Patrick was born in 387 A.D. and is believed to have died on March 17th, 493 A.D.
He
was born near Kilpatrick, Scotland and around 16 years old was
kid-napped and enslaved by Irish slavers and taken to Ireland.
His new master instructed him to tend sheep in the valley of the
Braid and on the isolated slopes of Slemish.While so employed, Patrick discovered the fear of the Lord and the solace of prayer: “and His fear increased in me more and more, and the faith grew in me, and the spirit was roused, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers, and in the night nearly the same, so that whilst in the woods and on the mountain, even before the dawn, I was roused to prayer and felt no hurt from it, whether there was snow or ice or rain; nor was there any slothfulness in me, such as I see now, because the Spirit was then fervent within me” (quoted from Patrick’s “Confessio”)
During his captivity, Patrick acquired an extensive knowledge of the Celtic tongue, in which he would one day announce the glad tidings of Salvation; in addition to language he became familiar with the local pagan beliefs through Milchu, his master, whom was a druidical high priest. After 6 years of being a slave, Patrick escaped and fled back to Britain; he attended Martin’s Monastery for many years to learn more of God and His Word; he felt a tremendous burden to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the pagan people of Ireland who’d once enslaved him.
Upon landing on the Emerald Isle, his first act of ministry was to travel to Dalriada, where he had once been a slave; he paid the full price of his ransom to his pagan, former master and bestowed to him the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Thus is the story of Patrick, a man whom had a hunger and thirst for God and His word, which led him back to his painful past of slavery to conquer false gods with the awesome Gospel of Jesus Christ. A classic illustration of an individual whom did not fear man but God, and answered the call to repentance.
There is a myth that says Patrick banished the snakes from Ireland; in reality, the devilish and pagan doctrines that once enslaved the Irish people were silenced by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, brought to Ireland’s shores with boldness, by a man of faith.
- Steven Styles
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