The Soul-Winner

It is Charles Spurgeon's book on what he called "the chief business of the Christian minister" — bringing sinners to Christ. He defines what it is (and is not) to win a soul, sets out the qualifications a soul-winner needs toward God and toward men, describes the kind of preaching most likely to convert, names the obstacles in the way, and presses the work on every believer, not only on ministers.

Spurgeon planned it himself. He meant to give the students of his Pastors' College a short course of lectures on soul-winning and then gather his earlier addresses and sermons on the theme into one volume. He had prepared most of the material for the press before he died in 1892, and the book was published in 1895: six College lectures, four addresses, and five sermons.

The first six chapters are lectures to the young men training for the ministry at the Pastors' College. The four addresses were given to Sunday-school teachers ("How to Raise the Dead"), to open-air preachers ("How to Win Souls for Christ"), and to friends at the Monday evening prayer-meetings at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. The closing chapters are sermons preached to his congregation.

Godward, he names holiness of character, humility, a living faith, earnestness, simplicity of heart and a complete surrender to God. Manward, he looks for knowledge rather than ignorance, evident sincerity, evident earnestness, unselfishness, holiness of character, a seriousness of manner, and a great deal of tenderness.

In "Soul-Winning Explained" he notes that the margin of the Bible gives "He that taketh souls is wise," a word that refers to fishing or bird-catching. Like the fowler with his lures and nets, or the fisherman with his bait, the soul-winner must learn an art — but it is an art, Spurgeon says, "to be learned only by divine teaching."

No. Although it began as lectures to ministerial students, Spurgeon insists that soul-winning "should be the main pursuit of every true believer." The addresses speak to teachers and lay workers, and the sermons on Proverbs 11:30, 1 Corinthians 9:22, Matthew 4:19 and James 5:19–20 urge every Christian, young and old, to seek the conversion of others.