Evangelism in the Time of Solomon

One of the most interesting points of study of Old Testament characters like Solomon is to see how Jesus used them to accomplish His holy purposes. We know from the New Testament that evangelism was an important quality of the kingdom of God and we see many examples of many people joining the church through the efforts of the disciples and Apostles. This is evidenced by the many people who came into the church at the time of their first preaching at the time of Pentecost when 3000 people joined the disciples in worshipping Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Acts 2:41,47; 4:4; 6:7; 21:20 this process was repeated all through out Asia and many accepted Jesus. What many do not realize as this was a common occurrence in the Old Testament and certainly was an event in the time of Solomon?

The best, and clearest, example of evangelism was in the story of Esther. When she, and her uncle Mordecai, chose to deal with the injustice of Haman, the thought of death was upper most in their minds. Mordecai felt that God would bring great deliverance and asked Esther, as Queen of Persia, to stand up for the people and beg for mercy from the king. Esther 4:13-14. When Esther did stand up for the people and Jesus granted them mercy and the Bible records that "…many of the people of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them." Esther 8:17. We are not told how many people became Jews but "many" would be a sizeable number equivalent to the NT stories.

Another example of evangelism is what happened in the time of Joseph. Joseph was raised to the position of rulership next to that of Pharaoh. He was an interpreter of the dreams that Jesus has sent to Pharaoh and Pharaoh declared that he was the man would deliver Egypt because God was speaking through Him. After the great deliverance of Egypt feeding the world the people recognized that Joseph had saved their lives. I believe that many of those people became followers of God and that many of the descendents of those people were willing to come out of Egypt when Jesus revealed Himself in the ministry of Moses. Exodus 12:38. Again we are not told how many people were willing to leave Egypt and join themselves to God’s people but it was enough to be recorded.

We have the experience of Rahab in Jericho as a type of these other people in Bible history. Her heart was melted by the story of Israel coming out of Egypt by the mighty hand of Jesus. Joshua 2:1-11. She chose to cast her lot with God’s people and she prayed to have herself, and her family, delivered when God would overthrow Jericho. We again are not told how many but apparently a whole household was saved through her ministry and her acceptance of the covenant promise of the red cord, symbolizing the Passover promises of Messiah. Joshua 2:12-21; 6:22-25 She herself was rewarded by becoming a direct descendent of Jesus. Matthew 1:5; Luke 3:32

Another story of salvation, and evangelism, in the Old Testament is that of Ruth. Ruth chooses to leave Moab and join herself to Naomi and to Israel. She chooses to do this with the most intense oath in Ruth 1:16-18. She in effect chooses the God of Israel and we have established in an earlier chapter that that God was Jesus – the Son of God and who would eventually be the incarnated Son of God. I Corinthians 10:1-9 Ruth also was incorporated into the lineage of Messiah as revealed in Matthew 1:5

In the book of Joshua is another large accession of people in the odd story of the Gibeonites. Joshua 9 In the story this tribe of Hivites (Joshua 9:7) creates a stratagem by which they deceive Joshua and Israel into accepting them into the camp. They became a part of the nation by deception when they could have become a part of the nation by accepting God openly as Rahab had done. None the less, they became a partaker of the covenant protection and God delivered them when the called for help in Joshua 10:1-8

When we get to the time of David we find at least one fabulous story of how 600 families from the Philistine city of Gath joined themselves to David and Israel in II Samuel 17:17-22. These families joined David during the time of war and were willing to live or die as long as they were with David. Since David is a type of Christ they had accepted Jesus by faith as well.

Finally, we come to Solomon. During his time he is blessed by Jesus with great wisdom and discernment and the fame of Solomon was "in all the nations round about." I Kings 4:31. God also says "And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom." I Kings 4:34 It is clear that the Holy Spirit had been granted to Solomon and as long as he obeyed the commandments of God the Holy Spirit could work with him and communicate God’s wisdom through Solomon. As a result of his submission the messages of God were revealed in the wisdom of Solomon and were touched by the messages of God through the great temple of Jesus built by Solomon.

We are not told how many people joined Israel as a result of the glory that Jesus placed on Solomon, but we are told, through one majestic story, about the impact of Solomon’s wisdom on the Queen of Sheba. She came to Solomon with many hard questions, that apparently no one had been able to answer. When she came "Solomon told her all her questions: there was not any thing hid from the king, which he told her not." I Kings 10:3 When she was done the Bible reports "…there was no more spirit in her." I Kings 10:5 Her final testimony was that she was able to bless Jesus because of the wonderful things He had done through Solomon. I Kings 10:9. Solomon, in this context, was a fulfillment of II Corinthians 5:20 he was an ambassador for Jesus. The Queen of Sheba was so favorably impressed that she blessed Solomon with great riches and spices. By faith this writer believes that when she returned home she told of the glories of Jesus and His servant Solomon.

Since we know that God does not change we know that the principles of Evangelism, as given in the New Testament, were also fulfilled in the Old Testament. We have seen a number of examples in which this has indeed happened in the Scriptures. We have seen individuals, families, and tribes accept the glories of God as revealed through His people. We have seen also that when Solomon was surrendered to Jesus that his life was a mighty force for good in the time when he reigned over the people of Israel. It is a sad testimony that Solomon did not maintain his desire for evangelism all through his reign, if he had Jesus would have received an even greater bounty of souls through the witness of their relationship with Jesus. The fact that Solomon strayed away from Jesus is a part of the story yet to be shared. But the principles of evangelism were present during the early reign of Solomon and must always be acknowledged as a part of Solomon’s contribution to Bible history.