Who Was St. Patrick?

ObjectiveFaith Matters
Written By Edward Wolfe

Today, Monday, March 17, we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Who was this person, when did he live, and why is he remembered?

Most people associate Patrick with Ireland, and rightly so. He lived long ago, during the 5th Century (the 400s), when Ireland, known as Hibernia, was a land of Gaelic-speaking tribes. We would probably refer to it as a pagan, tribal culture. Their religion was polytheistic. The people worshiped nature and believed in animism and sacrificed animals and even, possibly, human beings. The Druids were the intellectual class. Most people in Ireland at this time had never heard of Christianity.

Patrick’s relationship with Ireland did not begin happily. When he was 16, he was kidnapped from his home in Britain by Irish raiders and delivered to slavery for six years. He escaped and made his way back to his family. While there, he heard the voice of the Irish, his former captors, begging him to return to Ireland. Confident in the Lord, he journeyed far and wide among the Irish, baptizing them in the name of Christ. He lived in constant danger of martyrdom. One of the most popular legends about Patrick was his use of the shamrock to illustrate the trinity, three persons in one God.

Today, Patrick is credited with bringing Christ to the ancient Irish. A brave and dedicated missionary, he deserves our attention and recognition today.

For more on Patrick, see this article in Britannica.

Subscribe to receive an email notice when I post a new blog article.

Please leave a comment below if you like.

Edward Wolfe

Edward Wolfe has been a fan of Christian apologetics since his teenage years, when he began seriously to question the truth of the Bible and the reality of Jesus. About twenty years ago, he started noticing that Christian evidences roughly fell into five categories, the five featured on this website.
Although much of his professional life has been in Christian circles (12 years on the faculties of Pacific Christian College, now a part of Hope International University, and Manhattan Christian College and also 12 years at First Christian Church of Tempe), much of his professional life has been in public institutions (4 years at the University of Colorado and 19 years at Tempe Preparatory Academy).
His formal academic preparation has been in the field of music. His bachelor degree was in Church Music with a minor in Bible where he studied with Roger Koerner, Sue Magnusson, Russel Squire, and John Rowe; his master’s was in Choral Conducting where he studied with Howard Swan, Gordon Paine, and Roger Ardrey; and his doctorate was in Piano Performance, Pedagogy, and Literature, where he also studied group dynamics, humanistic psychology, and Gestalt theory with Guy Duckworth.
He and his wife Louise have four grown children and six grandchildren.

https://WolfeMusicEd.com
Previous

5 of 12 Christian Basics: Go
Next

4 of 12 Christian Basics: Reason and Faith