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Elisabeth Elliot

Elisabeth Elliot

Elisabeth Elliot (1926 - 2015)

Was born in Brussels, Belgium to a pair of missionaries, Philip and Katherine Howard. However, Elisabeth’s time abroad didn’t last long; her family moved back to the Philadelphia area when she was five months old because her father had accepted a job as the editor of a small newspaper. As Elisabeth grew up, missionaries were regularly visiting the Howard household, having a profound impact on Elisabeth's choice to attend Wheaton College, in order to study classical Greek so that she could work in the missions field as a Bible translator. It was there that Elisabeth met Jim Elliot, who would become her first husband after the two had served independently as mission workers in Ecuador. Tragically, Jim was brutally murdered by the Aucan Indians—the very tribe Jim was trying to save. Instead of returning to the States, Elisabeth continued to commit her life to Christ and lived with the very tribe that had speared her husband to death.

Elisabeth and her daughter, Valerie, moved back to Massachusetts in 1963. She later married a professor named Addison Leitch, who died of cancer in 1973. In 1974, Elisabeth accepted a position as an Adjunct Professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. She taught off-and-on for a few years, until she took the Writer in Residence at Gordon College. In 1977, she married again. This time to a man by the name of Lars Gren. Elisabeth is the author of nearly twenty books, including Shadow of the Almighty and Passion and Purity, which both tell the story of Jim and Elisabeth’s lives. Elisabeth toured the nation for the majority of her life, telling all that she had learned in her widely experienced life. She also hosted a daily radio show, Gateway to Joy for thirteen years, until 2001. Now, she and her husband, Lars, live in Beverly, Massachusetts.


Elisabeth Elliot is a Christian author and speaker. Her first husband, Jim Elliot, was killed in 1956 while attempting to make missionary contact with the Auca (now known as Huaorani) of eastern Ecuador.

She later spent two years as a missionary to the tribe members who killed her husband. Returning to the United States after many years in South America, she became widely known as the author of over twenty books and as a speaker in constant demand.

Elliot toured the country, sharing her knowledge and experience, well into her seventies.

      Elisabeth Elliot is a Christian author and speaker. Her first husband, Jim Elliot, was killed in 1956 while attempting to make missionary contact with the Auca (now known as Huaorani) of eastern Ecuador. She later spent two years as a missionary to the tribe members who killed her husband. Returning to the United States after many years in South America, she became widely known as the author of over twenty books and as a speaker in constant demand. Elliot toured the country, sharing her knowledge and experience, well into her seventies.

      Elisabeth Elliot is one of the most influential Christian women of our time. For a half century, her best selling books, timeless teachings and courageous faith have influenced believers and seekers of Jesus Christ throughout the world. She uses her experiences as a daughter, wife, mother, widow, and missionary to bring the message of Christ to countless women and men around the world.

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Elisabeth Elliot

A Devious Repentance

Recently I committed a sin of what seemed to me unpardonable thoughtlessness. For days I wanted to kick myself around the block. What is the matter with me? I thought. How could I have acted so? "Fret not thyself because of evildoers" came to mind. In this case the evildoer was myself, and I was fre... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

An Antidote for Pride

The basis of all sin of whatever kind is pride. This was what inspired the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and it is always with us. One very common form it takes is the pride of privilege. When a man is given a special position, he forgets that it was given. He becomes proud, as though "his own arm" ... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

Difficulties are Proof Contexts

Repeatedly I am asked variations of this question: Did the Lord comfort you or were you sometimes lonely or sad? It is not an either-or thing. If I had not been lonely and sad at times, how could I have needed, received, or appreciated comfort? It is the sick who need the physician, the thirsty who ... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

Do You Want an Answer?

This is the question we need to ask ourselves when we are seeking "solutions" to our problems. Often we want only an audience. We want the chance to air grievances, to present our excuses, to make an explanation for our behavior, rather than a cure. More often than not the clearest and most direct a... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

First Be Quiet

Our hectic lives involve many changes, and changes require decisions, and decisions must often be made in the midst of a multitude of confusions. We run here and there asking advice. Often we make decisions without sufficient deliberation because we simply haven't time--or so we tell ourselves. Ther... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

Give Way to Truth

Through a disagreement with my husband Lars yesterday I suddenly recognized an instrument used powerfully by the enemy to drive a wedge between two people who love each other (and there is nothing which fills the enemy with such glee as destroying unity). It is reason. I had good reasons for my argu... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

God's Messengers

How can this person who so annoys or offends me be God's messenger? Is God so unkind as to send that sort across my path? Insofar as his treatment of me requires more kindness than I can find in my own heart, demands love of a quality I do not possess, asks of me patience which only the Spirit of Go... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

Identity

The search for recognition hinders faith. We cannot believe so long as we are concerned with the "image" we present to others. When we think in terms of "roles" for ourselves and others, instead of simply doing the task given us to do, we are thinking as the world thinks, not as God thinks. The thou... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

Love of the World

John tells us in his first letter that anyone who loves the world is a stranger to the Father's love. We are not to set our hearts on the world or anything in it. These words have been interpreted in many strange ways by different varieties of Christians, and I have puzzled much over them. The word ... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

My Own Fault

Someone who is suffering as a result of his own foolishness or failure may read these words. These griefs are hard indeed to bear, for we feel we might easily have avoided them. We have no one to blame but ourselves, and there isn't much consolation there. Sometimes we imagine that we must bear this... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

No Further Than Natural Things

"Well, it's perfectly natural for you to feel that way," I was telling myself when I was upset with the way someone had treated me. "It's a normal reaction." It was a normal reaction for a carnal mind. It was not normal for a spiritual one. The carnal attitude deals with things on one level only--th... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

Shut Up and Know

"Do thou thyself but hold thy tongue for one day, and on the morrow how much clearer are thy purpose and duties," wrote Thomas Carlyle. The psalmist wrote (in Psalm 46) of great cataclysms, noise, war, destruction. What is the man of God supposed to do in the middle of all that? One thing above all ... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

The Fruit of Forgiveness

Every day I am forgiven for many sins of many kinds, and although on the one hand forgiveness seems such an impossible thing (but grace is greater than all my sin), on the other hand I receive it often without wonder and nearly always without offering any "fruit." When the Lord punished Israel, Isai... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

The Hope of Holiness

The "openness" that is often praised among Christians as a sign of true humility may sometimes be an oblique effort to prove that there is no such thing as a saint after all, and that those who believe that it is possible in the twentieth century to live a holy life are only deceiving themselves. Wh... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

The Necessity to Cover

There are things which it is our duty to cover in silence. We are told nowadays that everything ought to be expressed if we are truly "honest" and "open." Proverbs 11:13 says, "He who goes abroad as a talebearer reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing hidden." Jesus someti... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

The Need for Silence

It is always easier to add to the noise of the world than to be silent. Silence is a very precious thing--"There was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour" (Rv 8:1 AV), when the seventh seal was opened in the Book of the Revelation. Thunder and horses and martyrs and earthquakes had prec... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

The Root of Hostility to Others

When personal relationships break down, it is a sure sign that there is some rift in one's relationship with God. The deeper the rift, the broader will be the effect on the human level. Rebellion against our Creator and Redeemer--against the One who designed us and gives us the breath of life and lo... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

Time for God

It is a good and necessary thing to set aside time for God in each day. The busier the day, the more indispensable is this quiet period for prayer, Bible reading, and silent listening. It often happens, however, that I find my mind so full of earthly matters that it seems I have gotten up early in v... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

Watching Quietly, Praying Silently

The man whom Abraham sent to find a wife for his son Isaac had been long in Abraham's service. No doubt he had learned much of trust and obedience through watching his master walk with God. He set out on his mission, confident that God would help him. Beside the Well of Aram of Two Rivers he halted ... Read More
Elisabeth Elliot

What Can I Do For God?

Most of us would like to do something special in life, something to distinguish us. We suppose that we desire it for God's sake, but more likely we are discontent with ordinary life and crave special privileges. When Israel asked if they should offer some spectacular sacrifice--thousands of rams, te... Read More

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