Jim Elliot - Post-secondary Education

Post-secondary Education

In 1945, Jim Elliotentered Wheaton College, a private Christian college in Illinois. Believing in the value of physical conditioning and discipline, he joined the wrestling team during his first year. The following year, he refused a staff position within the college, that would have given him a free year of tuition but also a significant time commitment and what he considered foolish responsibilities. He was not even fully convinced of the value of his studies, considering subjects like philosophy, politics, and anthropology to be distractions to one attempting to follow God. After a semester of relatively low grades, he wrote to his parents that he was unapologetic, deeming study of the Bible more important.

Elliot's interest in missions solidified during years at Wheaton. He soon followed the pattern of other "faith missions" by not seeking to be sponsored by a denomination. A member of the campus organization Student Foreign Missions Fellowship with his roommate David Howard, Elliot spoke to an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship group on the role of the Holy Spirit in missions. During summer 1947, after his second year of college, he and his friend Ron Harris did missions work in Mexico. He stayed there for six weeks, working with and learning from a local missionary family. At the end of the following year, he attended the International Student Missionary Convention, sponsored by InterVarsity. There he met a missionary to Brazil, and this encounter led him to more firmly believe that his missionary calling was to tribal work in Central America.

At the beginning of Elliot's third year at Wheaton, he decided to pursue a major in Greek, believing that it would both help him in his personal study of the Bible and make it easier to translate the Scriptures into the language of a people group unreached by missionaries. Although he believed that romantic relationships often distracted people from pursuing God's will, Elliot became interested in one of his classmates, Elisabeth Howard. He took advantage of opportunities to get to know her and her family better. They agreed that they were attracted to each other, but not being convinced of God's leading, they did not immediately pursue a relationship.