Song of Songs 1:7 (ASV) ”“
Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth,
Where thou feedest thy flock,
Where thou makest it to rest at noon:
For why should I be as one that is veiled
Beside the flocks of thy companions?
HUDSON TAYLOR:
We now come to a very sweet evidence of the reality of the heart-union of the bride with her LORD. She is one with the GOOD SHEPHERD: her heart at once goes instinctively forth to the feeding of the flock; but she would tread in the footsteps of Him whom her soul loveth, and would neither labour alone, nor in other companionship than His own.
She will not mistake the society of His servants for that of their MASTER.
JAMIESON-FAUSSET-BROWN BIBLE COMMENTARY:
She feels estranged even among Christ's true servants, answering to "thy companions" (Lu 22:28), so long as she has not Himself present. The opposite spirit to 1Co 3:4.
MY THOUGHTS:
Abraham walked with God Himself.
And to Abraham and his seed, that is Christ, were the promises spoken (Gal. 3:16).
Lot walked with Abraham, God’s true servant, and had no direct personal fellowship with God.
And from Lot came the Moabites and Ammonites (Gen. 19:38).
Song of Songs 1:8 ”“
If thou know not, O thou fairest among women,
Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock,
And feed thy kids beside the shepherds’ tents.
HUDSON TAYLOR:
These are the words of the daughters of Jerusalem, and give a correct reply to her questionings. Let her show her love to her LORD by feeding His sheep, by caring for His lambs (see John 21:15-17), and she need not fear to miss His presence. While sharing with other under-shepherds in caring for His flock she will find the CHIEF SHEPHERD at her side, and enjoy the tokens of His approval. It will be service with JESUS as well as for JESUS.
BARNES’ NOTES ON THE BIBLE:
The chorus, and not the king, are the speakers here. Their meaning seems to be: If thy beloved be indeed a shepherd, then seek him yonder among other shepherds, but if a king, thou wilt find him here in his royal dwelling.
MY THOUGHTS:
When the Lord Jesus commissioned His disciples to "go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you”, He also said, "LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS, EVEN TO THE END OF THE AGE."
ANDREW MURRAY (1828-1917):
For all time the principle is to hold good for all His servants that without the experience of His presence ever abiding with them, their preaching would have no power. The secret of their strength would be the living testimony that Jesus Christ was every moment with them, inspiring and directing and strengthening them. It was this that made them so bold in preaching Him as the Crucified One in the midst of His enemies. They never for a moment regretted His bodily absence; they had Him with them, and in them, in the divine power of the Holy Spirit.
In all the work of the minister and the missionary, everything depends on the consciousness, through a living faith, of the abiding presence of the Lord with His servant, the living experience of the presence of Jesus as an essential element in preaching the Gospel. . If this be clouded, work becomes a human effort, without the freshness and the power of the heavenly life. And nothing can bring back the power and the blessing but a return to the Master's feet, for Him to breathe into the heart, in divine power, His blessed word: " Lo, I am with you always!"
AUTHORITY
In giving the Great Commission, the Lord Jesus first said, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matt. 28:18).
ANDREW MURRAY:
But let us remember that this power is never meant to be experienced as if it were our own. It is only as Jesus Christ as a living Person dwells and works with His divine energy in our own heart and life that there can be power in our preaching as a personal testimony. It was when Christ had said to Paul, "My strength is made perfect in weakness," that he could say, what he had never learned to say before " When I am weak, then am I strong" (2 Cor. 12:9,10).
It is the disciple of Christ who understands aright that all the power has been entrusted to Him, to be received from Him hour by hour, who will feel the need and experience the power of that precious word: "Lo, I am with you always," the Almighty One.
SOME THOUGHTS ON AUTHORITY:
Christ’s authority is to give eternal life.
John 17:1-3 ”“
Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
The authority of under-shepherds is the Chief Shepherd’s authority to give eternal life.
But no under-shepherd has eternal life in himself to give. Eternal life is in Christ (1 John 5:11-12) and only the Holy Spirit can give Christ’s life to men (Rom. 8:11, 2 Cor. 3:6).
What are under-shepherds?
1 Cor. 3:6 ”“
What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.
An under-shepherd is "not the Light, but sent to bear witness of it; not the Sun, but the star that announces the dawn, and wanes in the growing light; not the Bridegroom, but the Bridegroom’s friend; not the Shepherd, but the porter to open the door into the fold (John 3:27-30; John 10:3)” -- quote from F. B. Meyer (1847-1929).
May we all -- lambs and sheep and under-shepherds -- boast only in the Lord (1 Cor. 1:31) and yield to the leading of the Holy Spirit who alone can give us eternal life and righteousness and holiness and peace and joy in our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 3:6; Rom. 8; John 14:16-28, 16:5-14.)
WILLIAM LAW (1686-1761):
Tell me then no more of your new skill in Hebrew words, of
your Paris editions of all the ancient fathers, your complete
collection of the councils, commentators, and church historians. Did Christ mean anything like this, when he said, "I am the way, the truth and the life"? Did the apostle mean anything like this, when he said, "No man can call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Ghost"? Great, good, and divine teachers, you say, were many of the fathers. I say nothing to
it, but that much more great, good, and divine is He, who is always teaching within you, ever standing and knocking at the door of your heart, with the words of eternal life.
You perhaps may ask, why I go on writing books myself, if
there is but one true, and divine teacher? I answer, though there is but one bridegroom, that can furnish the blessing of the marriage feast, yet his servants are sent out to invite the guests. This is the unalterable difference between Christ's teaching, and the teaching of those, who only publish the glad tidings of him. They are not the bridegroom, and therefore have not the bridegroom's voice. They are not
the light, but only sent to bear witness of it. And as the Baptist said, "He must increase, but I must decrease"; so every faithful teacher saith of his doctrine, it must decrease, and end, as soon as it has led to the true teacher.
All that I have written for near thirty years, has been
only to show, that we have no master but Christ, nor can have any living divine knowledge, but from his holy nature born and revealed in us………that dying to self, to be born again of Christ, is the one only possible salvation of the sons of fallen Adam.
