March 16, 2017 Show with Michael Haykin on “Patrick of Ireland: His Life & Impact”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 16th day of March 2017, the day before St. Patrick's Day.

And I'm delighted to have back on the program one of my favorite guests, Dr. Michael Haken. He is professor of church history and biblical spirituality and director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

And in honor of St. Patrick's Day, we are addressing his book, Patrick of Ireland, His Life and Impact. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. Michael Haken.

It's great to be with you, and especially on this day before St. Patrick's Day. Yes, and I know that you are of Irish descent. I don't know if you were born in Canada or in Ireland, but I know that at least there is some close connection to Ireland.

If you could tell us something about your own ancestry and your own childhood and the religion of your youth until you.

Michael Haykin’s Irish Catholic Background and Conversion to Christ

Came to Christ. Yeah, I was born in England, but my mother was born just outside of Dublin, a seaside resort called Bray. And she came over to England to work in Cadbury's Chocolate Factory in Birmingham, or just outside Birmingham.

Probably the early 1950s, she met my dad there. And my dad is Kurdish, but he embraced my mother's culture. So I was really raised Irish Roman Catholic. So even though I don't have a Catholic Irish father, that was the culture I was raised in, very much so.

So St. Patrick's Day was always a big day. We would get stuff from Ireland. My granny would send us stuff. And so I grew up with all of that kind of the Irish Catholicism, the Latin mass, just to remember that.

And so I feel that I've had a good kind of, I've got a fairly good knowledge of.

Irish Roman Catholicism from within. So what were the providential occurrences that came about in your life that actually led you to the true biblical.

Gospel? Well, coming to Canada, my father accepted a position to teach in southern Ontario at a place called Hamilton, which is about 40 miles west of Toronto, and at a university, McMaster University, which is a Baptist school.

He was a teacher, professor of electrical engineering, and so we emigrated. And in the providence of God, I became pretty disenchanted with Roman Catholicism. I went through a lot of what my generation went through, radical left-wing politics, Eastern spirituality, before meeting the woman who became my wife, but who also was a believer.

And I discovered she went to church, and I had no idea what I was getting into. After, if I could go to church with her, I thought, you know, this is one of the ways I could clean up my life. And God did a lot more than simply clean up a few things, and I was converted there in the spring of 1974.

Stanley Avenue Baptist Church, sent a call to vocational ministry, which was in the.

Providence of God, becoming a church historian. And you spent a great deal of your life living in Canada, and were at one time on the faculty at Toronto Baptist Seminary, correct? Correct, yes. And how long have you been here in the.

States? I've been teaching full-time at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary since 2008. And I taught adjunctly before, but started full-time in January.

2008. Why don't you tell our listeners something about Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, for those of our listeners who are unfamiliar with that school. Well, it's the largest seminary in the world.

We have about 5 ,000 students, baccalaureate and master's level and PhD. It's absolutely a tremendous school. I'm very biased. Dr. Moeller was appointed president at a very young age, in 1993, and revolutionized the school.

When I was going through seminary, I would never have thought of going to Southern. It was a liberal school, in my opinion, but that certainly is nowhere, not the case at all. Dr. Moeller's leadership has been inspirational.

He's turned the school around. It's a playful to the ends of the earth, as well as planting, revitalizing churches here in America. And it's just an amazing privilege to teach there. I still pinch myself that I'm actually on the faculty.

Somebody said to me quite a number of years ago, when I first went there, that the school is like Princeton in the 19th century. And there was a long period of time when Princeton was the place where one could find and receive the finest theological education, and I would argue that that is the case at Southern.

The quality of the men, not academically, but also spiritually. Well, I've had the.

Honor of interviewing your president, Dr. Al Moeller, and a number of the faculty there, and I always look forward to more opportunities to have them back on, and I would love to have Dr. Moeller back on the program, so put a bug in his ear for me, if you will.

Patrick’s Historical Background and the Real Ireland Behind the Legends

And the subject that we are talking about today, unfortunately, when people think of St. Patrick, they immediately think perhaps of drunkenness, and parades, and foolish behavior, or they may think of superstitious things.

They may think about legends they have heard about this figure, and may even view him as a figure from fiction, or from fairy tales. But this was actually a real figure from history, and in fact you include him in the series that Christian Focus Publication has published on the early church fathers.

So tell us something about Patrick, where he was born and raised. I know that the names of nations have changed since those days, and I know that he is not an Irishman, he was not born in what is known as Ardalan today, but if you could tell us something about the land, and the culture, and the religion with which he was surrounded when he was born and raised.

You're.

Right, Patrick was not Irish, and you're also right that for many people Patrick conjures up, you know, green beer, drunkenness, shamrocks, and so on. And one of the challenges with Patrick is that history has been very generous to him.

Of all the medieval saints' days in the medieval church, about 150 to 200, only two are still maintained in the Western world, really. St. Patrick's Day, which is tomorrow, and then St. Valentine's Day.

So in one sense, history has kind of really rewarded him, but in another sense, history has been very unfair to him, because he's been completely forgotten. And the real Patrick has been completely forgotten, almost, in a sea of legends, etc.

Patrick was born probably somewhere between the year 390 and 430. We probably can't be more precise than that. He was born in the Roman province of Britannia, which would have occupied at that time the southern part of Scotland, England, and Wales.

Again, there have been great debates, we didn't get into them here, about exactly where in that portion of the British Isles was he born. But he was a Romano-Brit. He was a raised upper-class. He talked about his father having a villa.

We know from a number of references in his... and then a letter that he wrote to an Irish warlord, that he came from wealth. He had the privilege of education until the age of 16. And he would have been part of that, kind of, that had embraced Roman rule, trained in Latin.

He would later regret that he didn't learn Latin the way that he should have, because his education was... but it's quite a different picture than, you know, the Irish. He's not Irish. He will give his life for the Irish, as it were, but he was.

Not born in Ireland. Now, was he a Druid, or what was he before becoming a.

Christian? No. Druidism had pretty well been wiped out in the Roman province of Britannia. The Romans had never crossed the Irish Sea to what they called Hibernia, which is our Ireland. Why that is so is not easy to explain.

It certainly was within reach. When Britannia was conquered in the 40s AD through the 80s AD, the Roman Empire was still expanding. And it could be the case that energies were placed elsewhere. They were placed in Central Europe.

Romania is taken around the 100s. And so it could be energies being placed elsewhere. But Druidism was part of Ireland. It had been part of the Celtic heritage in Britannia, but the Romans had made a point of destroying Druidic centers, particularly the one that was found on the Isle of Anglesey off the coast of Wales.

And so he would have been raised... he's raised in a Christian home. There are debates about what the Christianity was of his father and his grandfather. There are some who argue it was nominal, but he definitely talked about having heard the gospel, having heard the Scriptures being read and preached, but.

He didn't pay any attention to them. And this was in the 5th century, and he eventually, obviously, was worn down by God, and he eventually was given a heart transplant by our Lord, and he became a believer.

Patrick’s Captivity, Conversion, and Return to Ireland

What were the circumstances when he truly bowed the knee to Christ and cried out for him for mercy and.

Repentance and faith? Well, he needs to be placed then in the latter part of the Roman Empire, when the Roman Empire is in a state of collapse. There were a number of major military defeats that the Roman Empire suffered in the late 4th.

Probably the most iconic being Rome being sacked by the Goths, the Visigoths, in 410. And before that, there had been a major event in which a large number of German barbarians had crossed the Rhine River.

The Rhine River was used by the Romans as a frontier, and what they had never would freeze, and that's why they used it as a frontier. It was a fabulous frontier. In the winter of 406, 407, the Rhine froze, and to such an extent that large numbers, upwards of 200 ,000 German barbarians, Vandals, Burgundians, Alans, Swabians, crossed, and there were three Roman legions in Britain, Britannia, in an effort to repel the invasion.

They never returned, and essentially from 406, 407 onwards, Britannia is exposed, and Irish pirates began to raid the western coast of what we call now England, Wales, and southern Scotland. And in one of those raids, about having been taken captive and being taken to Ireland, and the real story then of Patrick is a lot more, actually a lot more dramatic than the silly legends that grew up in the Middle Ages.

And it was there, having been taken captive, and one can imagine the trauma of a young man in his teens being wrenched out of all that he knew, suddenly now in the hands of barbarian captors, as he would have regarded them, speaking a completely different language, unintelligible to him initially, which is Old Irish.

They wouldn't have been speaking Latin, probably. And it's in that context he tells us in his confession that God brought back to him his own belief, and led him to cry out for salvation, and that's where he says, I was converted of all my heart to the Lord my God.

And it's a tremendous story of how God will use events in this world, difficult, catastrophic even, to bring his people to.

Himself. What kind of details do you know about his life of servitude when he was.

In captivity? Yeah, he's a slave for seven years, he mentions the period of time, he talks about keeping sheep, and most scholars believe that he probably was taken captive somewhere towards northwestern, what is now northwestern Ireland, so the county of Donegal usually comes in for mention.

He definitely talks about being near the Western Sea, which is the Atlantic, and he was a shepherd. He was expected to keep sheep, bring them in, take them out, stay with them. He talks about staying on the mountains through rain and snow.

He doesn't have the Scriptures with him, but God brings to his memory Scripture passages. He talks about meditating on those passages. It's very concrete terms. He would say on one occasion, I prayed up to a hundred prayers a day, and he's talking about a life that is now nurtured by what Paul calls unceasing prayer, and God uses these seven years not only to bring him to faith, but also to nurture a deep trust in God, and so it would have been a very difficult life.

He was a slave, and he escapes, and if he was born around the year 390, his conversion would then come around 406, 407, which is around the same time that the legions left Britannia, and he would have gone back to Britain then around the year 413, 414, and he escapes and goes back to his people, and his expectation, their expectation probably would have been that he would settle back into the routines of life in this Roman province,.

But that was not to be. And he actually had the courage, did he not, to return to the very captors who enslaved him to bring them the.

Gospel. Did he not? Yes. Again, one of the challenges with going through Patrick's confession is trying to determine dates. He really doesn't give us dates concretely. He gives us stretches of time, and it's somewhere probably around the year 430, so as much as 15 years later that he returns to Ireland.

In the meantime, he's had a number of events happen. He talks about a dream where it's almost like Paul's dream where the man of Macedonia comes and said to come over and help them, which he has in Troas in the Book of Acts.

He has something very similar where the Irish come and ask him to come back to Ireland. He also has a deep growing sense by the work of the Holy Spirit in his heart that he should go back to Ireland. They don't know the gospel.

He does now. He's been there. He's learned the Old Irish to some degree, but most importantly, he's learning the scriptures. He now has a copy of the scriptures. In fact, the most striking thing about his confession and his letter to the Irish warlord, writings of Patrick, is the only other book that we know that he read for certain is the Bible.

And he's a contemporary of people like Augustine, but there's no indication he read Augustine, but he read the Bible. And you can't read the scripture without being convicted that God's purposes are not simply for one people group.

And he becomes, he begins to realize that God wants the gospel preached to every nation under heaven to the end of the earth. He has a very simple knowledge of geography, which is this, is that Ireland is the end of the earth.

Yeah. He has no knowledge of anything beyond Ireland. And what's amazing is that he reads scriptures like Matthew 28, 19 and 20, Mark 16, you know, to go and preach the gospel to every creature, etc. etc.

He becomes convinced that God's calling him to go to the very end of the earth, Ireland, and then the Lord will return, because the gospel preached to the end of the earth, and then the Lord will return.

His geography's clearly, his chronology's not right, but his heart is right. Amen. Well, obviously.

Roman Catholics have adopted St. Patrick as their own, and they will even laugh at the notion that he was not Roman Catholic. But isn't it true that in the 5th century, although we could rightly categorize Christendom in that period as Catholic with a small c, a universal Church, there was no really formal, full-blown Roman Catholic Church as we saw later develop in the 16th century at the Council of Trent, leading up to what we have today.

This kind of a church didn't even exist in Patrick's day, did it? No, not really. I mean, the later Roman.

Catholic Church didn't spring out of nowhere, and so obviously there are seed pods or developments that the later Roman Catholicism would, there's been the development of the Hierarchy, which goes back to the 2nd century.

But up until the middle of the 400s, there's really no one who claims superiority over all the other bishops. And that claim does come with Leo the Great in the lifetime of Patrick. Patrick wouldn't have been aware of it.

And again, there's opposition, and it really doesn't take hold until the rise of Islam in the 700s and a number of other historical factors. There's no worship of Mary in the latter Roman period. The mass, as the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the very body and blood of Christ, is not there.

I've sometimes had Roman Catholics say to me, you know, how can I study the Fathers and not be a Catholic? And my response, a bit of a naughty one, is, how can they study the Fathers and remain a Catholic?

Exactly. All of the things that Roman Catholicism loves in the 20th century is not there in the early Church. So yes, so Patrick has been taken over as kind of the patron saint of the Irish Catholics.

In many ways, he's a problem in that regard, because the authentic documents we have don't mention Mary, they don't mention the Pope, they don't mention the mass. The very familiar things that become part of Irish Catholicism are not there.

And that.

Actually leads me to a question from a listener in Slovenia, and I know that there are Baptists who also like to claim Patrick as their own, because of something that our listener in Slovenia is quoting from Patrick here.

Joe in Slovenia says,. Dear Brother Chris, please ask Dr. Hagen to go more in depth along the lines of a quote in Patrick of Ireland, page 17 through 18. Patrick is cited as saying, Go ye, teach meet, is the order of teaching, before baptism.

But it cannot be that the body received the sacrament of baptism before the soul receives the verity of faith. Faith must precede baptism, Patrick taught. What source does this come from? Is the primary source documentation for this strong and reliable?

Thanks so much for helping us recover Patrick for Protestantism. That was Joe in Slovenia. Okay, so the quote there was, what was the quote again, sorry? Well, yeah, it's Patrick is, well that's what he is saying, Patrick is cited as saying, Go ye, teach, meet, is the order of teaching, before baptism.

For it cannot be that the body received the sacrament of baptism before the soul receives the verity of faith. In other words, he was, according to our listener, Patrick was teaching that baptism must follow faith, not come before it as an infant baptism.

Yeah, I mean, there's no indication that Patrick.

Would have been baptizing, I mean, the standard kind of methodology of baptism in the early 4th century, sorry, early 5th century, would still have been believers much later. All of the baptist truths, for example, that we have in Britain uncovered, will all are going there for the immersion of believers.

Yeah, I mean, Patrick would appear to follow that early kind of church model.

That baptism follows faith. Now the listener was also asking if this source is the primary source documentation for this strong and reliable, he's.

Asking. To be honest, and I don't have my book in front of me, but I honestly don't recognize the quote, and I mean, the thought of the quote is fine, and I'm actually trying to find the manuscript that I sent, or I don't have the book in.

Front of me. Well, I actually have the book in front of me. Yeah, take a look at.

Pages 17 to 18, because I don't recall that being there. What I'll do is I'll do.

That during a break, obviously, because we don't want a lot of dead air as I comb through this, but I mean, there is obviously the possibility that our listener was quoting from another book called Patrick of Ireland, but perhaps Joe in Slovenia, if you want to clarify that, we would appreciate that.

You could send in another email with a clarification. But by the way, Joe in Slovenia, you have won a copy of Patrick of Ireland, his life and impact. I don't know if you already have Dr. Hagen's version of that book, or if you have another author's book of the same title, but if you already have this book, you can give it to someone else.

You can give it as a gift to a Roman Catholic friend or someone, and I know that Slovenia is steeped in Roman Catholicism, so perhaps you can share it with someone that you know and love, or someone that you are evangelizing.

Thank you very much for the question. We have a number of other listeners who have already written in with questions of their own, so if you'd like to join them on the air with a question of your own, you can email us at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA. Don't go away, we will be right back with Dr. Michael Hagen and more of our discussion of Patrick of Ireland, his life and impact, right after these messages.

One sure way all Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners can help keep my show on the air is to support my advertisers. I know you all use batteries every day, so I'm urging you all from now on to exclusively use Battery Depot dot com for all your battery needs.

At Battery Depot dot com, they're changing the status quo. They're flipping the script. They're sticking it to the man. In other words, they'd like to change the battery industry for good by providing an extensive inventory of top-of-the-line batteries that are uniformly new, dependable and affordable.

Ordering from Battery Depot dot com ensures you'll always get fresh out-of-the-box batteries you can count on to work properly at competitive prices. Whether you need batteries for cordless phones, cell phones, radios, PCs, laptops, tablets, baby monitors, hearing aids, smoke detectors, credit card readers, digital cameras, electronic cigarettes, GPS's, mp3 players, watches or nearly anything else you own that needs batteries, go to Battery Depot dot com.

Next day shipping available. All products protected by 30-day guarantees and six-month warranties. Call 866 -403 -3768. That's 866 -403 -3768. Or go to Battery Depot dot com. That's Battery Depot dot com.

Charles Hedenspurgeon once said, give yourself.

Unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted. He will not use the thoughts of other men's brains, proves he has no brains of his own. You need to read.

Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the Prince of Preachers to heart. The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.

Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God-centered, Christ-exalting books for all ages. We invite you to go treasure hunting at Solid-Ground-Books .com. That's Solid-Ground-Books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past to present you can unearth from Solid Ground.

Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I believe you'll also find World to be an invaluable resource to better understand critical topics with a depth that's simply not found in other media outlets. Armed with this coverage, World can help you to be a voice of wisdom in your family and your community.

This trial includes bi-weekly issues of World Magazine, on-scene reporting from World Radio, and the fully shareable content of World Digital. Simply visit WNG .org forward slash Iron Sharpens to get your World Trial and Dr. Sproul's book all free.

No obligation with no credit card required. Visit World News Group at WNG .org forward slash Iron Sharpens today.

Every day at thousands of community centers, high schools, middle schools, juvenile institutions, coffee shops, and local hangouts, Long Island Youth for Christ staff and volunteers meet with young people who need Jesus.

We are rural and urban and we are always about the message of Jesus. Our mission is to have a noticeable spiritual impact on Long Island, New York by engaging young people in the lifelong journey of following Christ.

Long Island Youth for Christ has been a stalwart bedrock ministry since 1959. We have a world-class staff and a proven track record of bringing consistent love and encouragement to youths in need all over the country and around the world.

Help honor our history by becoming a part of our future. Volunteer, donate, pray, or all of the above. For details call Long Island Youth for Christ at 631 -385 -8333. That's 631 -385 -8333. Or visit liyfc .org.

That's liyfc .org.

Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am .com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the Pastor's Study by calling in with your questions.

Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time for a visit to the Pastor's Study because.

Everyone needs a pastor. One sure way all Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners can help keep my show on the air is to support my advertisers. I know you all use batteries every day, so I'm urging you all from now on to exclusively use BatteryDepot .com for all your battery needs.

At BatteryDepot .com, they're changing the status quo. They're flipping the script. They're sticking it to the man. In other words, they'd like to change the battery industry for good by providing an extensive inventory of top-of-the-line batteries that are uniformly new, dependable, and affordable.

Ordering from BatteryDepot .com ensures you'll always get fresh out-of-the-box batteries you can count on to work properly at competitive prices. Whether you need batteries for cordless phones, cell phones, radios, PCs, laptops, tablets, baby monitors, hearing aids, smoke detectors, credit card readers, digital cameras, electronic cigarettes, GPSs, MP3 players, watches, or nearly anything else you own that needs batteries, go to BatteryDepot .com.

Next day shipping available. All products protected by 30-day guarantees and 6-month warranties. Call 866 -403 -3768. That's 866 -403 -3768. Or go to BatteryDepot .com. That's BatteryDepot .com. Welcome back.

This is Chris Orns, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with about 90 minutes to go is Dr. Michael Haken, professor of church history and biblical spirituality and director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

We are discussing his book, Patrick of Ireland, his life and impact, and I urge everyone, since tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, to make use of the recording on the Iron Sharpens Iron website of this broadcast that should be on the archive by tomorrow morning, and you can send, you know, you can copy and paste that URL into emails you send around to your family, friends, and loved ones.

In fact, if you want to email me and request an mp3 of today's interview before tomorrow, I can send you out an email with this mp3 of today's interview so you can start spreading it immediately to all you know and love so that they can learn about the true Patrick of history, the true Patrick of Ireland, his life and impact.

Our email address, if you'd like to join us on the air, is ChrisArnson at gmail .com. ChrisArnson at gmail .com. And by the way, I did look at page 17 and 18 and that quote is nowhere to be found in your book, so Joe in Slovenia, I'm not sure which Patrick of Ireland you were reading, but if you could let us know where you found that quote that would be helpful.

And thanks again, by the way, Joe in Slovenia, for providing an American address where we can send this free book to you where your daughter lives in Georgia, and we will make sure that she gets it, God willing, within the next week or so.

Compliments of Christian focused publications, and it will be shipped to her by our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for Bible Book Service dot com, CV BBS dot com.

We have a listener in Hilltop Lakes, Texas, Linda, who says, I've heard that St. Patrick performed many miracles. Would your guest, Dr. Haken, give any insight to your listeners about some of the.

Miracles? That really is probably Roman Catholic legend. In the confession that Patrick talks about about his life, he doesn't talk about miracles at all. For sure if he had performed some or God had enabled him to do some, I'm pretty certain he would have mentioned them.

He does talk about suffering for the gospel, he talks about being imprisoned. There are three or four dreams that he has, one of which precedes his escape, one of which is instrumental in his going back to Ireland.

But no miracles as we would describe them. He talks about, as I said, in being in danger of death a dozen times. He talks about being imprisoned a number of times. And this would be because in Ireland, as he, when he went to Ireland, the whole social situation was being completely different from Britannia.

Britannia was ruled by the Romans. There was a Roman governor in Britannia. When he goes to Ireland, there's about a hundred and fifty warlords who would control usually a small portion of land, having built a fort on a hill.

And when Patrick would go through their lands to preach or have it across their lands, he'd have to arrange a safe passage, and sometimes he ended up being imprisoned by these warlords. But we know of no miracles from the confession.

Notice in the book, what I'm doing in the book is, and this is my whole approach to Patrick, I'm using the primary source documents that we know are genuine. Any of the talk about miracles, for instance, he's supposed to have kicked all the snakes out of Ireland, that's why there's no snakes, native snakes to Ireland.

I mean, all those things are like three, four, five, six, seven hundred years later, and they're all part of the world that develops with the collapse of the Roman Empire and the growth of biblical literacy.

And into that world there moves a spirit, a deep spirit of superstition. And I'm not saying obviously that miracles can't happen, I believe they can because of the scriptures, but we don't need to manufacture them when they're not there.

And I think if Patrick had been involved in the miraculous, as the question is being asked, I think he would have told us. He tells us nothing. Yeah, I would.

Think that he would have told us, too. By the way, thank you very much Linda in Hilltop Lake, Texas, and you have also won a free copy of Patrick of Ireland, his life and impact, compliments of Christian focus publications, and compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who will be shipping it out to you.

And keep your eye open in the mail for a package from CVBBS .com, and that stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. We have Ronald in eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who asks, when you mention Patrick and dreams, that may give way for charismatics to adopt Patrick as their own.

How do you, as a Baptist who are typically cessationists, view these dreams of Patrick? Well, I think one.

Has to obviously be careful with these sorts of things, but actually, if you know, if you don't mind me moving, say, from Patrick to another sphere of church history. Sure. In the history of Baptist life, beginning in the 16th and 17th century, running through to, say, the 18th and 19th centuries, there are sometimes a number of extraordinary things that take place.

For example, in around the 1670s in England, when Baptists were being heavily persecuted by the State Church of Anglicanism, along with Presbyterians and Congregationalists who were being imprisoned, a Baptist preacher, a very well-known Baptist preacher named Andrew Gifford, Sr., in Bristol, had a dream one Saturday night, and he was supposed to preach the following day, and as he was sleeping, he dreamt, I mean, when he woke up on the following day, which was a Sunday, the Lord's Day, as he went to the door, he found that there had been a heavy snowfall, this is very rare in this part of England, up to his knees.

He went out, went to the place appointed to preach, which was an upstairs room above an inn, and no sooner had he begun to preach than the door was kicked in, and two constables, whom he recognized as constables from Bristol, came in to arrest him.

He woke, told his wife the dream, she cautioned him, maybe he shouldn't go, maybe it was a warning from God, he goes to the door, and lo and behold, there was, she's now more adamant that this was clearly a warning, he nonetheless insists, goes to the beating house, and as he had dreamt, so it turned out, he was no sooner started to preach than the door was kicked in, two constables, the very men he saw in the dream, came in and he was arrested.

What he took from that was that God is sovereign, in one sense, all this was foreseen, that's a better word, and my point there was, Gifford, we know of no other dreams that Gifford had like that, these are not the food of the Christian life, but these things I think do happen, and I don't think they fall within the orbit of those extraordinary miraculous gifts that were given to the Apostles in those early days.

So I don't think that this is warrant for Charismatics to say, well, Patrick's ours, I think it does indicate that down through the history of the Church, sometimes God has done, he's not prevented from doing.

Extraordinary things. Well guess what, Ronald, in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, you have also won a free copy of Patrick of Ireland, His Life and Impact by Dr. Michael A .G. Haykin, and please give us your full mailing address so we can have that shipped out to you by Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

And we have, let's see, we have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who says, I have heard that one of the proofs that Patrick was not a Roman Catholic was that centuries later, Rome had to send an army to Ireland to compel the bishops of Ireland to convert to Rome, indicating that they were of a different branch of Christendom.