beneath it: that love, like every other part of life, belongs to God, and is to be placed under His lordship rather than left to rule us.

Love under lordship

The heart of the book is that conviction. Romantic love is a gift of God and one of the strongest forces in human life. It is not to be despised, and she did not despise it; her own love for Jim was intense, and she did not hide it. But precisely because it is so strong, it is dangerous when it is not under Christ’s control. It can become an idol. It can override conscience, judgement and obedience. It can lead people into marriages God never meant, or into intimacies that belong only to marriage.

Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. PSALM 37:4

Her counsel was that the believer should put the whole matter into God’s hands — the attraction, the hope, the person — and leave it there. This is the same movement of acceptance and offering we have already seen, applied to the heart’s strongest desire. The young woman who loves a man is to offer that love to God, as Abraham offered Isaac, not knowing whether it will be given back. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is not. In either case, she believed, the offering is not wasted.

Purity

The second half of the title is purity, and she was unambiguous about it. Sexual intimacy belongs within marriage and nowhere else. She did not apologise for that teaching, and she did not soften it. But she grounded it not in fear or prudishness but in the holiness of God and the goodness of His design. The body is the Lord’s, and to keep it pure is to honour Him with it.

For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour. 1 THESSALONIANS 4:3–4

She also pressed for purity of heart and imagination, not only of conduct. She knew how much of the battle is fought in the mind, and she urged young people to guard what they allowed themselves to dwell on, to avoid situations that made temptation easy, and to keep their emotional commitments within the bounds of what had actually been promised. A heart given away too soon, she believed, can be as damaging as a body given away too soon.

Running through the whole book is the theme of waiting. She believed that God’s timing is part of His will, and that the believer who runs ahead of it, even towards a good thing, is not obeying. Waiting is not wasted time. It is the place where faith is tested and character formed. It teaches patience, it purifies motives, and it throws the heart back onto God as its only sure possession.

The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. LAMENTATIONS 3:25–26

She returned to these themes in Quest for Love, published in 1996, which gathers the stories of other men and women and how they sought, or waited for, or gave up, love in obedience to God. Some of them married; some did not. The point of the book, as of its predecessor, is that the outcome is God’s business, and the obedience is ours.

Weighing it

Passion and Purity has helped a great many people, and its central teaching — that love belongs under the lordship of Christ, and that sexual intimacy belongs within marriage — is plainly scriptural. Three cautions are worth carrying.

The first concerns its particular counsel about men and women. She held that it is the man’s place to take the initiative in a relationship and the woman’s to wait and respond. Many Christians share that view; others, equally faithful, regard it as a matter of custom rather than command, and note that Scripture gives no single pattern for how marriages begin. Readers should weigh it accordingly. The larger question of her teaching on men and women is taken up in chapter eleven.

The second concerns the length of the waiting. Her story is an unusual one, shaped by Jim’s particular uncertainty and by their particular calling. It should not be turned into a rule that long uncertainty is a mark of godliness. Some Christians are rightly sure much sooner.

The third concerns those for whom the waiting does not end in marriage. A book about a courtship that finished at the altar can leave single readers feeling that the story is not for them. She knew this, and her later writing on loneliness and singleness tried to answer it. The promise of Psalm 37 is not that God will give us the person we desire, but that He will give us Himself, and with Himself the desires He has placed in us, fulfilled in His way and in His time.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. MATTHEW 6:33

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Is there a desire for love, marriage or companionship that you have never fully placed under Christ’s lordship? Name it, and offer it to Him today.

2. Read 1 Thessalonians 4:1–8, and ask honestly whether your conduct and your imagination honour God.

3. If you are waiting for something good that has not come, consider what God may be forming in you in the waiting.

4. If you are married, thank God for the way He brought you together, and pray for a young person you know who is waiting.

5. If you are single, read Psalm 16 and give thanks that the Lord is the portion of your inheritance.

A PRAYER

Lord, You made us for love, and You know the strength of the desires You have put in us.

I bring You my heart and my hopes, and I lay them on the altar. Do with them as You will.

Keep me pure in body and in mind. Keep me from running ahead of You, and teach me to wait quietly for Your time.

Whether You give me what I long for or give me Yourself instead, let me find my delight in You, through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.