A breath of fresh air. That is the phrase that best describes Elisabeth Elliot's Let Me Be A Woman. Although the book was published in 1976, the book is regaining public popularity as its content is becoming more and more of a rarity in the modern age. After reading this book, you will be looking for more titles by Elisabeth Elliot and praying that God raises up more women like her.
What sort of world might it have been if Eve had refused the serpent's offer and had said to him instead, "Let me not be like God. Let me be what I was made to be - let me be a woman."
I remember when I was a teenager I was very much afraid that because of the shift in American society I would never find a Christian woman to be my wife. There simply weren't any Christian ladies in my immediate surroundings. I went to a Christian camp through Fellowship of Christian Athletes and found that not only were there Christian girls, most of them were beautiful!
What Elisabeth Elliot brings out is that the trend of "escaping" Christian tradition in regards to womanhood is not a progressive movement, but a pollution. This book focuses on the beauty of womanhood as defined by God, and the joy and fulfillment to be found in female life when living in the Will of God.
This book is a series of letters written from Mrs. Elliot to her daughter Valerie as Valerie prepares for marriage. Elisabeth speaks from the perspective of a woman who has been a single missionary, a married missionary, a widowed missionary, and a remarried Christian author. She has lived through every stage of what a Christian woman may go through and she gives her best insights on what difficulties will come, what unspoken rules and tips she appears to wish somebody had told her, and what fallacies the world may try to con her daughter into.
She starts by setting the groundwork that there is such a thing as a woman. In our modern age, this clarification will become increasingly unwelcome. She does not lay her claim that women are different from men strictly at the base of societal norms or pressure from the patriarchy - she claims that women are distinct from men and have a role that is theirs to fulfill because of the one that created them.
To minimize this and follow suit in the modern feminist movement is to sacrifice everything that is feminine. She points out that it is only the women who want to be more like men and have what men have, not the men who desire to be more like women and have what they have. This is the feminist movement - a movement that destroys all that is feminine. Elliot describes this as not a new liberation, but a new bondage.
She goes on to say that the feminists desire to get into the work force and no longer be known as child-bearers and homemakers while in contrast, no man is rushing to be more maternal in nature, or more concerned with the matters of home. Elliot points out that feminists desire to get out of the home and abandon child-raising because those duties have been labelled as unimportant or unfulfilling. However, the worldview that depicts raising children and loving a husband as unimportant or unfulfilling is not the worldview of Christianity - or at the least - not the view depicted in the Bible.
A messy life speaks of a messy - an incoherent - faith.
Addressing the reasons that women must take the positions that are theirs by right and not covet those positions that are men's by right, Elliot speaks of the freedom of submission. In this, she speaks at length of what it is to live in submission to husband, submission to rules, and submission to God. Each of these is vitally important, and they lend to one another. When reading chapter 14 "Freedom through Discipline" one cannot help but think of the latest trend in world intellectualism, Jordan Peterson and his 12 Rules For Life. It seems that the entire logical world knows that there are confines within which not only our universe may operate, but our species may operate. Where those confines find their ends is up for debate, but the modern trend of saying that there are no limitations and no barriers that need not be torn down is a terrible idea.
Elliot makes the case, obviously, from a Christian perspective. Her tying together of the roles within marriage as an illustration of the Trinity is so much deeper than that which I had previously heard from seminary professors that it almost puts them to shame. She states that in the same way that the Son voluntarily submits himself to the just authority of the Father, and from them proceeds the Holy Spirit, so also the wife voluntarily submits herself to the just authority of the husband, and from them proceeds the personality of their marriage.
By submitting to one's husband, a wife can find true fulfillment in accomplishing her God-given role as a wife and mother. Because of the commitment that this requires from both sides, Elliot spends much time addressing how to identify the correct husband. Some of the questions that are used to identify this man seem odd, but Elliot later explains them. For example, "Is he an outdoor man or an indoor man?" I read that and wondered what difference that could really make on choosing a spouse, but she goes on, "Let me assure you, I've known happy couples of which one is an indoor person and the other an outdoor one... but it requires particular grace." Upon reading this, it hit me that it wasn't an issue of a man being an outdoor or indoor man - it was an issue of compatibility.
My primary vocation was marriage.
One of the most astounding things about Elisabeth Elliot is the way in which she describes her devotion to marriage. She had an incredible life, living as a missionary in foreign jungles translating the Bible and other texts into thereunto unwritten languages, and yet, she describes the greatest thing that she ever did with her life as being a wife and mother. With this, it is imperative that we understand that she was not only a wife and mother - but one of the Christian sort. She says that being a woman never made her a different type of Christian, but being a Christian made her a different type of woman.
When speaking of her experience as a woman and wife, she speaks of how that the Bible has regulated every aspect of both. Spending time addressing the ordination of women to ministerial leadership roles and the assumption of leadership in the household by women as well, she concludes "that the commands of Scripture directed to wives - to adapt, submit, subject - lose their meaning... If the word head no longer carries any connotation of authority, and hierarchy has come to mean tyranny, we have been drowned in the flood of liberation ideology."
Just as Elisabeth is tough on ladies to follow the Biblical commands, she is equally hard-nosed towards men for the same reason. She says that weakness on the part of man, a failure to lead and command, is not commendable or pleasant but a curse on his wife and family. She says that it takes a strong will to make decision of love and compassion that do not always please one's self. That is leadership. But she also addresses a common occurrence that I have experienced in my lifetime - the woman who says that a weak man necessitates a strong woman. Elliot responds, "Many men protest that it is not their nature to dominate. Many see their wives as superior to them in intelligence, strength of character, physical endurance, or spiritual perception, and use this as an excuse to let them lead. But the roles are not assigned on the basis of capability. They were determined at the beginning of Creation to be a man's role and a woman's role and again, we are not free to experiment, tamper with, or exchange them." WOW!
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