“The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise.”
– Proverbs 11:30
Oh, what a phrase. “Whoever captures souls is wise.” Wisdom involves capturing souls. What does that mean? Well, the whole picture here is that the wise man or woman not only experiences blessing in their own lives, but they actually help lead others to life out of the path that ends in death.
When we share the gospel we are helping lead others to a road of eternal life with God. May we point people from death to life.
The same picture is seen in Daniel chapter 12, where we see those who are wise equated with those who turn others to righteousness.
James 5:20 says something similar. “One who brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death.” That’s the picture here of capturing souls, helping others turn from evil to good, helping others turn from wickedness to righteousness, helping others turn from sin to salvation. See this in your life.
Proverbs 11:30 Is an Opportunity to Share the Gospel with Others
Followers of Jesus connected with what Jesus promised us in Acts chapter 1, verse 8 when He said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you so you’ll be my witnesses.” Why do we have God’s spirit in us? So that we might be witnesses to His truth, and as we do this, we will lead people from death to life. When you share the gospel, when I share the gospel, we are leading people from death to life that are on a road that leads to eternal separation from God. We are leading them to a road of eternal life with God. This is awesome, and you and I get to do this today if we will, if we will live wisely today. Wise living today involves capturing souls, involves pointing other people from death to life.
I want to encourage you right now to pray for an opportunity to share the gospel with somebody today and for boldness and for compassion to and humility that just overlooks your fear of being awkward or fear of rejection or fear of anything, fear of man or woman, just fear of anything, that you would trust God. This is wisdom. Foolishness is not capturing souls. Foolishness is not sharing the gospel. That’s a foolish way to live, a selfish way to live, and, yet, we so often … Oh, I include myself in this. We so often live like this, so God help us to be wise today. Help us to use our lives to capture souls we pray.
Proverbs 11:30 Is a Reminder to be Bold When Sharing the Gospel
Today, we pray right now, I pray in my life, and I pray for every single person who’s listening right now, please give us an opportunity today to share the gospel. We pray for that, and we pray for boldness, compassion, humility, confidence in you and your gospel that overcomes fear, love that overcomes fear. Lord, help us to share. Help us to speak.
God, we pray. Would you use one of us? Use me. Use one of us today, many of us today to capture a soul, and feels a little awkward to pray, but it’s what your word is telling us to pray, to lead somebody from death to life. We want to do that. It would be an awesome day to do that today, to see someone go from eternal death to eternal life. Oh, God, please may that be so. When we realize, we put it that way, if that’s what capturing souls means, then make us wise. Make us wise today.
Let’s pray…
Lord, we pray that the fruit of our lives would be a tree of life and that we would be a people who are wise because we capture souls. God, we pray for that here. We pray for that among the Nalu people and Guinea Bissau. Cause people to be captured for you there, just by your grace, by your love, by your mercy, brought from death to life among the Nalu and Guinea Bissau, right around us in our workplace and neighborhoods, cities, and communities here. May it be so, we pray. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
