Now that the Christmas rush is over, I feel like I can finally start the vacation part of my Christmas vacation! I'm back into reading A Chance to Die, Elisabeth Elliot's biography of Amy Carmichael. I love how Amy Carmichael refused to dress the gospel up with gimmicks or special presentations—she wanted the gospel to be preached and JUST the gospel!
"Saral [an Indian woman who became Amy's helper] came one day with an idea for drawing the women to hear the Gospel. She would teach them to knit with some pink wool she had been given, 'and they will love me more and like to listen when I talk about Jesus.'
"Amy could not say yes to that. She explained that the Gospel needed no such frills. It is the power of God for salvation. Saral protested that there was nothing in the Bible which bore upon pink wool and knitting needles. Indeed there was—Zechariah 4:6, 'Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.' There was no need for tricks which might open houses—houses were open. No need for methods of helping to humanize and fill bare and empty lives—'these women have a full day's work.' To try to help God with pink fancywork was, she felt, plain unbelief." (pg 126)
Yet Amy also did everything in her power to become completely Indian, insofar as it was not sinful. She studied and learned the language, she wore Indian clothing, and longed to live among the people, rather than removed from them in missionary houses that were overtly English and well-to-do (I'm still in the earlier years of her ministry). I love that Amy made this distinction and how she stuck with it, even when no one else around her carried these same convictions.
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