Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
While my surname is French Canadian, my maternal side is Scotch-Irish and today, March 17, is St. Patrick’s Day.
The tradition of St. Patrick’s Day goes back to the 400s AD when Patrick began evangelizing Ireland after having escaped slavery there. He’s also purported to have driven the snakes off the island, but that bit of folklore likely refers to running off all the pagans he couldn’t convert. I wrote about St. Patrick driving out evil in my article appearing in the Quay County Sun on March 16, 2016. Today’s article is about his slavery.
Born in Britain to Christian parents and named Maewyn Succat, the eventual St. Patrick was an atheist as a youth. At 16, he was kidnapped, taken to Ireland and forced to work as a shepherd. After six years, he escaped and returned to Britain under difficult circumstances, convinced that God had rescued him and delivered him back home.
Then, in a dream, he received his call to return to Ireland as a missionary, which he did after 15 years of preparation in a monastery where his name was changed to Patricius (Acts 16:6-10).
St. Patrick’s life shows both sides of biblical slavery (Romans 6:15-23). As an atheist, Maewyn was a slave to sin and couldn’t please God (John 8:34-35; Hebrews 11:6; Romans 8:5-8). When Maewyn realized how much God cared for him during and after his slavery, he gave himself back into slavery to God, which is what led him into a life of missionary service to his captors in Ireland, following Jesus’ example (John 3:16-17; Matthew 20:20-28).
Have you been a slave to sin and want to gain your freedom to become a slave to God? Jesus’ burden is much lighter than that of sin (Matthew 11:28-30; 1 John 5:1-3).
In the Old Testament, people who indentured themselves as servants to pay debts or meet daily needs could offer themselves into permanent servitude, sometimes even becoming a permanent part of the family if they had come to love their master (Exodus 21:1-6; Genesis 15:2-3; John 14:15-21; 15:14-17).
Becoming free of sin and a servant of God under the New Covenant isn’t painful like ear piercing. Because he cared so much for us, Jesus was pierced for our sins through his death (Isaiah 53:4-6; John 10:11). All that’s needed now to be free of sin and its consequences is to be united with Jesus in his death, burial and resurrection through baptism (Romans 6:1-7; Acts 2:38-39; 1 Corinthians 12:12-13; Romans 8:9-17; Galatians 3:26 to 4:7).
Even Christians can fall back into the trap of slavery to sin, but we cannot have two masters because God won’t allow that (Romans 7:7-25; Matthew 6:24; Revelation 3:14-22). If you already have been baptized to have your sins forgiven but have fallen back into slavery to sin, all you need to do is repent and ask God’s forgiveness (Acts 8:9-24; 1 John 1:5-9). He knows humans are weak in regard to sin and gladly welcomes us back (Luke 15:1-32).
Leonard Lauriault is a member of the Church of Christ in Logan who writes about faith for the Quay County Sun. Contact him at [email protected]