Mine Own Vineyard

They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept. SONG OF SOLOMON 1:6

It may seem strange that the founder of a great mission should write so insistently about the danger of too much activity. But Hudson Taylor knew it from the inside. He had worked himself into collapse in Ningbo, and in 1869 he had come close to giving up the mission field because his work had outrun his walk with God. So when he came, in Union and Communion, to the bride’s confession that she had kept other people’s vineyards and neglected her own, he stopped and spoke to his own generation.

A danger of this day

Our attention, he says, is drawn here to a danger “pre-eminently one of this day”: that intense activity may lead to zeal in service at the expense of personal communion with Christ. Such neglect does not only lessen the value of the service. It tends to unfit us for the highest service altogether. If we watch over others’ souls and neglect our own, we shall be disappointed with our powerlessness to help, and our Master will be disappointed in us.

Then he writes the sentence that could stand as a summary of his whole inner teaching: “Let us never forget that what we are is more important than what we do; and that all fruit borne when not abiding in Christ must be fruit of the flesh, and not of the Spirit.”

Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee. 1 TIMOTHY 4:16

Taylor adds a harder word. The sin of neglected communion may be forgiven, he says, and yet its effect remain, as a healed wound often leaves a scar.

Service with Jesus

None of this made Taylor suspicious of service. The very next verses of the Song show the bride’s heart going out instinctively to the feeding of the flock. She asks the Shepherd where He feeds His sheep, because she does not want to labour alone, or in any company but His. Taylor loves this. Let her show her love, he says, by feeding His sheep and caring for His lambs, and she need not fear to miss His presence. It will be, in his phrase, “service with Jesus as well as for Jesus.”

Feed my lambs. JOHN 21:15

The distinction matters. Much Christian service is done for Christ in His absence, as it were: we work for Him, report to Him, and hope He is pleased. Taylor wanted service done in His company. The Shepherd is out on the hills already; the bride simply goes where He is.

Come with me

In the third section of the Song, the section of unbroken communion, the Bridegroom calls the bride to service in words Taylor found deeply significant: Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse. It is always so, he says. When the Saviour sends His people to disciple the nations, He first says, All power is given unto me, and then promises, Lo, I am with you alway. It is never go without Me; it is always come with Me.

Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions’ dens, from the mountains of the leopards. SONG OF SOLOMON 4:8

What are lions’ dens, Taylor asks, when the Lion of the tribe of Judah is with us? He wrote it after decades of work in places where missionaries were robbed, threatened and sometimes killed.

He also noticed that in the same passage the Bridegroom says, Thou hast ravished my heart, and that the margin of the Revised Version gives an alternative: Thou hast given me courage. If the Lord Himself may be heartened by the faithful company of His bride, Taylor says, it is no wonder that we can encourage one another in our shared service.

A garden for Him

The bride, in the same section, is described as a garden enclosed, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Yet she is also a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters. Taylor sees no contradiction. She carries refreshment wherever she goes, and yet her garden is for Him alone. The fruit she bears may bless many; the garden is kept for the Master.

Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits. SONG OF SOLOMON 4:16

He finds in her prayer a readiness for any experience. Let the north wind blow, and the south, cold and heat alike, if only the fragrance may flow out for Him. Consecration, he adds, far from lessening our power to give to others, increases both the power and the joy, as the five loaves given to Christ fed a multitude.

What she was, not what she did

The last section of the Song brings Taylor back to his theme. The bride tends her vineyard and says the Lord shall have the thousand pieces of silver from it. Taylor draws from the order of these verses a conviction he held all his life: that “what she was (by grace) was more important than what she did; and that she did not work in order to earn favour, but being assured of favour, gave her love free scope to show itself in service.”

We love him, because he first loved us. 1 JOHN 4:19

This is the right order, and it is the key to the whole chapter. We do not keep our own vineyard in order to earn His love; we keep it because we are loved, and because fruitfulness for others grows only from a life that is first His. Communion comes before service, not instead of it, and service flows out of communion rather than replacing it.

A modern reader may find some of Taylor’s interpretations in these sections fanciful, and they are not always secure. But the lesson he draws is plain New Testament teaching. Martha served, and was rebuked not for serving but for being distracted and troubled; Mary sat at His feet, and had chosen the good part (Luke 10:38–42). Taylor was a Martha by temperament and a Mary by conviction, and he spent his life trying to be both in the right order.

Abide in me, and I in you. JOHN 15:4

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask yourself honestly which you have been tending more carefully in recent months: other people’s vineyards or your own.

2. Look at your diary for the coming week. Where is the time for communion with Christ? Put it in before anything else.

3. Before your next piece of Christian service, pray that it may be service with Jesus and not only for Him.

4. Encourage one fellow-worker this week, remembering that even the Lord is said to be heartened by faithful company.

5. If you are working in order to feel loved by God, stop and receive His love first. Then go back to work.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, I have kept other people’s vineyards and neglected my own. I have been busy for You and far from You.

Forgive me, and heal the wounds of neglected communion, even if they leave a scar.

Let what I am in You matter more to me than what I do for You. Call me to come with You, and let me never go without You.

Make my life a garden kept for You, from which others may be refreshed, and let all my service flow from Your love for me. Amen.