Saturday Book Club

Today, I recommend the book, Through Gates of Spendor by Elisabeth Eliot. It tells the story of the five young men who gave their lives in order to reach the Auca tribe in Ecuador in 1955. Eliott weaves her narrative around the letters and journal entries of the five men. This book has inspired and continues to inspire mission endeavors across the globe, but may have some people wondering, "Wasn't that a waste of five young, intelligent, engergetic lives?" After reading the testimonies of the men and of the wives whom they left behind, you'll know that these men lived and died in service to Christ and for the glory of God. They willingly laid down their lives for their belief and in complete reliance upon God. This book has challenged me, asking, "Do I conduct my life as if 'to live is Christ, and to die is gain?'" (Phil. 1:21) If you have listened to Stephen Curtiss Chapman's song, "There is No Greater Love," one of the Auca tribesman sings at the end of the song in his own language to God. He was one of the Auca who killed the missionaries. Their lives opened the door to these people for the gospel of Christ.

Fast Facts

Number of Pages: 274
ISBN Number: 0842371524
Publisher: Tyndale House
Where to get it: Amazon.com; Discerning Reader
Times I've read it: 1
Other books by Elisabeth Elliot: Passion and Purity; Savage My Kinsmen; Shadow of the Almighty; The Mark of a Man

Quotations from the Book:

"I have one desire now- to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it. Maybe he'll send me to a place where the name of Jesus Christ is unknown. Jim, I'm taking the Lord at his word, and I'm trusting him to prove his word. It's kind of like putting all your eggs in one basket, but we've already put our trust in him for salvation, so why not do it as far as our life is concerned? If there's nothing to this business of eternal life we might as well lose everything in one crack and throw our present life away with our life hereafter. But if there is something to it, then everything else the Lord says must hold true likewise." - Ed McCully


"I would gladly give my life for that tribe (Aucas) if only to see an assembly of those proud, clever, smart people gathering around a table to honor the Son- gladly, gladly, gladly! What more could be given to a life?" - Pete Fleming

"During the last war we were taught to recognize that, in order to obtain our objective, we had to be expendable...This very afternoon thousands of soldiers are known by their serial numbers as men who are expendable...We know there is only one answer to our country's demand for freedom. Yet, when the Lord Jesus asks us to pay the price for world evangelization, we often answer without a word. We cannot go. We say it costs too much.

God himself laid down the law when He built the universe. He knew when He made it what the price was going to be. God didn't hold back His only Son, but gave Him up to pay the price for our failure and sin.

Missionaries constantly face expendability. Jesus said, 'There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my sake and the Gospel's but shall receive an hundred fold now in this time and in the world to come eternal life.'" - Nate Saint

"Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God." - Jim Elliot