Passion and Purity is a book dealing with the passionate torments plaguing adults and adolescent children. Elizabeth Elliot wrote it, journaling the mistakes and successes in her relationship with the missionary Jim Elliot. As anyone growing up, she went through periods of heartache and sadness, joy and relief. The book doesn’t elaborate on detailed instructions on how someone can “live a good Christian life,” but it points the readers to the Gospel, stressing the importance of seeking purity.
The book can be divided into three sections. Mrs. Elliot doesn’t specify this division, but it’s apparent when reading the book. It may have been intentional or accidental. Regardless, it’s present.
The first section addresses the natural question: Why strive for purity? While Elizabeth comes back to this question repeatedly in the book, she dedicates the most time in the first five chapters. The question is easily answered at the end of the first chapter, “I am convinced that the human heart longs for constancy. In forfeiting the sanctity of sex by casual, nondiscriminatory ‘making out’ and ‘sleeping around,’ we forfeit something that we cannot well do without. There is dullness, monotony, and sheer boredom in all of life when virginity and purity are no longer protected and prized. By trying to grab fulfillment everywhere, we find it nowhere.”1 She calls on all her readers to have high regard for God’s law in their sexual lives and stresses that Satan uses every means to pull God’s children into sin. She calls it a “battleground” and warns everyone to run from Satan’s embracing arms.
The second section addresses immaterial purity. It’s about trusting God’s will in granting marriage or celibacy, providing a spouse, and doing it on His timeline. Doubts may loom in someone’s mind, but they must remember that God has their best interests at heart. Mrs. Elliot describes this doubt as a distrust for God. God will grant marriage at his discretion, provide appropriate spouses; and do it when it’s most fitting. This fundamental emphasis on trust pervades the second section of the book. At its roots, it comes back to loving God above everything else. Elizabeth said, “I was disturbed to find that I could not think, read, or pray except about Jim Elliot. He loomed in every thought [and] in every line I read in the Bible or anywhere else…Lovesickness may be a trifle compared to other maladies, but one who is sick with love is sick indeed, and the Heavenly Father understands that. He steadily draws us on the pathway to glory, if our deepest heart is set on His kingdom if we are not those of whom Psalm 78:8 describes as a generation with no firm purpose, with hearts not fixed steadfastly on God.”2 Her point is not that human affections are in and of themselves bad, but rather, that Christians should be willing to sacrifice their most prized possession for God. As she points out in the book, God often doesn’t ask for this sacrifice, but it is our Christian duty to be willing. The immaterial purity is about trusting God in everything, just like Abraham when he was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac.
The final section is about material purity or more specifically, physical purity. It’s about abstaining from sexual immorality and fornication. It goes without saying that God’s followers should strive to keep His law, including the sexual laws. Jehovah openly prohibits intercourse outside of marriage. Elizabeth Elliot sympathizes with human desires and says the proper course of action is to avoid tempting situations. The example she uses regards a boy taking his girlfriend out on a date by themselves. In the story, the father refused to allow it, not because he questioned their character, but because putting them in a car alone was a needless temptation. In resemblance with the Bible, Elliot says the best way to avoid sinning is by using foresight to avoid walking into temptations. That is why Jesus said the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”Elizabeth says later in the book that extramarital sex, and even kissing, robs of the glory in marriage. She believes that indulging in marital pleasures before marriage perverts the perfect and pure creation of God. However, this classification goes beyond sex and kissing. It even bleeds into the concept of exclusivity. Marriage is a pure creation of God where two people make an oath to be exclusively reserved for each other. In chapter thirty-five, Elizabeth says, “Unless a man has prepared to ask a woman to be his wife, what right has he to claim her exclusive attention? Unless she has been asked to marry him, why would a sensible woman promise any man her exclusive attention?”3 According to Passion and Purity, material purity encapsulates extramarital sex, kissing, and even “partner” exclusivity.
In conclusion, Elizabeth Elliot’s book Passion and Purity advocates for Christian, biblically-based romances. She calls on everyone to exercise immaterial purity by trusting God and through a willingness to sacrifice everything, and material purity by abstaining from extramarital pleasures.
Asher Sisneros 