Soul-Winning is Friend-Winning

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In His Parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1-13), the Lord Jesus Christ tells us to make friends for eternity (verse 9). This fact reveals an aspect of soul-winning that I think is often neglected: friend-winning. In other words, when Christians win souls for Christ, they make new friends as a byproduct of winning people to Christ.

Now, how does God define "friend?" In 2 Samuel 19:6, the Holy Spirit records Joab saying to King David that the king, by his actions, loved his "enemies" and hated his "friends." The context of this statement, which is David's sorrow over Absalom's fatal defeat and his ungratefulness to his supporters, makes clear what "friend" means here. Your friend is someone who supports you, in contrast to an enemy, who opposes you.

In Christian friendships, friends are those who encourage you to always repent of your sins and turn to Christ instead. Friends are those who encourage you to always trust in Christ, and Christ alone (that is, to the exclusion of created things, not the Father and the Holy Spirit, who are, co-equally with Christ, the one God of the Bible). Friends are those who support you in your fight against the unbelief and sins in your heart that constantly tempt you to turn away from Christ. Friends are those who support you in advancing the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in this unbelieving and sinful world. Friends are those who help you defend the Gospel against all the assaults of false gods, false religions, false gospels, false christs, etc. Friends are those who help you in your attempts to refute these enemies of Christ, so those enslaved to false gods will become Christ's people to Christ's glory. To sum all this up, friends are those who help you trust, love, and obey the Lord Jesus Christ.