In 1951 Oliphants, W.E. Vine’s publisher, published a tribute to him: W.E. Vine: His Life and Ministry. A chapter in it, contributed by F.F. Bruce, contains a description of the writings of W.E. Vine that is summarized here.
- Study of Words
Vine’s desire to introduce others to the advantages of a competent acquaintance with New Testament Greek led him to write A course of Self-help, which The Expository Times said, “can be unreservedly commended.”Vine’s most significant work was An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words. Bruce enjoyed working on the Dictionary and said that reading it was “a real education. . . . The work is so indispensable a handbook to the study of the New Testament that many of us who have learned to use it regularly wonder how we ever got on without it.” - Study of Scripture
Vine wrote a study of Isaiah: Prophecies, Promises, and Warnings, but his primary contribution was in commentaries of New Testament books. He wrote or contributed to commentaries on the Gospel of John, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, and the three epistles of John. “The most valuable feature of the exposition,” said Bruce, “is the way in which, at the end of each section, its moral and spiritual lessons are summed up and applied in a practical way to the conditions of the people of God.” - Study of Prophecy
Vine collaborated with C.F. Hogg, a missionary to China who returned to England in 1901 in the aftermath of the slaughter of Chinese Christians during the Boxer Rebellion, to write Touching the Coming of the Lord and The Church and the Tribulation. Vine wrote by himself The Roman Empire in Light of Prophecy.Speaking of the books on which Vine and Hogg collaborated, F.F. Bruce said, “These two teachers made an ideal combination. They were basically agreed in their interpretation of the great biblical doctrines, and when Mr. Hogg’s theological penetration and command of felicitous and forceful English were united with Mr. Vine’s special gifts, the result was hard to match, let alone to surpass.” - Study of Missions and the Church
Vine was editor of Echoes of Service magazine as well as helping to lead the organization and corresponding with missionaries. Bruce explains that Vine saw “the proper aim of the preaching of the Gospel . . . to be not only the conversion of men and women, but their incorporation into independent churches, administered by their own elders according to the Scriptural order, responsible not to a mission or home church or central board of control, but to Christ alone. He emphasized, too, that the New Testament has much to say about the methods as well as the aims of missionary work.” One of Vine’s books was The Divine Plan of Missions. - Study of Theology
The Divine Inspiration of the Bible, The Gospel of the Bible, and The Twelve Mysteries of Scripture were among the books that Vine wrote explaining theology.“Mr. Vine shows,” said Bruce, “how great a service can be rendered to the church by well-balanced, all-around scholarship when it is combined with reverent submission to the Word of God and spiritual insight into its meaning. . . . The Scriptures’ chief function is to bear witness of Christ, and the chief end of their study is to increase our inward knowledge of Him, under the illumination of the Spirit of God.“Mr. Vine, in all his study and writing, would not be content with any aim lower than this for himself and his readers alike.”