ST. PATRICK

On March 17^th, 465 A.D., St. Patrick died and left a mark on Irish history as well as on Christianity. The day is celebrated by many in different ways and for different reasons. There are parades and festivals and there are those who hoist their favorite brew with songs and poems commemorating Ireland and this great man of God.

Patrick was born about 387 A.D., in Kilpatrick near Dumbarton in  Scotland, the son of a clergyman. When he was about sixteen years old, pirates abducted him to Ireland, enslaving him as a herder of their flocks. During his enslavement, the teachings from his youth of Christ were reawakened. He escaped six years later to France or Britain. It is at this point in his life that he declares that he had a calling in a dream. A man named Victoricius begged him to come to Ireland and help them. He then went to Ireland and spent the rest of his life devoted to the conversion of the Irish peoples.

There are many legends which surround the work of St. Patrick in Ireland. And with all legends there are elements of truth contained. He is said to have driven all the snakes from Ireland by ringing his bell from the top of Croagh Patrick, a 2500 feet tall mountain near Westport. However, there is no evidence of snakes in Ireland prior to the Ice Age which separated the island from the mainland. And yet the truth of the matter may be that the druids who were converted to Christianity used the symbol of a serpent in their cultic worship.

A more believable legend is that St. Patrick used the three-leaf clover (shamrock) to teach the very difficult truth of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as the Triune God. He was apparently very successful for the pagan leaders were converted as well as their subjects, and thousands were baptized into Christianity.

An interesting side note: Philip Schaff in his “History of the Christian Church” Vol. 4, writes that “In his [Patrick] Confession he never mentions Rome or the Pope; he never appeals to tradition, and seems to recognize the Scriptures (including the Apocrypha) as the only authority in matters of faith.”

How many Christians today believe as St. Patrick did, that the Scriptures are the only authority in their lives? This truth comes to us from within the writings of the Apostle Paul who wrote that “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). 400 years after Paul wrote this, St. Patrick took this established doctrine to a land and a people that had enslaved him in his youth and revolutionized their thinking from paganism to a faith in the One true God of the Scriptures.

The profound lesson we learn from St. Patrick is that he believed in the sufficiency of God’s Word to direct his life, to the extent that he became faithful in spreading the Gospel of Christ to a pagan people, convincing them to turn from idols and to serve a living and true God (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Are we challenged today to do likewise? We should be. For we live in a culture that is slowly reverting from its original Christian heritage. The idols may be different from St. Patrick’s time, yet the Gospel message remains the same, that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). It has been given to us who believe to communicate this message to our culture by word and by our manner of living.