Book Review: Becoming Elisabeth Elliot

By Hollie Zimmermann

Becoming Elisabeth Elliot is the authorised biography of Elisabeth Elliot’s early years by New York Timesbest-selling author Ellen Vaughn.  Elliot was a missionary and Wycliffe-trained linguist, who became tragically famous when her husband was speared to death by the Waodani people in Ecuador in January 1956. Four colleagues also lost their lives at the same time and in the same way. This biography focuses on the building blocks of Elisabeth’s early life, demonstrating the everyday trials, temptations and the early love story of her marriage to Jim Elliot which sets the scene for her own later autobiographical work, Through Gates of Splendour.

The Waodani were a hunter-gardener tribe which anthropologists would later identify as one of the most homicidal people groups ever studied. The deaths of the five missionaries was reported in international newspaper headlines.   The public was hungry to hear of the missionaries’ work and through her grief Elisabeth found the strength to continue to share “the reality of Jesus’ love”  through a prolific career as a public speaker and author of over twenty books.

In this biography, Vaughn uses photographs, Elisabeth’s journals, letters to her mother and interviews with personal friends to build a picture of her early life.  The narrative allows us insight into Elisabeth’s time and cultural milieu, which is so different to Australia in 2024.  While the contrasts are notable, the various motifs make this biography a valuable one.  Vaughn helps us to understand how Elisabeth continued on in her faith even when life was hard and painful to “…be obedient to God”, praying “What would you have me do?” and finding the strength to “Do the next thing”.  While her life contained times of immense personal pain, the fruit of her continued obedience and faith bore fruit which was a blessing to tens of thousands of people over the decades of her life. 

If you’ve ever considered what builds the character of someone who wants to do extraordinary things for God, this book gives insight into aspects of character formation.  This work ought to be studied in conjunction with Elisabeth’s autobiography Through Gates of Splendour, the associated movie End of the Spear, and the documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendour.

This biography adds another perspective to a brave, strong, complex character.  It allows us, from our own twenty-first century landscape, to examine a life which in many respects is a counter-cultural example of how to live one’s life. This was a life of personal sacrifice, lack of comfort and the desire to continue to work for the glory of God no matter what the personal cost.  The great benefit of being able to view her life in retrospect is that we can see how Elisabeth persisted in her obedience to God and how this bore fruit.  Elisabeth endured the most painful emotional suffering, and she chose to live faithfully and to use her experience to bring hope, blessing and salvation to many.

Originally published on the AP Website: https://ap.org.au/2024/06/07/book-review-becoming-elisabeth-elliot/