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Question: Soul-Winning in the OT?

Question: 

What does it mean in Proverbs when it talks about winning souls? How were souls won in that day? 
*sent via email 

Geoffrey's Notes:

We use this term soul-winning now to talk about evangelism, and we've borrowed it from Proverbs 11:30:
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and the wise winneth souls.
For example, C.H. Spurgeon has an excellent book called The Soul Winner (free on Kindle), which grabs the title from this Scripture. Though it's a borrowed phrase, it is a good use of it.

In our time, when we say soul-winning, we mean to help someone believe on the Lord Jesus and be saved. They are won or gained for the kingdom or at least for eternity. Those souls, people, are saved.

In the time before the cross, what did this mean? "... the wise winneth souls" or "he that is wise wins souls." Today someone may be won for eternity with full assurance of heaven. But at that time, if you helped someone through the wisdom from above—Solomon's wisdom—they would repent, fear God, and keep His commandments. They would learn to offer up a sacrifice for sins when they failed, and they would be forgiven for their sins by that shed blood. They would consecrate themselves to the Lord at Solomon's temple with a whole burnt offering. The soul would be won when it first catches wisdom's call to fear God. That person would now care about what God says and desires. They would become His people, and He would be their God. A soul in that state has been won for the kingdom.

If this were a regular proverb outside of the bible, we might take it to mean that you influence a soul, winning them to your side. But this wisdom in Proverbs is God's wisdom, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of that wisdom. The goal is for you to be with Him as you were created to be. Once your wise friend helped you and won you over to God, you would repent of your sins and give your life to be part of His people. Your soul would have been won.

In short: 

They were won in a similar way to today, except without full assurance of eternity, which would wait until the Christ was crucified and raised again.




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