The Story of Saint Patrick

When our culture thinks of Saint Patrick’s Day, they often think of shamrocks, wearing green and drinking Irish beer. The holiday has frequently been accompanied by late-night carousing and revelry, at least in years when the entire country isn’t shutdown.  The church often washes their hands of this particular holiday, choosing not to identify with the worldly rituals.  “It’s for the pagans,” I have heard many exclaim.  That statement may be more correct than they realize.

The story of Saint Patrick is not a story the church should shy away from.  Instead, it is one they should embrace.  Deep beneath much of what the day has become is the inspiring mission of Patrick pioneering the gospel among an unreached people group.  In that sense, the day really is for the pagans.

The Story of Saint Patrick

Patrick was born in the late fourth century, sometime around the year 385, in what is now northeast England.  He was born into a Romanized family of Christians, with his father serving as a deacon and his grandfather being a priest.  However, faith was of little importance to Patrick in his youth.

At the age of 16, Patrick was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken back to the island where he served as a slave for six years under a tribal chief.  During these six years of imprisonment, Patrick learned much of the Celtic people, becoming fluent in their language and accustomed to their culture.  It was also during this time that God opened his eyes to the truth of the Gospel he learned in his youth.  When he eventually escaped from slavery in his early twenties, his zeal for God led him to study vocational ministry, where he eventually led a parish in Britain for nearly twenty years.

At the age of 48 – already past a man’s life expectancy in the fifth century – Patrick had a dream which proved to be his own Macedonian call (Acts 16:9). In his dream, an Irish accent begged, “We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.”  Having known the language and the customs from his captivity, and having long questioned how God might use him to reach Irish, he now answered the call to return to the place of his former captivity. Once a slave and now free, Patrick returned to his captors with good news of true freedom.

The term “unreached” has been used to describe a place with no thriving church or gospel movement.  To describe the Irish Celtics as unreached would be an understatement.  Not only was there no gospel movement, but all previous attempts had been halted by the “barbarian” tribes. This caused Patrick to take a different approach.  Instead of attempting to Romanize the people, as previous missionaries had tried, Patrick sought to see the Gospel penetrate to the bottom of Irish culture, producing an indigenous movement.  His aim wasn’t simply to colonize the Irish.  His aim was truly to evangelize them.

One biographer wrote of Patrick: “The fact that Patrick understood the people and their language, their issues, and their ways, serves as the most strategically significant single insight that was to drive the wider expansion of Celtic Christianity, and stands as perhaps our greatest single learning from this movement. There is no shortcut to understanding the people. When you understand the people, you will often know what to say and do, and how. When the people know that the Christians understand them, they infer that maybe the High God understands them too”.

Patrick’s strategy for reaching the Irish Celtics was through church planting.  Traveling with a team of fellow missionaries, the team would minister weeks and months among a particular group, eventually pursuing baptism and the founding of a church. They would leave behind a team member or two to provide leadership for the new church, and they would move to the next tribe, taking a convert or two with them. This was their strategy for helping the church to remain indigenous.

Patrick labored in Ireland for nearly three decades before dying around the year 461. We do not know the exact day, but according to tradition, it was March 17.  The story of Patrick is one reminiscent of Joseph’s – sold into slavery but used to save a nation. Once again, “what man meant for evil, God meant for good” (Gen 50:20).

People are correct when they say that Saint Patrick’s Day is for the pagans, but in an entirely different sense.  Patrick made disciples who made disciples, and those disciples continued planting churches all over Ireland, Scotland and England.  Thomas Cahill wrote a book titled, How the Irish Saved Civilization, in which he noted that it was these churches that helped save classical civilization after the fall of the Roman Empire.  The disciples of Patrick were instrumental in preserving the Bibles that were being destroyed by other barbaric tribes.  In many ways, we can likely credit Patrick for the Bibles we have today.

On this Wednesday, March 17, I want to wish you a happy Saint Patrick’s Day!  May God continue to raise up individuals as bold and courageous as Patrick to continue the task of reaching the nations with the Gospel.