Featured Good Books on Evangelism

After wading through a certain book on evangelism on another thread, I thought it good to have a thread on what books we can recommend on the subject.

John R. Rice's most popular book on the subject is The Soul-Winner's Fire. This little book (126 pages) will certainly fire you up. It deals more with attitude and God's power than a specific method of soul-winning. For example, in Ch. 2, "God's Way in Soul-Winning, Dr. Rice urges compassion for souls based on his life's verse, Ps. 126:6--"He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."

The book was first printed in 1941 and is still in print after 75 years should tell you that it is a genuine classic, worthy of being read by anyone interested in personal evangelism. Buy it at: http://www.swordbooks.com/soulwinnersfire.aspx

I received my copy from the author when I was a little boy helping him at his book table, and still treasure it.

 

Here is a quote from the preface of The Soul Winner's Fire to show you the heart of the book and its author: "Three principal thoughts seem especially urgent to me: First, that every Christian ought to win souls; second, that we ought to have a holy passion, a tearful and compelling earnestness, an apostolic fervor of soul in this holy business; and third, that we must have a divine enablement, the power of the Holy Spirit, fire from heaven, to work miracles in the saving of souls" (p. 7).

 

John R. Rice has another work, a book of sermons on soul winning, Great Truths for Soul Winners, published in 1964. Once again, this book does not tout a certain method, but deals with the spiritual side of the task. The book has copious illustrations of those who have been miraculously saved because of God's work through the man of God.

My favorite of these is the story on pp. 93-95 of the young Catholic man who wrote JRR trying to get him into the "true church." JRR wrote back about the nature of salvation, saying one could have that assurance outside of the Catholic Church. The young man went to his priest, then the bishop, then the archbishop asking them about it, but none of them had assurance of salvation. So the young man then went straight to the Lord and got saved!

John R. Rice knew what to write because he had seen God use him mightily to win souls. He gave God all the glory. Soul-winning wasn't a numbers game to him, or a game of spirituality, but the process of seeing God work mightily in the lives of the lost to see them saved.

 

John R. Rice's greatest book on evangelism is The Golden Path to Successful Personal Soul Winning. This book was first published in 1961, and is still in print after 55 years, showing you what a great book it is. See it at: http://www.swordbooks.com/goldenpathtosuccessful.aspx.

As in his other books, JRR does not tout a particular method such as the Roman's Road or using the Law, but deals more with the theology (man's depraved nature, the pneumatology of soul winning, the bibliology of soul winning, etc.), and with the sources of power for a soul winner: compassion, the power of the Gospel, the power of the Word of God, the power of the Gospel itself.

This book has many stories of how various people were saved, and also has stories and quotes from many famed soul winners, many of whom JRR knew or heard personally: Gypsy Smith, L. R. Scarborough, D. L. Moody, Billy Sunday, R. A. Torrey and others.

The book is strictly Scriptural. Every point is based on and proven from Scripture. To give you an idea of how copious the Scripture quotes are, I checked Chapter One, "Soul Winning: Its Meaning and Requirements." This chapter alone quoted or referenced 36 different verses on 15 pages.

I highly recommend this book.

 

Yeah, that was going to be my next review. A ground-breaking and classic work.

 

It would certainly help him.

I've discovered that I left that one at home, so I'll have to get to it sometime next week. In the meantime, everyone have a great Christmas!